That guy's a Maniac...

Every year as summer sings its swan song, the plants are subjected to a little bit more frost each day and their tissues burst and decay as they turn brown and mulchy, and we like to celebrate by watching films depicting topless teens getting hacked into little pieces. Alternatively for the past few years I have made an effort to try and play horror/Halloween style games. A couple of years ago I played through the Old Ghostbusters game, that one where they had all the original cast and the game itself is basically Ghostbusters 3? You know that one right? Cuz if you don't and you are a fan of the original Ghostbusters movies you should totally play it! Its so properly done its amazing that it's not in a hall of fame! It has plenty of call back to the films in the form of collectibles like, Vigo's painting! And most other years I do a playthrough of Ghostmaster. Which honestly I am surprised I have not talked at length about on TGAM. Ghostmaster is from 15 years...

Bit of Shitty news: Bob Wakelin is dead... You can easily be forgiven for asking who Bob Wakelin is, but truth is he probably touched your life in some way without you realising. Bob Wakelin was particularly famous for "Box Art" back when games were physical, you used to buy games in oversized cardboard boxes or in cassette tape and box form. And on these boxes was box art. And is was art, these guys were given the unenviable task of taking 8-bit sprites and re-imagining them. And imagining is the key word here the wonder of this box art is that is set a precedence for the game itself, no-one was under any false pretences that the box art would emulate the in-game graphics, but when you were playing it it would enhance the level of imagination you placed on it, especially when trying to decipher what some of those pixels were! Bob's portfolio is extensive and I want to just showcase a few of our favourites: The Newzealand Story: The New Zealand (Newzealand?) Sto...

So yeah a "collection" of the older PS2 Dragonball Z games is due out for 360 and PS3, HDified. This collection has Budokai and Budokai 3. Budokai 2 was missed out entirely, mainly because it had a stupid story mode which involved a board game interface. The first Budokai was not brilliant and seems to be a token in this "collection". However we should all be excited about Budokai 3. It include a huge roster of characters a lot of nods in the fans directions, and better game play than the 360/PS3 successors, "Raging Blast". Raging Blast  attempted to  inappropriately  touch fans of the series and keep it a special secret, it stripped down the number of characters, which honestly felt like they were doing it to: a) Make DLC for monies b) Make way for a slurry of sequels which died with Raging blast 2 and its lack of any real additions. Most disappointing Raging blast was less fun to play. Interestingly enough, did you know that...

Most proper gamers would probably not engage with those silly little channels on the Wii menu like Everybody votes or the Mii Contest Channel. We do though and this piece of machinimart is the direct result of such engagements Is the contest channel really a game? Is it machinimart? Or just art? It's neither. This is high art. WANKY BOLLOCKS. The digital image depicts an angry Albert Wesker standing over a prostrate Paedo Stu. Wesker, a super human cunning soldier and scientist stands over a fallen Stu. Or is Stu enticing Wesker? Either way, Wesker seems to be shouting PlayStation QTEs at him. How will Stu react? MORE NONSENSE This image is from the game Little King's Story and really examines age appropriation and how well games are tested. Is bewbies really a suitable term for seven year olds? Will Worhar ever make its way into the OED or is that just for serious words like Zig-a-zig-ah and ugh LOL ? These images and others by the TGAM Art Collective willn't be on disp...

No. They are films. Except documentaries. They are TV shows? Anyway, we're already more than a line into this blog and nobody has looked at the wittle puppy. Look at the widdle puppy! This reminds us, if Nintendo and Capcom carry on this massive love in after Monster Hunter Tri then we we would quietly suggest a Nintendogs:Okamiden Version. Yes we would. In other news: this list is pretty interesting . If you are reading this on a feed reader then this is super secret text for you none of the other readers can see this but if they did make Nintenokamiden then they should totally allow bad touching to get the furries buying this sick filth. I'll take a 10% cut of all profits CapTendo. 20% if you allow bad touching. Cheers!

Did you see what I did there? The Saatchi's Best of British TV show has inspired this post. We are not ones to bore you all to death with information written in paragraphs. Our preferred method is the list: games are/aren't art thing is long dead. Nobody talks about it anymore and we're not ones to be ahead of the curve! However watching some of the top artists and art critics talk absolute bollocks about what is or isn't even good or bad art in the excellent 1) Games are of too broad appeal. From a midnight addiction to Minesweeper through to the latest mini game on the iphone. Everyone has at some point played a game. It is really hard to be elitist when everyone knows what you are talking about and can call you out on the BS. So games aren't art because it is too popular. Also, a game which nobody has played makes headlines for a scene taken out of context. A tunnel in which an artist rapes people barely makes Gawker media . People care about games ev...

NB: Some things aren't good enough for that other site we occassionally write for . And then sometimes we forget we've some stuff that doesn't get published and then it becomes out of date and then we post it here. Here is one such fine post. You may all be delighted to have heard of the recent appointment of Carol Ann Duffy as the first female, first Scot and first openly bisexual person to become the poet laureate of the United States of the Kingdom of the UK. Congrats to Carol. Good job. But what does a poet laureate actually do you may ask? Aside from being a staple answer to a pub quiz question (and with three firsts Carol Ann Duffy will be the answer to trivial pursuit questions for many many years to come) a poet laureate composes poetry for state events as well as being a spokesperson for poetry. To disseminate its worth and to kindle the eternal flame of poetry at all costs. After all, there are few forms of media that will help you to get laid, 'I directed...

Once you green light using negative stereotypes to convey message there is no going back. TGAM strikes back against this ridiculous facade. Spot the difference!

Okay kids. Wiimote has been around for quite a while and using it to waggle has been a staple use of it so far. Let's just say the pulse sensor thing hasn't exactly set us alight and wii motion plus is a bit of a rip off. ANy avid Wii gamer will now have a wii wheel, zapper, other attachments and wii speak. All of which work with one maybe two games. Either way by now every Wii owner has four wiimotes. Why don't games do some more creative things with them? You want free ideas here's some: 1) FPS and on-rail shooters. So we've had Red Steel, House of the Dead Overkill and Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles. They were fun but why insist on pressing the d-pad to change weapon? Players should be able to map wiimotes 1-4 to different weapons. Want to change from pistol to shotgun? Just drop wiimote one and point wiimote 3 in a wii zapper at the screen. Voila! The shotgun pops up. It disappoints me that FPS on the Wii haven't done the popping up gun affect i...

Avatars. We love them and upcoming releases like Spore and LittleBigPlanet fill us with excitement. Customising avatars is fun. It's even better when you play against, or with, someone else. They're funny things. Some people are happy with understatement and can fully relate to a man in white underpants and black boots. Other people go crazy to get as far away as possible from the classic humanoid avatar. Here at TGAM we've been making avatars since V-Rally 2. O k, so you could only enter your name and it would appear on the license plate of the car but that little difference made the game so much more fun. Next, was probably Quake 2 which would let you enter your name and choose a colour. Again, not a massive jump but it made a difference. For me WWF Smackdown 2 was the next big milestone. We went crazy creating our avatars and I still remember my character Zombie1 1, who for a while was dressed exactly the same as Ash Ketchum from the pokemon series albeit he was a 6f...

At TGAM we don't care if anyone thinks of games as art or not. Do you remember the early 2000's when you couldn't move for the internets, mags and forums explaining are games art question? Endless touting of Ico or Rez as pure art. All the while in America there were loads of videogame-art exhibitions. Have you noticed how all the posts this year seem to be very nostalgic? Is it because with the exception of "Halo 3 not yet released" is the only news at the moment? Who can say. Anyway. TGAM, one time only, no more discussion; GAMES AS ART. If we were pushed we could put Games under the umbrella of art but I wouldn't. Art and Art Galleries fall under my remit as part of my real work outside of Planet TGAM and if you want to associate Games with pretense, boredom, elitism, waste of time and evolutionary worthless then yes, Games are Art*. All I know is that I'd rather watch final fantasy AMVs set to that song by Linkin Park endlessly than watch David...