That guy's a Maniac...

...is the name of the resource expensive youtube music video parody of Aqua's Barbie girl I would make if I had (in no particular order): 1. Time 2. Software 3. Skills 4. Talent 5. Personality In it's stead I would like to offer another ham-fisted squat in the blogosphere: Lvl 60 brings an odd responsibility, Maintaining and gearing yourself up to get "Best in Slot" or "BiS" pronounced "biss" which as an acronym is now noun, adjective, verb and expletive. BiS is a concept whereby we (the WoW community) realized that the itemization and sets we were chasing back in the day were not optimal. It was generally believed that the tier sets were the best you could get, but that some of them were just shit. Now we know better, thanks to all the years, and all the private server time, for all sorts of reasons that there are more specific items that are more advantageous to chase. As there is a limited number of items in the game, the databa...

I've been exclusively playing Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and Turok Evolution on the PS2 recently. Partly because you won't be able to play PS2 games through the TV anymore, already it hurts the eyes unless you spend ten minutes of naffing through the menus everytime you switch from DVD to TV to PS2 to Wii. I've been playing Jurassic Park genesis because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST KEVIN FROM OHIO YOU'VE SEEN A Ceratosaurus hunt and eat most of a herd of Dryosaurus and you're pissy because the trees aren't authentic? Ahhh the thrills of accidentally deleting security fences. As for Turok Evolution, I've been trying to finish it for that other neglected webpage . Now, I know it isn't particular a great shooter but considering how easy it is to roll your eyes far back into your own head everytime another FPS comes out it is easy to forget the kind of crap we had to put up with. Here's a list of my personal peeves at Turok, some are specifically aimed a...

The last Ubisoft game we bought was Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs. Until this DRM thing came up I didn't even know people played games on their PC. PCs are for making graphs and writing reports on. Jeez already. AMENDMENT 1: So is like Rayman on PC then? AMENDMENT 2: What happened to Rayman?

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...

So far, so good. Three great games on the list, I'm sure you'll agree (aside from two of them not really being games). So what is better than Dead Rising you might ask? Well it's only frickin Dino Crisis 3! Although much hated by most gamers, we don't share that opinion because we have never played it. The last time I checked it still wasn't backward compatible with the Xbox 360 which is a testament to how much it is hated considering that titles like Catwoman, Dinotopia and Bass Pro Shops Trophy Hunter 2007 have been emulator enabled. However, it remains one of the greatest games of all time because from reading the instruction book, looking at the back of the box, examining the screenshots and watching videos it has genetically altered dinosaurs in space. Which is kind of like dinosaur zombies in space which in turn means that it is practically Resident Evil in space which is where Albert Wesker lives. What a great game! The list so far: 48: Dead Rising 49: Resid...

I kid you not. I saw this as the name of a forum thread. Why do gamers (those who can get beyond platform hating or rating Youtube videos with slur) insist on making top tens of completely subjective matters. Is it to out-I-know-more-stuff-about-games each other? Or are gamers so emotionally and creatively retarded that they struggle if they aren't creating a top ten list? Idiots all of you. Check EDGE's Online Offline selection in their letter pages for the worst kind of wankery and whinging. Here they are: 1) The second loading screen on Medal of Honour Rising Sun. After the initial loading screen, when the bar pops up and fills up. The game doesn't load until a minute after the bar fills up though. Amazing. 2) When the install wizard for Darwinia comes up. So many gamers I know love this classic sequence. 3) The first time the pause screen comes up on Tetris. Ohhh shit! 4) When you first mix the yellow herb in Resident Evil 4 and you get the little mixed herb image. Oh ...

Listen. Learn.

Every now and then a game comes along that does away with pretense of lies about AI. Velociraptor Safari is such a game. If only there was an emoticon to depict a room filling up with ejaculate produced through excitement related to videogames with dinosaurs in it.

This christmas is gearing up to be a good one and already it's very heavily video game oriented. The TV is running Hitman the movie ads almost every ad break and the trailers for Assasin's Creed and Need for Speed Pro Street are popping up quite a bit, as well as others. They seem to be good adverts too, grown up ads, no longer the reserve of horrible ALRIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT American voice over tat or Sony wankery they used to be. This month's EDGE has an interesting schpiz on marketing for games and how much money is thrown at the great unwashed on marketing alone. Up to 15 percent of a game's net receipts is spent on marketing and for titles released worldwide for christmas up to £7 million is being spent. Recent discussions with Giant Enemy Guitar Hero suggest that PR and advertising may be the way to go about getting your game off the shelves regardless of unfulfilled promises by developers and publishers in pre-launch hype. The oft cited poor initial receptions ...

Especially if I insist on buying shit like this for myself as a reward for buying other people presents. Which I will insist upon. Review of Clever Kids Dino Land based on the box art alone: Shoddy aimed-at-children game that uses about 2% of the space on a DS cartridge. Three thousand complete the six piece jigsaw mini games, and one microphone gimmick game that doesn't really work. There is a 50% chance that this game doesn't allow players to save but instead they have to enter a passcode WHICH IS SO EARLY PlayStation it hurts. With dinosaurs and mammoths 10/10 I dream of the day I can fill my little DS 9 game case carrier with dinosaur and prehistoric creatures games only! LIFE AMBITION PROGRESS: 11%. £40 and I could be 33% closer to my life ambition! MONEY CAN AND DOES BUY YOU HAPPINESS! Fossil League: GOT! Ice Age 2: The meltdown: Need! Clever Kids Dino Land: Need! Dino Master: Need! Dino Crisis DS: Not yet made. Get on it Capcom!!

Hi kids. Part three of our fanboys rantings after this inspiring post by Richie!. Here is part one and two . Chuff_72: There are no interiors in the game (well there are a couple but essentially all the buildings are just pretty boxes - there is also no interaction, you can't remove a plank bridge to stop people following you for example.) Mysterio: OMFG! THIS GAME IS SHIT - ALTAIR IS A HUMAN CHARACTER, WHY CAN’T HE REMOVE HIS ROBES AND MASTERBATE??!!!!???!!!111 Cunzy1 1: Because that would be gay and you'd probably like it and spend all your time in toilet cubicles getting rimmed and thus not buying more over hyped games.

Omastar has been feeling bad lately. He can't drink without getting drunk. He would blame videogames but there aren't videogames yet. They wouldn't work in the sea anyways. He can't even listen to gangsta rap either because mammals haven't evolved past the "nose noise" stage in their evolution yet. Yeah that's right North. We can all copy! How do you like them apples??? EDIT: Because it's not really worth a new post. I hate being a gamer it means you download lots of shit that you don't need or will ever look at again. Especially free shit like that Good writing for games guide and Breaking the Mold Bioshock PDF. Also, btw, games people no one really cares about the art of Halo/Half Life/Bioshock. You read it once and think "Oh, OK so originally the mad doctor had three less wire tentacles coming out of his head". Then that information is instantly forgotten and never needed again. The only reason gamers buy The Art of .........

Remember this? Well it is still on for release on the Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Gamecube, GBA, PSP and DS. There is even a version for the Wii which is like the other versions but with retarded controls so that everyone from the hardcore to the nubians is on a level playing field. Well we've been playing our cards close to our chest on this one but if you were at E3 you may have seen a trailer of it at the Nintendo stand. Anyway here are a few more details: Levels As well as the ice, fire, warehouse and sky levels we've been working with the developers on a train level, an Orc level, a space level and a level set in a post apocalyptic warehouse. One of these levels will be available on release but the others will be released as downlodable content but it'll be worth spending your Wii points and MSpoints because we will bundle the levels with a bunch of other crap you don't want or need! Controls Players can now dual wield weapons and customise their characters...

Right, so it has been reported that some company somewhere has bought to the rights to CryENGINE 2. CryENGINE 2 is some kind of HD games engine being used for crysis, we have all seen the photo of the guys head which is so detailed you can see the pock-marks on his cheeks. Anyways in today’s headlines it seems that the CryENGINE 2 has been licensed to another company, and this is the great thing, the company is called: Apparently all of their titles have a distinct Neanderthal them throughout. Ok, ok… I know they have the retarded American way of spelling “Palaeo” but I think they can be forgiven for the cool theme and idea for a company, getting the CryENGINE 2 Licence (whatever that is) and also finally for selling branded Palaeo entertainment rocks in their online shop. So cool. Laters, Richie

Well, Seeing that Cunzy aint here at the moment… I though I’d give you a “Dinosaurs in Video Games” update. Today’s game is Guitar hero 2. Yeah that’s right Guitar hero 2! I’m sure you are all asking yourselves, “Dinosaurs in guitar hero? How? Where ? As if!” Well they are and they are not… there are 2 separate references to Dinosaurs. First up we have the two player select screen: As you can see from the above picture it depicts: - A Mammoth - Sabre-toothed Tiger - Some crazy extinct Ungulate. (antelope looking thing) - An ancestor of the foxes - An emu-esque big-bird - Smaller mammals, cats etc. - A Fighter jet dropping a bomb on them all. When I first saw this I was admittedly shocked to see some obscure extinct animals just on a 2 player co-operative sceen. But then I realised that this may be a graphical representation of one of the songs, which brings me nicely onto the next instance of “Dinosaurs” in Guitar hero 2: One of the bonus tracks: Fall of Pangaea...

My favourite anime show is Disney's Dinosaur . Although only one extended episode was ever made it still remains my favourite anime show ever! People often describe it as retarded and they slag it off in the anime forums saying that even the 41st episode of Naruto (the episode that everyone knows is at best non-canon, second series Pokemon good but nowhere near as good as 4th episode Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Finnish dub)is twenty times better. But what do they know? Disney's dinosaur has some great animation and the storyline is compelling. Also no-one unexpectedly flies or discovers that they can blow things up using their Triante birth right. Anyway the only reason it is on this blog, which is a videogame blog, not some kind of anime wank palace is that there is a game based on Disney's Dinosaur coming out soon. Here is a screenie. How good does that look? It's a WoW beater anyday. I just hope that they don't ruin it by giving it ...

Well, I don't know about you but the 25th of May is in my diary, as is every other day of the year but the exception is that I've written "Tomb Raider" for this day. That's right Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary edition is coming out and it looks sexy as. Go to Gamespot to see some of the images. Yeah I know it's the same game but just look at it. Ahh! Also this artwork is in their images section. NICE DINOSAUR GAME ART! In an unprecedented turn of events I'm doing an EDGE and reviewing the game right now based on one piece of artwork and the gamespot material. 10/10 GOLD. That's right buy it people. Buy it. That'll teach SONY to abandon the greatest console of all time.

At the risk of becoming the dinosaurs in videogames blog there's more news on Next Gen dinosaurs. How can you the readers treat the World's Second Best Videogame blog like this? Essentially you should head over to good old gamespot (you could go to IGN but it's a waste of time) here and watch the video for the 360 version of Turok. It looks spanky, but it is essentially a concept trailer. Tee last shot of the trailer is awesome. I'll be honest I was never a fan of the turok series. The N64 was always shit for FPS. Turok 2 was a good laugh. You could play as a dinosaur! But look at it: It's classic next-gen, see here for a more in depth guide to making things next gen. Lots of bump and some anti aliasing- check , make it realistic, add more brown- check , make it dark- check , add some bloom- check. I'm saving up my pennies right now so I can buy a 360 just for this game which is due out Q3 2007 in the US so probably sometime July 2009 in Europe. It ...

I've noticed our site has had a massive increase in readers in recent days. Massive. I've also received a lot of complaints regarding the in jokey nature of the site so a bit of back story may be needed for those new readers. In which case, read the archives and come back. For everyone else (Chuff_72). Why did nobody tell me about this? What kind of readers are you? You're supposed to be the World's Second Best Video Game Blog Readers. Shame on all of you. Watch this It's perhaps the greatest concept for a game in the world ever and we should all be buying things like this right now. Don't hesitate. We need to support the dinosaur based video games industry. If we had to be the Official Nintendo Magazine we'd say it looks like a cross between Dino Riders, Warcraft II and Grand Theft Auto London. Okay so Gamespot gives it a less than average 6. But look at it! Amazing and it's educational, Boris Johnson, because it has dinosaurs, vikings and ninjas. Perso...

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...