That guy's a Maniac...

That see it rise above the crap that has outsold it. I recently completed it so it only took me just over a year . It's a really good game . We aren't good enough with words to express it. It's a great game even are there words to express better than great? Here are eight little touches that, for me, made it a really greatastic game and why my heart is made heavy with the knowledge that we won't see a game quite so beautifully crafted or surprisingly fresh for a long time. 1) Detail in everything . Everything from collectibles to the snippets that your civilians will offer up in conversation through to incidental details in the cutscenes draw the eye. It's all been lovingly crafted to reward players who will care to look for those tiny little details. 2) Naughtiness . Not as in, lame pre-watershed sex scenes or characters who stream cusses but genuine naughtiness. Citizens send you rude notes , perhaps my favourite of which is a letter rating the princesses (O...

Earlier today I picked up a copy of Ready Player One. A little bit less earlier today I put it down. Finished. It's a really great book. Okay, so the set-up is a little flawed to engineer characters fourty years in the future with the geek sensibilities of a 2011 late-twenties-early thirties geek but it's forgivable. This book gives hope to geeks everywhere who may take solace in a scenario (albeit fictional) that actually makes use of all that knowledge of books, films and games that we have to save the world.

This is craziness from Little King's Story. Not just "whacky, I'm so random, everyone calls me mad" crazy but properly walking down the street talking to yourself and shouting at passers-by crazy.Just watch the first one minute and twenty of this here vid, which is relatively spoiler free although this is one of the bosses you fight. Be bewarn.ed. I mean it just doesn't make one bit of sense does it? Can somebody better educated than us give us some idae what's going on, or this, SHOCK. HORROR. Original stuff? TV tropes has got nothing . Remember when TV tropes used to be fun? They've ruined it now. Is a fat girl really a trope? Back to the game it's just brilliant. I'm finding that Little King's Story is a game that just keeps on giving. Just as I was expanding my city, expecting the game to start wrapping up and the ending to be on the horizon it seems that the game is only realy just beginning. I'll be honest I really wasn't expectin...

Last weekend was my stag do, which was organised by my gay partner, Richie! Unlike your traditional stag do there was not a stripper in sight. Or going out. At all. Instead it was this groom to be and his bezzy mates playing the games that we all grew up with. I couldn't have asked for a better stag do, I laughed until I cried, I drank until it hurt and we had one last gaming session with all my Slads in one (well, two rooms). Sadly on Sunday I realised this would probably be the last time we'd all be together with nothing but time for playing the games that we cut our teeth on. But enough of the gay stuff! AWARDS TIME! Group Awards. CLICK FOR BIG IMAGE. This will mean very little if you weren't there. Some of the games that came out: Quake 2, Mashed, Mario Kart, Boom Blox, Geometry Wars, Resident Evil 5, Timesplitters 2, Puzzle Fighter, Blazblue, Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur, Pod Racer, Red Faction Guerilla, Wii Sports, Army of Two and even a spot of doorsies. The weeke...

Books innit? In between writing about games, listening almost exclusively to gaming soundtracks and reading about games on the Internet we occasionally find the time to actually play some games. Rarer still, we find time to pick up a game related book and give it a bloody good read and now is a good a time as any to be reading about games. This time five years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find any gaming based literature in your local book shop. Now, for the discerning reader, it is hard not get buried by it. First up, we've been reading The Second Life Herald: the virtual tabloid that witnessed the dawn of the metaverse by Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace. This book is 3 years old now but charts the early days of the growth of things like The Sims Online and Second Life and where interesting stuff happens with emergent behaviours in games. If you completely missed this chunk of gaming history but want to know more about why people bother with second life, what the Upskirt Museum...

In a frantic attempt to work our way through the highlights of the Wii back catalogue before the deluge of SMG2, Metroid Other M, No More Heroes 2 and other sequels further off on the horizon we picked up a copy of Battalion Wars 2 for a measly £7.99! Yes it was second hand but it was sold out first hand in my three go-to places. I will support your creativity if you fucking let me at my convenience. Sorry guys but thats commercialism for ya! Battalion Wars 2 is very good and for us it itches the spot that has gone un-itched since the good ol' Starcraft days. You know, schoolboy football with loveable tanks and grunts and ships and stuff. Playing it also reminded us of another one of our all time favourites, Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Play time is dwindling in the single figures and sadly progress on the campaign is already up to 20% (:() but already we're hooked, especially on the online modes which had us cursing the day various anonymooses were born. Also, on a plural personal ...

We are now up to killing these guys. For those of you who have played it you would know that that is not very far. Some people interpret these guys to be "Teh Blacks". Because they are um black? But they have horns and big pointy teeth. To be honest I'm not too happy about genociding them. Two of them were talking to each other just over a tree topped bluff whilst my guys were clearing rocks out of the way to start the genocide. Touchingly, the two chaps were talking about wood, crowns (maybe me?) and each other. I was struck by a pang of guilt as my inept force mowed them down in bloodless violence. One of my guards stood on the head of one and hacked at it with a sword in the face. It turned into a sweet. The horn of another one was harvested for the town coffers. Elsewhere about the town two citizens and two of my guards got married. Both instantly received a delivery of a new born child, one of which saw active service in the genocide mentioned above about four secon...