That guy's a Maniac...

The Kotaku version of this post would go into detail with some wistful unimaginative bunk like how the dragonball characters related to the tough times that we were going through in IRL and how despite the lack of IRL friends,  the dragon ball have given me great memories, akin to the first time you fingered someone, but hey we are not kotaku and we do not condone that sort of practice! No Sir! No fingering here... Much Anyways! Dragon ball: Kakarot is out so soon 17 January. For the longest while we were a religious consumer of dragon ball games harking back to SNES. there was a glorious time in the PS2 when the games were brought out yearly, allowing you relive the iconic blake-esque "epic" that is following Goku (Spoilers: AKA: Kakarot) through his life and sees him battling foes, finding friends and love. At this point we believe it is customary to write a list of every dragon ball game ever But wikipedia can do that better than me: https://en.wikipedia.org...

Soul II Soul aside, and hereby referencing my age, making the following post just that touch more creepy... After a solid few weeks of following the Capcom hype-train and completing RE2:Remake and DMCV, I am maintaining a transport metaphor and like a midwestern early 20th century hobo I'm grabbing my belongings in a handkerchief suspended in a stick over my shoulder and jumpin’ carts, scuttling back over to the Nep-train with a jug of moonshine. I needed a change of pace, too much panicking, getting bitten and quick action Super Sexy Stylin’ button mashing. I found myself pining for turn-based JRPG,  where not exactly the most thrill chasing of genres, ultimately just some menus which make flashy wooshes and sound effects interspersed with some plot advancing text. I miss the grandeur of Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and um… More recently… um? I dunno, I guess that Miitopia one? And maybe Pokemon?  Most turn-based JRPGs nowadays are linked to...

Hi guys, We would like to introduce Episode 3 of That guys the game! Origins. The first of our iconic Septilogy, TGAM The Game 3: Origins takes us back to the humble beginings of thatguys.co.uk, how the winds of fate brought our intrepid heroes together! Currently hosted on itch.io here:  https://acanawupas.itch.io/thatguys3 In TGAMTGE3:O you will meet our in game alter egos Richie and Cunzy:  Richie   Cunzy You get to follow us through our plight, through a variety of locations, most of them pubs, laugh at our own jokes, and reference blog posts no one has read, and if they did it was about 10 years ago. Basically its a linear visual novel with a couple of surprises in it. Enjoy, or dont. But let me say this now, gamification of a gaming blog is 100% our meta idea and we'll sue the pants off Kotaku any other gaming when they get round to it. Love and Anime girls will rule the world, Richie X

Wow, well... We at Thatguys sure do love our Lego games and with Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 it's no differe.... ...Woah, just hold up a minute there fucko, are you seriously nonchalantly doing a fucking post on a game from a year ago? Are you seriously gonna fob of this bullshit on us and not even actually acknowledge that your post rate has dropped from 200 per year, down to 8 per year?  Actually, No, I don't even want to hear your fucking excuses of "oh my gosh I'm so old and busy", or "I don't play games any more". That is fucking lies, and you know it, you are rationalising your neglect of a platform that brought you so much joy in the mid-naughties. You have probably spent more time on it in the last 3 years, updating to make it pretty than you have on actual content! "second greatest videogames blog of all time" pffft Prick. Go ahead do your fucking flaccid lethargic literary dry hump of a post on a game people no longer even ca...

Pixelated and graceful fantastical queen You rule the of the of the bottom my garden, called the 90s Separated by time But my pixelated love for that decade’s alt Japanese pop culture, like you will never die Each year those letters “E” Climb ladders and fall slowly, “X” distancing I try to grasp at you and encapsulate you “T” Grappling back-and-forth, Anxiety heightens The bi-pedal shark The unicorn snake “R” The Amorphous yellow blob with ears All march on to threaten my clenched prize Faster as floristry agglomerations spawn shiny plant buds. *Boom* “A” Love and Deviant art really has everything, Richie X

Wow, just wow... Doki-Doki Literature club  is an amazing piece of work. A truly horrifying, 4th wall breaking,  experience, all wrapped up in a cutesy visual novel about school life. And that is so true, the game really messes you around on several occasions, making you believe you are making choices but you are not and that terrifies you even more. Warning *spoilers* ahoy! After a certain event the game glitches the fuck out and send you in a weird spiral of messed up events as if something never happened... You are then approached by an in game character who orchestrates a series of events to prove her love, and even after this confession the game still continues you down a path of truly fucked up madness. Seriously, its free, play it! A whole new approach to gaming, more immersive than that time you had to change controller ports in metal gear. Love and only Monika. Richie X.

We have previously discussed that the world needs more Neptunia! But right now I am inundated with megadimensions, hyperdimensions and the like… I am concurrently playing 3 different Neptunia genre games, the first of which: Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart Neptunia spin off, rather contentiously replacing Nep as the protagonist and putting the Fan favourite Tsundere, Noire as the main attraction. Not a conventional Nep RPG game, this one has stepped into the foray as a Tactical turn-based strategy RPG, And redesigning all the characters as Chibi versions of themselves. And Just for your reference is a little before and after: Noire normal model: posing and shooting from Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 posing from the reloaded first dungeon, featuring pink ribbons in her hair with a Giant Dogoo in the background.  Noire Chibi model: seen performing special Move on Neptune here, beautiful metaphor for Noire smashing in here as the "Protagoni...

We may not gave discussed this properly on TGAM but recently we have fallen in love with the amazing series of  Neptunia games. Action Unleashed is a tear away from the time-sink RPG's that are the other Neptunia games... Its an amazing project, they have taken all the "assets", from the previous game, and made an arena hack-n-slash title, but not only that, they actually kept all the moves, whew in the RPG the EXE drives (limit breaks etc etc) were drawn out separate animations that just do damage  akin to the summons of FFVII and FFVIII. It is an amazing endeavour to have translated an RPG into a hack and slash and kept the same "feeling" when executing the moves or running about. And it still has boobs....  ...and a weird new "Costume break" function... Which is lovingly explained to you via the medium of fourth-wall breaking visual novel (my favourite way to have anything communicated to me) Like the last game you can dress up you...

Here! You know Kotaku right, in between all their "journalism" they do crap about Japanese Culture. Like stuff about food shaped like an obscure animal from the most talked about cult dating sim from that week. Or when they talk about their favorite Anime from this season and genuinely discuss the quality of the "boing" noise that the overly endowed female character's boobs make when they bounce/jiggle/squish. Well here is our favorite bit of Japanese culture: Babymetal! They are hitting western shores now. I'm too old now for Dubstep and following Radio 1. But this I can get behind. Be warned Babymetal, TGAM may just go Full Stalker on this one. Love and KAWAIIIIIIIIIII, Richie X

Right, fine I'm caving. After all this drama, outrage, scandal and out of court settlements. I'm just going to give you guys what you want. And that is apparently another half hardhearted incite into yet another 3DS game. Eat it up chumps. Right so. Tales of the Abyss, a wonderful little gem, a PS2 cult-classic remake for the 3DS.  I jumped on this title as I was a huge fan of Tales of Vesperia on the 360. Its an expansive story driven RPG, and a fantastic port at that too! However! That is a double edged sword... Its a port it's really not meant to be a pick up and play title I was enjoying it on the commute until the story progressed to... Dungeon number 1, which left me with little to no save points. I mean that is fine for a PS2 title, sitting there 15 years ago in front of a TV, but the game pushes you to go through a dungeon. Which means you either just have to close the DS and hope that the batteries don't run out, or time how far you get into the dungeon ...

Sharla who? Yes in the second of the Operation Rainfall titles we've been playing through we think that our crush on elastatits has been completely replaced by our love of the heavy-drinking, fun loving, foul-mouthed Syrenne of The Last Story . Plus she's disabled*! A strong, disabled female video game character who puts the typical JRPG male protagonist to shame.   *She has a Northern accent.

With, it seems, the whole games industry writing off the Wii in preparation for the Wii-U, now is a great time to snap up some of the quirkier releases on the platform which are currently selling for ridiculously cheap prices. Recently we've picked up Cursed Mountain, Deadly Creatures, Metroid: Other M, Disaster Day of Crisis and Madworld for less than £16 (for all of them). Individually they are a bit quirky but they represent a time and a platform with more interesting ideas than current HD console gaming which seems stuck in a bit of a rut with a a severe case of sequelitis. Trauma Center: Second Opinion is one we snapped up for a fiver a while ago and we've only just got around to playing it. We played Trauma Center/re: Under The Knife, the one and only popular medical 'em up on the DS. It was fun, if not a bit tough and also challenging. The Wii version, Trauma Center/re: Second Opinion is pretty much exactly the same game albeit with a name change and with the a...

Well we've spent about 20 hours with Xenoblade Chronicles and overall we're enjoying it. First up is that you can download twelve tracks for free when you register the game with Nintendo which is nice. Something for nothing (well, for £40 but hey). Is it one of the best jRPGs or even RPGs of this generation as many reviews have been claiming? Possibly, but there are a few gripes even very early in. 1) Sound Bites. The noises that your party makes during battle get repetitive very quickly. They start repeating after about one battle. I'm sure that as the party expands you'll get to hear some more lines but how did nobody spot that it is irritating to hear the same phrases over and over again? It is grating and somewhat undermines the fiction of the game unless your characters are supposed to have short term memory loss or a total lack of imagination when it comes to battle cries. 2) TITS. Currently, the best armour for the female in the party seems to be a pair ...

Is another brilliant and flawed but only brilliant because it is flawed wii game with more a more fresh feel than anything on release on the HD consoles. Playing it reminded me a lot of the awesome Shadow of Memories for the PS2 despite the fact they have nothing in common at all except they feature a guy. Just saying that's all. You play as Ray somebody who is an all American hero and former International Rescue Team member following a totally predictable tragedy. Ray depressed about the tragedy is now a pen pusher at the Crisis Managment Division until he gets called back in to service. The game follows a series of (not so outlandish it seems) events that start with an earthquake, then a tsunami, followed by a nuclear threat and then gets even more ridiculous with everything from firestorms, volcanic eruptions, floods, terrorist battles and even a lahar. BRING ON THE CHEESE. The game is so cheesy its hard not to smile or believe that the developers are unknowing in the cheesiness...

Trailer for Goldeneye Wii or whatever it's being called: What is interesting is that it uses quotes from actual gaming websites rather than quotes from News of The World (Fallout New Vegas "All bets are off"). Or nuts magazine. For example. Trying to bring some 'hardcore credibility' to the marketing of a Wii game or just good practice finally aligning marketing with gamers who might buy games rather than the everyman who actually sees the News of the World as some sort of trustworthy advocate for things....?

High School Student Uses Gameboy To Create Fake Bomb Think that's neat? I just used a sharpener to create a fake bomb. I just used a credit card to create a fake bomb. I just used my fingers and a mouth noise to create a fake gun. In fact I just this second used a pen and my keys to create a fake fourty foot mechanic titan capable of destroying civilization with nothing but happy thoughts. Sometimes. Just sometimes. I think that the gaming "news" sites stretch the definitions of 'gaming' and 'news'. Have you created a fake something recently?

Yeah it happened... Delay #1 Where it was previously set for October 23rd UK release. It is now set for a November 13th release. No news on any new characters... so it looks like we are just on the usual set of DBZ characters, with a few of the movie characters. Though there are rumours circulating of around 4 or 5 extra characters. Which logically will be Hercule (Comedic character), Cell Jr (Spawns of Cell), Saibamen (Little green aliens the Saiyans use) and Janemba (The big bad that fought Goku and Vegeta's combined form, Gogeta, who has already been confirmed, though I suspect that SS3 Broly might be his adversary [interesting, maybe we can get SS3 Gogeta?]). On a personal note. I would like them to return all the previous characters from previous games, GT aside there was plenty of interesting "What-if" scenarios in the previous games such as Goku and Hercule fusion (Gocule) Tien and Yamcha fusion (Tiencha) and even the addition of the original Dragonball charac...

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...

As you may know we are fans of the children game Pokemon. A new remake is out ensuring yet more millions of daktarin for Nintendo. This time around though Pokemon Platinum adds nothing new to the game series and the new edition is very very stingy with the introduction of a very generous no new pokemon. Yes, that's a fat zero. It appears that 'forms' are the new thing to get adults to part with money to please their children. So it's the same pokemon except they have slightly different sprite set. And Pokemon Platinum isn't short on delivering remakes of existing pokemon inside a whole game which is essentially a remake. Giratina and Shaymin now have two different forms (seriously does anyone even care about this. We don't and we're a semi-interested party). But Rotom get's a whopping six new forms to not care about! Originally pokemon used to be about mirroring the organisms we find in nature (as well as representing legends, myths, umm art forms and...