That guy's a Maniac...

Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie:  Oh another Animal Crossing game! I take it you are back to the island, lording it up as Mayor, collecting bugs, paying off your Mortgages, but this time with Amiibos? Cunzy1 1: No . Not even . I'll level with you. This is one of the worst games I ever played . Imagine an Animal Crossing themed Mario Party board game. Without the minigames. And one board. And you have to have an Animal Crossing amiibo figure (not cards) for each player. And instead of using a controller you tap amiibos. That is this game. Richie:  Does this one address the disturbing relationship between the typically predator type animals and the more "prey" type animals i.e. How do Bianca the Tiger and Chief the Wolf maintain acceptable relationships with the plethora of herbivores which normally serve as food out there? Cunzy1 1: No . Richie:  I mean the townsfolk and NPCs...

Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Oooh a spaceship, flying game that is a change of pace for you , what made you snap this one up? Cunzy11: Since Colony Wars and Rogue Squadron series ended back in the 1890s, it feels like there's been a drought of proper space 'em ups. Sure there's been variants on the theme like spreadsheet manager EVE Online , top down ships FTL , almost ships flight fighting in the new Battlefront but no real proper space games ( Elite Dangerous , No Man's Sky, Kerbal Space Program ?). I'd been lucky enough to catch the single tweet from Gamescom announcing that  Everspace was coming to the Switch, got too excited and decided to pick up Manticore: Galaxy on Fire in the meantime. Richie: What sets this one apart from all the other sci-fi shootery games that swell the marketplace? Cunzy11: That it was out at the time. Seriously. It's extremely playable ...

Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: I heard that Into the Breach is a game by indie cunts for indie cunts, why are you an indie cunt? Cunzy11: Okay, so yes. In some circles. It's one of those indie darling games. Particularly amongst those bearded, shoes and no socks PC boyos. I'd managed to miss all the hype completely and against all the odds spotted it on the eShop on sale and thought it looked cool. Imagine my surprise to see it on every fedorad arm-tat hipster's game of the year lists. And quite fucking rightly too. I liked it well after it was famous. Richie: So its a hipster strategy game? X-Com: Avocado edition? Cunzy11: *clears throat*  it's a retro styled, tile-based, time travelling, rogue-like, dungeon runner with mechs, tanks and kaijus. Yes. Yes it's X-Com: Avocado edition.  Richie: Right so you beasted this on the Switch, What made it tear you away fro...

Minor content spoilers ahead, major if you've somehow managed to avoid one of the most rereleased games of all time For veterans like us, Pokémon Let's Go is our fifth tour of Kanto starting with  Pokémon Blue and  Pokémon Red in 1999 then returning to a future version of Kanto in 2001's Silver and Gold, then a redux/remix with 2004's Fire Red and Leaf Green and the last visit to the region with 2010's SoulSilver and HeartGold. We've been there, done that. Got the T-shirt, medals, badges, magnets and pokéballs to show for it. So what does  Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Pokémon Let's Go Eevee add to the well worn roads and highways of the game that kicked it all off? Silver lining an all that The answer is strangely, not nearly enough. If like us, you've followed the  Pokémon games for a while, there is something satisfying in seeing the evolution (no pun intended) of ideas across the games. Pay close enough attention and the best elements f...

Living eating sleeping games. Sometimes it's hard to muster up the time and energy to actually play some games. As we are want to do we took a long hard look at our backloggery  and became determined to turn some of those medals from bronze to silver and from silver to gold. The games industry and the marketeers that surround it are all but obsessed with making you crave the new, the shiny but often new games fail to build on what's gone before. We've been hoovering up a lot of the content created by the games community which actually goes a long way to celebrate the history of games and gaming like the industry fails to do. Here we tip our hats to Two Best Friends Play . Puerile, sometimes but what TBFP does and does well is celebrate games. It's connoisseurship coming from the stands which is odd considering that most other media play a part in celebrating the culture they create.  Anyway, one of the marks on our backloggery profile, whilst hunting for the eas...

More chatter about the Final Fantasy VII re-release. A few days ago some intrepids spotted squeenix had written a menu for what seemed like a FF7 remake, this however turned out to be simply a re-release, most likely a digital download for iPad or the like Now a few months back I mentioned bootleg from qhimm.com, it simply takes your original install of FF7 and updates music, graphics to make it much prettier to play (also you can add silly, but well thought out, mods like Aeris resurrection). Squeenix sa y: Optimized for PC – FINAL FANTASY VII has been updated to support the latest hardware and Windows Operating Systems. But will it be prettier, like will they optimise it for widescreen? will the models be updated? will it still have the terrible midi music when it can be replaced so easily with MP3s? That's the information, for some reason, I care about. Meh, I bet it doesn't. But then I suppose there is always the argument that it wouldn't be a "pure" re-...

There is a fantastic piece on video-game addiction floating about the internet, describing evolutionary reasons fro addiction, and more importantly discussing "Unethical Game Design". The tricks that developers use to trap the user into wanting to come back for more. A very thought provoking piece, check it out here or here: It's only 15 mins... c'mon. Love and Obscure Skyrim memes, Richie X.

The genius of Animal Crossing is that in the early days, you find new furniture, clothes, insects, fish and all the other items at such a rate you quite quickly become adept at organising your inventory and running back and forth to Tom Nook's shop a la Diablo. As time goes on, new items get rarer and rarer. Finding and catching those last elusive fish and insects become all night hunts, camping rivers and beaches to catch that damn tarantula or coelacanth. Weekly shopping trips to Crazy Redd get so disappointing as you look for that last painting or obscure bit of furniture. The good days get rarer. UNTIL TONIGHTS BUMPER HARVEST THAT IS! Perhaps the lucky clover had something to do with it? FINALLY Crazy Redd gave up the Triforce. By comparison, Link's various quests for the Triforce are a cake walk. One of the elusive squid visitors moved to town! I'd begun to believe they didn't exist. Like Animal Crossing's own Nessy or Jesus. We were resigned to the fact that t...

Thousand Verb to thousand ( third-person singular simple present thousands , present participle thousanding , simple past and past participle thousanded ) ( transitive ) ( Gaming ) To finish all achievements/Trophies; to make done; to reach the end of the required achievements/trophies. NB: Is not necessarily used in context of the number "one thousand", as expansions, live arcade and multiplayer achievements add/subtract form the total. You're a participle. Love and transitive hugs, Richie X

Readers of this here blog will notice that aside from posts about pokemon, vibrating attachments for various mp3 players and a love hate relationship with achievements is that we occasionally begrudge getting told what's next. Already there's stifled hype for the next generation leaking out all over the place. Iwata has started the Wii 2 hype train with typical no news statements and as usual the shit eaters are eating it up. There's no discerning or questioning here. Something new? Give it to me. Give me something new they say. SO this current generation has had longer than most but that's a pretty arbitrary measurement of how 'good we've had it'. Richie and I often theoretically talk about educating a complete non gamer in the way of games. We compile a big old list of all the games that really add something new or show off the best of video games. Our hypothetical non gamer has to play through them all chronologically and at the end is given a certificat...

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Achievements (Trophies if you swing that way). In some respects I hate the fact they try and control the fun to the extent where I feel like I can't cut loose and just enjoy game anymore. I do however like to have something tangible now from a game upon completion, something that I can look back on and at a glance tell how much I got from the game , how long I spent and even to an extent how much i enjoyed the game. So when we did the  Painful Moments in Gaming  week it got me thinking about games from my past and how it would be nice to have a record of time spent on games from my childhood. So here is my top 10 list of games that I spent a lot of time on as a kid, each of which I'd love a record of achievement for and what I think I would have scored.. (I am aware that some of these games are available on XBLA)  #1 . Treasure Island Dizzy(C64): 970,  I was  robbed  of a perfe...

Windows Phone 7 series Xbox Live integration Is this the future of handheld gaming? I hope not. I might be being shortsighted here but I really think there needs to be separate real estate for controls for any meaningful gaming. ( Tap Tap Revenge isn't meaningful) With Web browsing and scrolling through contacts, touch makes sense, you touch it once then view, with a game (short of a Guitarhero style rhythm game) you need to be able to view the screen and react quickly without smudging it up with your fat fingers. Bring back snake I say! However given the Xbox Live integration with achievements, there will no doubt be endless subpar titles purchased and played solely for boosting their penis compensating GamerScore. However, with that said if they make Diablo 2 on this sucker, with cheevos, I'm in!! Đ