That guy's a Maniac...

Dear God Richie, where have you been?  - Yeah it's been ages since I posted but I can definitely say that a "significant percentage of my time has been spent on SoSing" What is SoSing?, you ask fervently, surely something capable of taking up a "significant percentage of your time" must be amazing? Well in in short, it is the means by where to find certain types of Pokémon and capture them with higher stats, or if you are luckier find them in a different colour (shiny). Since completing Sun/Moon I jumped straight into this, forget actual end game stuff like battle tree, I want to catch me some shinys! I accidentally started SoSing happening upon a magicarp, and thinking to myself, why not, everyone else has a cheaty "free" Red Gyrados I'll aim to get  this one done for realsies, with a gold magicarp and all: Job done! All it took was setting up a "chain" where by you set up the circumstances where by a Pokémon will call a fri...

Well... Dragon Age. What an immensely huge, I mean really massive game. And honestly I'm 70 hours into it and I think I have barely scratched the surface! It a fantastic way to lose several hundred hours of your life. The sweetness of this come from pretty much just giving the player what they want... a novel approach. The game merges the greatest things from western RPGs: Such as Skyrim, WoW and of course the previous 2 Dragon age games (with plenty of fan service to those who have played them). The exploration alone in this game is just fantastic, akin to Skyrim with little hidden quests for those who are willing to take that little extra time to look for them. The difference with this dragon age is the multiple sandbox areas, which are brilliant and feel unique This is what reminded me of WoW*, with all of its varied zones and questing through them with the odd dungeon to enter really hit that home. And there is all the wonderful other bioware greatness in there. You h...

Last month was a hard time for me. In part I was overjoyed at the exposure thatguys.co.uk was getting with that Kill Screen article. However it was also a dark time, my Pokemon Black Cartridge got put in the washing machine corrupted. This cart contained many of the pokemon who were on a par with the length of time played and connection with that Omastar , so as I am sure you can appreciate the joy of being featured was ever so slightly tainted... As you can imagine, I was more than distraught. I considered trying to salvage my save using PC adaptors, or perhaps re-starting with a new save and using editors re-create my pokemon with their original stats. I could even send some of the “event” pokemon, those pokemon I queued for, or downloaded that are no longer available. That would be legit right, its not so cheaty is it? I decided against it, to follow on from the Omastar article there is an emotional attachment to these guys, if I were to re-create them what would I create...

Avid reader! You may have noticed one third of TGAM hasn't been pulling their weight around here recently. That is because Richie! got sucked into Dragon Age: Origins. Big time. We managed to lure him far enough away from the 360 version of the game but only with the promise of helping explain to you avid reader why 'marmite' Dragon Age was worth playing, how Richie likes to roll (two meanings!) and why all dwarves are scots. How do you normally play RPGs? General dick or worthy saint? It's a tough one and particularly pertinent in Dragon Age as there are achievements either way for the moral decisions you make in the game. And unless you are Save Scumming you are only going to get one half of them on your first play through. But in general, when I play any game, I tend to be as nice as possible, helping everyone I can find, doing every quest I can, but also most importantly getting to grips with the world and it's mechanics, then when I'm aware of the world an...

So am I looking forward to Dragonage? You bet I fucking am! Its a huge expansive RPG on the 360!! (And some other platforms I think Sony's will run it. And I believe if you have a PC bought in the last 45 minutes it should run). Admittedly its a middle-earthy RPG with Orcs and Elves and whatnot, however Oblivion (the other middle-earthy RPG on the 360) has redeemed my faith that these archetypes no longer belong to Tolkien-fappers (Dwarves are just the right height to chow down on my "Garden of Elrond"*), Blizzard, and D&D mouth-breathers. Anyway I'm gonna lube up and find my industry contacts and get this game before Friday assuming I'm not too humiliated or the welts are still open. *Yes this is referring to lady bits, see we're not sexist we know that girls fap over obscure images too. DragonLove, DragonRichie XX

Its become a yearly tradition for me now, each Autumn (That's "Fall" for the more verbally inept of you, or "the bit just after summer") I get excited about the next Dragon ball game. Well... Last year not so much, Dragon ball Z: Burst limit (360) was a bit of a let down being less of a direct sequel to Tenkaichi 3 and more of it's own entity. But this year! Oooh boy Dragon ball Z: Raging Blast is due out. Currently it is set for a European release on November 10th 2009, but as with all the release dates I'm taking this one with a pinch of salt and I'll say December 11th 2009, and I'll let future Richie take the responsibility and keep you updated on that one. So what's good about this one? Well It's more of a direct sequel it features the copious amounts of characters from the previous games though a full list has not been confirmed it has been stated that there will be over 70 characters, each with alternative outfits...

Tower Tycoon Palmer is a dick, swanning in with his stupid milotic... You know I'm just enjoying the Battle tower, i didn't ask for you to turn up and ruin my fun with your CHEATY pokemon. Wanker

We have another update from resident thatgirler Kaiser.Tia : Yeah, there's a confusion of the different issues with the three big game stories recently - the Law and Order case was just stupid - the developers should have known better then to use real-life stuff like that (it wasn't even a funny easter egg - just a dim-witted, under-researched example of a stupid development team). The whole Manchester Cathedral story is actually quite interesting - with games technology becoming able to render real-world locations in realistic detail, are games that showcase real locations going to have to ask permission first, like the film industry? I have a lot of sympathy for the CoE in this case, because I can't imagine they'd ever give permission to a Hollywood movie to film on location, especially a movie involving soldiers, aliens and shooting. I wouldn't be surprised if the games industry has to jump through similar hoops that Hollywood does when it comes to ...