That guy's a Maniac...

In roughly a week a swathe of 30-40 somethings are going to relive and re-start a habit in a bid to re-misspend a misspent youth. There is a swell of hype in niche pockets of the Internet as people get more and more excited for the launch of World of Warcraft Classic . But why? Why is there the familiar toot-toot of the hype-train on the horizon for a product that is over a decade old, has a newer shinier iteration currently out and available to play, and a product that held marmite-like, positive and negative criticism when it was out. Just to clear things up I have bought my ticket (e d: and a train drivers hat, matching t-shirt, undies and socks and the special edition coke cans ) and I am on the hype train! I am genuinely looking forward to Classic, but my goals and approach are going to be massively different to it, as will it be for much of the community. So I'm gonna play a little bit of devils advocate here... Upon launch many, many people will just be diving in fo

Wow another cycle of the globe: Another 12 months of lax posting and unenthusiastic wordsmithery. What happened to you guys? Well we could blame it on getting older not having the time to play games (RE every other blogger out there). We could blame it on the spark of venom and fire that once fuelled our passionate ramblings being quenched by our latter years "contentment". We could also blame it on our lack of motivation to keep spouting in a saturated genre, how can we even compete with the plethora of video game blogs, increasing their production values, not to mention the gaggle of youtubers (*collective noun required) vaping and shouting down their mics as they play the next generic shooter. Well whatever it may be, TGAM ain't dying any time soon. TGAM started way back in the heady mid 00's, we have been around longer than some bloggers!  and this dead horse has plenty of years of beatings left in it. So what have we got lined up for you? More "r

Two MCV links in as many days. Good on ya MCV, no doubt our publicity (we are the second greatest video game blog in all of existence as proved by science, probably the firs now as Harvind1 has seemingly gone offline) will give them a numbers boost. This interview with Ralph Baer over at the Salt Lake City Tribune has him bemoaning modern video games. MCV ran with the quote: “I think it’s a disgrace,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune. “What I created got abominated.” Now when we aren't not whinging , we often are whinging but Ralph doesn't feel the need (or it wasn't reported) quite what he finds disgraceful. Tom Nook's prices and stock rotation? The outrageous camping that goes on in Team Fortress 2? Nauseating DRM? Too many busty women in games? Not enough women working in games? The Water Temple in OoT? The fact that Rogue Squadron 2 boots you all the way back to the menu screen every time you fail a mission? That no other video game does water better than Baldur'

So Google is telling me it is St. Patrick's day either today, yesterday, tomorrow or this week sometime. St. Patrick's day is a day when the English get excited because for the lower classes it's an excuse to get special on Guinness and vomit on a car because we're not allowed to celebrate St.George's day because any kind of patriotism is racist these days. So in honour we're going to remember some of our favourite Irish gamers: 1) Keith "no saves" Blarney Ne'er before or since Keith "no saves" has the world experienced a gamer so committed to busting games without saving. One time we were interviewing Keith at PAX and he ate a GBA in rage because someone was auto- saving in the booth next to him. Alas, Keith passed away in 2005 after four days straight of playing GTA San Andreas. He leaves behind a widow, two children and an unused PlayStation Memory Card we imagine he received from a well intending Grandma one Christmas. 2) Kieran

Goddammit! another year another fucking Dragonball Z game! EVERY YEAR at the same time (end October) Atari bring out another Dragonball Z game each time more refined or with more characters. Oh and every fucking year it gets delayed! Even if it is just a couple of weeks. I don’t think I even care about Dragonball Z any more, however I will follow the release of this game with a morbid fascination. Right anyways so right now the game is pegged for 26th October, but I am going to hazard a guess that the game will be released on November 16th. Watch this space. Oh and even though I don’t care about Dragonball Z anymore, and that there are many more games that I am looking forward too. I will probably still buy this game. If you care about the previous Dragonball "late October" releases. 2003 - Dragonball Z: Budokai 2 2004 - Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 2005 - Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2006 - Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 Kame-pishy-hame-fucking-ha [Insert Sad-Sad S