That guy's a Maniac...

We love video game music here at TGAM and although there's been a rise in acceptance that listening to video game soundtracks or going to see concerts of the greatest hits isn't a weird thing to do, it's still an under appreciated part of video games. Nintendo have been knocking it out of the park recently with their sountracks, especially on collaborative projects. Pokken Tournament had a soundtrack far too good for it ( Haunted House ,  Neos City  and the phenomenal Magikarp Festival are favourites). Kirby games just keep remixing and reworking the seriously strong themes, Kirby's Epic Yarn 's Lava Landing is a particular highlight of recent titles. Fire Emblem's game is strong with the J-Pop earworms from Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE  through to Fire Emblem Warriors  ( This Precious World  stands out in particular blending Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem  Fates ' themes). The Splatoon series is deserving of a thesis or two on the storytelling thr

In ordered to be accredited with any kind of standing, or respect within the pseudo-community of gamers there is a plateau of geeky knowledge that is a standard, however as more and more niche corners become mainstream... On a side note I refer to this phenomenon as ironic-hipster-reversal ; bringing to attention obscure elements of information to appear more knowledgeable in a subject, yet unintentionally bringing it to the foray for everyone i.e. Wearing a a T-shirt with the konami code. Pay attention to this people, this level of marketing and advertising is more powerful than social media!  ...as I was saying as video-games-geeky-knowledge becomes more mainstream the level of knowledge to be respected within the community becomes more convoluted and obscure. There has always existed a level of this autistic desire within games culture, from the early days of imported rare japanese titles. But nowadays games culture has expanded to a respected and widely used area of pop-cu

So we love video game music. Not all of it, but when it is good we'll take it over millionaires crooning about getting their arse out or falling in love any day. It gets into our mind. So (bear with me) there's an advert on TV for the perfume Opium which has been on the idiot box quite a lot recently. I keep seeing it and it reminded me of a game. In particular this ad at 20 seconds.   Eventually, it came to me! It's from the Notre Dame theme from Timesplitters 2, composed of course by Graemem Norgate, one of the few men we'd happily marry without even meeting (we swooned when he wrote to us ). The relevant bit is in the vid DOWN HERE at 1:31:   And of course, both of these were 'inspired by' a certain Mr Mozart, this vid at 2:35.   Here's the handy URLs to skip the rest and straight to the bit I'm on about should you wish you music cretin Opium , Splitters , Mozart . That's it. Just saying. Jeez. End of the music lesson. Now. Fuck o

I can't express in any phrase more succinct than this that it is my sincerest wish that what "it" may be is not the bodily life fluid of my friend, who wears green and goes on missions armed only with a knife who may or may not be developing a serious steroids problem.

Please? As much as I'd love to buy one of the four OS CDs that were released in Japan it would be really nice if I could just get them off the disc. They are on the disc after all. Great thanks. IN RELATED NEWS. Sound tests. WTF? I do want to listen to the theme from Orbital Ring Systems Cargo Bay , a catchy little ditty from Tatsunoko vs Capcom but I had to steal music of the internet to make it happen. I would never ever have call to listen to the 34 different grunts that Alex makes in the game but sure, that's what you can do in the gallery. It makes no sense.

Nintendo are pushing DQIX so hard and via the various channels that we consume all things video games we run the risk of getting Dragon Quest indigestion. Both EDGE magazine and ONM have run DQ retrospectives and articles in addition to those horrid PROMOTIONAL FEATURES that look like NON-PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVE FEATURES. There have also been a couple of DQIX videos on the Nintendo Channel and a number of prime-time TV spots. Even the bloody real-life newspapers were carrying reviews and previews on Sunday. There was no escaping it. And yes, we know how they all go. "DQ sold a bagillion copies in Japan". "Nobody is interested here". Except for the PS2 version. That was quite good. Yet, for all this rhetoric and the unanimous glowing reviews we aren't even going to bother buying it, here's why. Firstly, and least importantly, there just isn't the culture of ad-hoc multiplayer play here that there is in Japan. I lose count of the games that have these 'n

Even in the days of hype and over exposure where every screenshot, press release and 'leak' is vivisected and analysed there are still few moments in gaming that match the trepidation of loading up a game for the first time. Our personal ritual is to make sure there are no other distractions for the first spool up. The tea is brewed, the cat is fed, the phone is silenced, the meat is beat so that until we are prompted to press start our full attention is on the first impression of yet another new virtual world. Sometimes, the impression is a bad one, a misstep in the opening FMV, poor design or a hard to navigate menu dramatically drops the expectations. Sometimes games whisk you through the back door the first time you play dumping you straight into the game, a practice which we are always a bit suspicious about, for some people the mantle really does matter as much as the fireplace. Little King's Story had us completely charmed by the time we got to starting the game, the

A bunch of people at the office were circulating the latest link for the latest masterpiece by Kotaku's Brian Crecente: Motion Control in Gaming: Rationalizing a New Dissonance . The usual jokes were flying around about how "Editor-In-Chief" means something different in America, and discussion arose as to when exactly Kotaku became (or desired to become) a science fiction pastiche of the real games industry. Deeply moved by the latest travesty from Kotaku Towers, I decided to get in touch with the big C for some constructive criticism. Here's how it went: TGAM: Hey. Just read your post about motion control in gaming. Thought I'd drop you a line to let you know it is one of the worst pieces of HTML pretending to be writing on Kotaku (FYI this is akin to saying it is one of the worst pieces of writing on the internet). Next time leave it to Leigh Alexander or someone else who can write their way out of a paper bag. It couldn't be more high school even if it ment

Yeah well, we cant really call ourselves a gamer website without mentioning this. Consider it mentioned. Oh and by the way, Makro have it for £20, that's the cheapest in the UK. Love and Hugs, Right between the eyes Richie X

Remember that lost post when we emailed LEGEND Graeme Norgate? Well he only friggin emailed back, which to be honest has made us gush like a mucopurulent teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers gig under a waterfall. Here's what Big G had to say: Hello, Thanks for the email, glad to hear you like my stuff...going all the way back to KI too, that is retro :) the "is that too loud" bit is just me messing around with sounds and for some reason putting them on the gameover screen of Timesplitters 2. I can't quite remember the reasoning behind it now, I think it stems back to when I would listen to vinyl as a kid, and sometimes you'd get a "hidden" message right at the end. Thanks again Regards Graeme This email gave us lots of useful information about Graeme. Like, if we want to be like Graeme we'll say KI instead of Killer Instinct. Also, we got a fricking emoticon. I'm never gonna wash my email inbox ever again. So that's the reason

Yes. I'm capitalizing Iphone and I'm spelling capitalizing like a yank. It's going to be one of those posts. But we mustn't shun the new platforms when they come out we should welcome them with open arms to join the fold. Recently, Steven Gates (is he the apple man? It really doesn't matter) tried to prove that the Iphone was the shit because it had more games than the DS and the PSP. By that reckoning the PC is then the best gaming device! Didn't think about that Gates did you, you lemon. Anyway, much like the Nintendo DS, the Iphone does have a whole load of steaming shit available for it with the occasional warm gem hidden in the pat. Nobody is going to suggest that any of them are all time greats but here's a summary of the best presented in the tried and tested Top 10 tradition: Top Ten Original Iphone Games. There isn't a single original Iphone game. Every Iphone game is either a port, a clone or in the worst cases an adaptation of a mini game

Cause he called our* girlfriend fat innit. *Yeah we share one.

Shit. Did it again .

Note to anyone who has been, is or ever will be associated with a Star Wars game. Is it at all possible to be so brash to ask that we the gamers don't have to play the Echo Base Hoth battle ever again? Can't we come up with some kind of peripheral that scans all your memory cards and save files in your house and just skips that whole level if it finds a Star Wars save game, which we must have done about a million times. Yes, using the tow cable to pull down the At-Ats is fun the first two hundred times but enough is enough . Lets stop it now and come up with something that we don't have to borrow from 1980. Because at the moment, when I die, killing that first zombie in resident evil (and subsequent remakes) and going round and round At-ats is going to take up a considerable chunk of my whole life flashing before my eyes. Like more than a fifth at least.

You may ask when is a good time to use the word 'meatspace' instead of terms like 'the real world' of 'the physical world'. The answer is never, children, never. You never need to use it and any time you do, attractive girls and normal guys with jobs, cars, pensions and mortgages laugh at you and point at you and call you Urkel and do the things with the fingers to make glasses over their eyes. Then you'll probably make a webcomic where you kill the attractive girls and normal guys with a Buster sword and all your forum friends will send you emoticons until your inner balance is restored. You may also ask when is a good time to use the word 'meatspace' to refer to female nether regions. There isn't really a good time to use that word in that context either I am afraid. To reiterate, nobody should ever use the word meatspace. I have preemptively written to the OED to tell them to take meatspace out of their dictionaries or us and the lads

ANIMAL CROSSING WILD WORLD REVIEW For Nintendo DS Animal Crossing isn't a game. It's a career. A vocation, a mini alternative life. You could educate a child with it and it would turn out OK. It teaches you everything you need to know about the real world. It teaches you the importance of money, shows you the true value of patience, punishes you for lying, and when characters move out of your town it's an important lesson about the harsh realities of bereavement in adult life. Bunnie is gone, Timothy, she's gone to another town very far away and she's never coming back. It's not a game, it's a job. You HAVE to collect your fruit to begin with, else you can't afford the cool furniture. You HAVE to keep fishing, else you might miss a rare fish. You HAVE to collect all the fossils, fish and insects because something cool might happen when you do. Animal Crossing uses an enhanced version of the COLLECTEVERYTHING(TM) engine that Nintendogs used. I

An anonymoose sent me this link (via the Beeb). It's former EDGE editor Margaret Robertson on why she plays games. She starts the piece very controversially saying that games are rubbish! Oooh1 I'm outraged but then she ends it by saying this about Guitar Hero: "But somehow, even though I can't do it, my brain can. And so I get to watch, astonished and really rather proud, as my hand taps out the right sequence. If I'm playing Guitar Hero on the expert setting, I know as a matter of certainty that I can't keep up with the sequence of notes streaming by. Not least because my eyes go completely out of focus within about a minute. And yet, somehow, my brain and my hand have done a deal, and notes are streaming out of the screen and my score is through the roof. Check me out - I'm amazing. And that's not arrogance. I don't take any credit for it. I can't." And I think she is saying something here that I haven't really seen expresse

Guess who's back. Back again..............

.......from kotaku , which is alright I guess. Anyway, our skirts are literally dripping now so head over to here to get yourself off to screenies etc. In other news, I bought my first Xbox game today and it's a shameful one. Know what it is? Answers in a comments box plz.