That guy's a Maniac...

We love video game music here at TGAM and although there's been a rise in acceptance that listening to video game soundtracks or going to see concerts of the greatest hits isn't a weird thing to do, it's still an under appreciated part of video games. Nintendo have been knocking it out of the park recently with their sountracks, especially on collaborative projects. Pokken Tournament had a soundtrack far too good for it ( Haunted House ,  Neos City  and the phenomenal Magikarp Festival are favourites). Kirby games just keep remixing and reworking the seriously strong themes, Kirby's Epic Yarn 's Lava Landing is a particular highlight of recent titles. Fire Emblem's game is strong with the J-Pop earworms from Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE  through to Fire Emblem Warriors  ( This Precious World  stands out in particular blending Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem  Fates ' themes). The Splatoon series is deserving of a thesis or two on the storytelling thr

It takes a rare kind of game to awaken us from near permanent retirement from TGAM blogging but Nintendo's new Masterpiece, Miitopia is such a game. Love 'em or hate 'em Miis have been around for eleven years now and they've certainly outlasted the Xbox avatars (have they? I've not checked. Which Xbox are we on now) and whatever those fugly things were on PlayStation. We made a semi-topical picture joke which no one will get in 3, 2, 1.Old now.   We've had plenty of good times with Miis over the years, racing karts, fishing fish, golfing golfs as well as giving Nintendo personal information about preferences through Miitomo (is this still a thing?). Team TGAM loved Tomodachi Life  even though there wasn't that much to do in it, we still spent a combined 298 hours and 28 minutes doing it. Miitopia is what Tomodachi Life should have been and frankly, should have been released in 2007 but it's here now. The premise is simple, take the fairly st

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES! Cunzy1 1 FINALLY joins the eighth generation of video game consoles! I'd been waiting for the XbOne, PS4 and Wii U to finally build up enough of a 'must-have' list of software to finally make the frankly-still-ridiculous cost of a new console worth it whilst working through the huge backlog of great older generation video games LEGO & Pokémon games. With the release of Pokkén Tournament , the time was right to finally pick up a Wii U and I've spent the variably weathered Easter in a darkened room catching up with three and a bit years of software. Initial impressions? Much like the Wii, interesting uses of the ''''whacky''' tech seems to have gone out of the window after earlier experiments like Nintendo Land and ZombiU . For example, Super Smash Brothers use of the second screen is virtually non existent and  Pokkén Tournament doesn't use it at all apart from in the borked couch-vs mode. At the o

Hey sports fans. Long time no see. The reason why I've been absent from these pages leaving Richie to hold the fort since January is because I got burnt out by video games. This probably happens to most gamers every now and then but since January this year, I've just become so frustrated with games and the games industry I pretty much cut them out of my life for a while.  I haven't stopped playing them. At the moment the magical trilogy of Resident Evil Revelations, Pokemon Y and Fire Emblem: Awakening in my 3DS keep me ticking along but my perception of what the video game journalists and industry would consider, I'm not really playing games. Those games are old. Nobody is talking about them still. Why play those? Why not shell out a still-ridiculous amount of money for a new console that it appears nobody wants and nobody seems to know what to with.  I get a bit obsessive about things and most frequently, video games is one of those things I obsess about. I&

We are constantly getting asked for fashion advice here at TGAM. To save us from constantly handing out geek fashion tips on a person by person basis like a budget Gok Wan we've decided to give you a run down of the hottest threads right here on the blog. Generous to a fault. Of course, aside from those whacky cosplayers, your standard geekware is T-shirt and jeans. Badges (that's pins to our Yankee cousins) are sometimes acceptable too. Here's our 2014 collection for your eyes only.  Fossil Warhol.  A montage of the original 9 evolved fossil Pokemon. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot that these are the shiny forms. Of course Nintendo have now made this print vintage by adding two new fossil Pokemon in X and Y so expect the price of these to sky rocket. This one's a Richie original design. You can buy it on REDBUBBLE right here .  Understated, simple, toxic. Get it here .  Another Richie original. Of course, if your handle isn't Cunzy1 1 and you

We recently picked up Sin & Punishment Successor to the Stars, Star Rod Sky Pirates Knights. Surprisingly, despite 3 years of rave reviews and fond reflections by everyone who ever played it, it is rather good. When we get a new game, we have a ritual. We pour over the instruction book first, reading the "plot" bit (which is still the place where most games actually describe the context of the world you're about to visit). Weirdly, the above image is in the instruction booklet illustrating the biography of Kachi one of the two playable characters. It appears she's hurriedly getting dressed, bra is out, one boot on. Fine. Maybe she's a ditsy character and her thing is always being late or something? We've not yet played through the whole game yet but this doesn't seem to be her deal.   It's just a weird image to use isn't it? I mean yes, please let us perve over the female characters at our own leisure just don't start the misogyny

In a moment of not being particularly inspired at the book shop I ended up buying Dead Space Martyr, knowing nothing about it other than it is set in the Dead Space Universe. We really liked Dead Space, something set it apart from the overflowing bundle of sci-fi future space shooters. It stuck with us in a way that other games in the same pool haven't. See, we've played Halo and Gears of War. Worse even we've read every single Halo novel and watched the anime compilation Halo: Legends. Yet if you were to ask us what happens in Halo. It's a total blank. The whole SPARTAN programme we remember and then there was a Halo? And some Zombies? And the Pillar of Autumn. That was all Halo, Halo 2? No idea. You could duel wield. Halo 3? The theatre mode was amazing. Oddly we remember more about Halo:Reach even though it's probably the worst of the bunch. Gears? Well there was emergence day and then a giant worm. When Epic ran their poll to determine whether or not the thi

We've only been playing Xenoblade Chronicles pretty much exclusively recently. Life gets in the way and the game that is perhaps best served in a long glass and supped over the course of a long evening is instead consumed like downing a can of red bull on the tube in the morning whilst tyring to read a newspaper with some sweaty office twat with his elbow in your balls. We also happen to be completionists so instead of skipping most of the optional quests that realistically wouldn't impact our game bar the loss of some EXP and the odd bit off gear, we literally can't skip a single one. WE PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS GAME WE'LL EXPERIENCE ALL OF IT. So with this background to consumption, we're finding playing Xenoblade Chronicles slipping from a fun game to a bit of a grind. Desperate to progress the story we keep spotting new NPC quests. You see the game has a day night cycle and the NPCs don't stand around like WoW pricks just giving you out quests. This

Quite! Screenie from the excellent Syberia.

Oh gosh... I dunno if it counts as an addition to out sister blog: Dinosaurs in Games GRIMLOCK!!! Love and inappropriate indie music, Richie X

Trailer for Goldeneye Wii or whatever it's being called: What is interesting is that it uses quotes from actual gaming websites rather than quotes from News of The World (Fallout New Vegas "All bets are off"). Or nuts magazine. For example. Trying to bring some 'hardcore credibility' to the marketing of a Wii game or just good practice finally aligning marketing with gamers who might buy games rather than the everyman who actually sees the News of the World as some sort of trustworthy advocate for things....?

Report just in from our very occassional reporter on the Street. Chuff_72. I swear this just happened, no exaggeration. In Game, Central London: C72 - Hi, I'm looking for a copy of Monster Hunter Tri? Man1 - *Blank look" C72 - It's on the Wii. Man1 - The Wii? C - Yeah M1 - Have you looked in the Wii section? C- Yeah, couldn't see it M1 - Sorry what was it called C - Monster Hunter Tri M1 - Monster Hunter Trial? C - Tri, T, R, I M1 - Right, I'll have a look C - *Waits for a few minutes* M1 - Sorry can't find it… What was it called again? C - Monster Hunter Tri? M1 - *To Man2* Ever heard of The Monster Trial? M2 - Monster Hunter? M1 - Trial M2 - No. Have you have a word with Steve? M1 - *Bearing in mind they are standing next to me!* No. Turns to me, yeah we can't find it. Holy. Sh*t. I know we have this all the time but come on dude! At least get the f*cking name right and don't then ask a guy about it in front of me and essentially lie about whether you

Nintendo are pushing DQIX so hard and via the various channels that we consume all things video games we run the risk of getting Dragon Quest indigestion. Both EDGE magazine and ONM have run DQ retrospectives and articles in addition to those horrid PROMOTIONAL FEATURES that look like NON-PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVE FEATURES. There have also been a couple of DQIX videos on the Nintendo Channel and a number of prime-time TV spots. Even the bloody real-life newspapers were carrying reviews and previews on Sunday. There was no escaping it. And yes, we know how they all go. "DQ sold a bagillion copies in Japan". "Nobody is interested here". Except for the PS2 version. That was quite good. Yet, for all this rhetoric and the unanimous glowing reviews we aren't even going to bother buying it, here's why. Firstly, and least importantly, there just isn't the culture of ad-hoc multiplayer play here that there is in Japan. I lose count of the games that have these 'n

In case you missed the TV-adverts, radio spots, advertorials, news features, interviews with Will Wright, selling out sponsorship on every gaming blog, magazine adverts and zeitgeist "Sporn" articles then you read it here first, Spore is out. We have had an exclusive hands off playthrough with both the DS version and the lesser known PC version. You won't find another hands off exclusive like this anywhere else! Spore Creatures for Nintendo DS. Many companies release fully fledged games for the proper consoles then release some half-arsed watered down version on the DS. All the publicity and the marketing for the proper versions means that many people buy the DS version on good faith only to find that it is a steaming pile of GBA shite. Spore Creatures for the DS is one of these games. Imagine, if you will, a watered down version of pokemon put through the Fossil League Dinosaur Tournament Championship filter and then whisked together lightly for twenty minutes wit

Watch the below trailer and join me in disgust! Yes readers, Lara Croft, shooting tigers in the face! Right in the face. We here at TGAM would like to call for an official ban of this game in all territories and furthermore this is call to arms to all the bloggers who usually complain about games being racist and sizeist and all that shit that doesn't really matter. This DOES matter assholes. As you all know, all tiger subspecies are Appendix I listed on CITES and listed as critically endangered and endangered on the IUCN red list. Yet here we have the positive role-model Lady Croft shooting a number of them in the face, in slow motion no less. We and presumably every other gamer, does not want to promote the shooting of any endangered creatures in the face there are already plenty of other things to shoot in the face without sending out a message that flies in the face of environmental conservation ; Nazis, the Japanese, Aliens, Daemons, Spanish Zombies and African Zo

Yes children! This weekend I actually played some games. Shock and awe is what you are no doubt feeling now. Not satisfied with persistently sitting on the sidelines poo pooing any game that someone else might be interested I decided to see if I still had it and played me some games*. First up I played Turok for the Xbox 360. Totally bog standard shooter that borrows more than quite a lot from Gears of War from the token black guy who carries big guns to running around for six levels for the sake of some comms device. However, it had dinosaurs in it which means an instant 10/10. I totally busted it too! It took me a shocking 15 hours-ish but I enjoyed it nonetheless. All that crap about decent AI was still total bullshit too but it did have some nice boss battles. It is sad that the cheevos were so poorly thought through with the majority linked to multiplayer crap . Then I busted up Dinotopia The Sunstone Odyysey. It took about 5 hours and 50 minutes of my life. The game started

Aaaaron Greenberg is some guy . He was saying some thing about games earlier. But he does have a massive SLAP. Just look at it. It goes on and on. Aaaaaaron Greenberg you have a fine SLAP sir. A fine SLAP. Do you get security guards to patrol it? Do you? Do you sell parts of it for advertising or mineral prospecting? Is your slap self sustaining? It could be. That is some prime farming land you have above your eyes there sir. Yes it is. So there we have it. Greenberg-Slap.

Could it be? Has he? All those years of research which is hampered by underwater labspaces? It all paid off? Wow! Things will never be the same again. That. Is for sure.

Back by popular demand. From the brink of selling his body to feed his children we bring out Omastar to perform for your viewing pleasure in these dark dark times. Oh that Omastar. What a gook. In other news: No gaming news. It's April for god's sake.