That guy's a Maniac...

E3 is a constant disappointment to us. This year we didn't even make too much of an effort to absorb any of it until long after it had passed. It's explicitly been why despite our blog age taking over our mental age recently we've been underwhelmed into a shocked silence. One thing is clear though gaming no longer appears to be for us.  Now this isn't just the typical gamer reaction. We aren't the type to jump onto the forums and announce how we hate it all and we're boycotting it all and we're giving up (only to return in a week or two when out favourite license signs an exclusive deal). We're actually real life gamers. The gamers who don't seem to work in the industry, who don't seem to be heard by the industry and who don't have infinitely deep pockets.  Since before E3 the creeping sensation of all this not really being for us has crept in. How anyone can seriously talk about the PlayStation 3 as being a viable platform (or the...

So here it is then, the future: long gone are the days of plugging your console into your TV, long gone are coaxial cables, even scrabbling to put the SCART in, whilst trying to trace the input with your finger to make sure it's the right way up, is slowly becoming something you will wistfully retell to your grandkids. Nowadays everyone has a digital device and can "game" on anything. We have finally come to a point where these devices have higher quality games, no less than a few years ago colour mobile devices were playing glorified Commodore64 games using your 2,4,6,8 keys as a joystick.  Now we have easily PS1/PS2 quality games on the bog standard SMART phones, in no time at all its going to be the same tech everywhere expanding/improving at the same rates. As someone who has lived through the advent of home gaming, through generations of consoles, I can consider this a kind of golden age of gaming... Its everywhere! Yeah its fucking everywhere and sponsored by...

A wee while ago we talked about Windows 8, the new PC OS from Microsoft. Now Mr Steam-Valve himself has spoken out about it . Mr Newell doesn't seem to like it, calling it a "Catastrophe" and potentially pegging Linux as a new platform for steam. Frankly it seems he is just scared to back Microsoft on this one, you know the major player in PC operating systems... Thatguys says: Windows 8 is not a bad platform, yes the schizophrenic nature of the metro interface and the desktop is a bit weird, and in the 10 months we have been using it we find ourselves ignoring the metro start-up screen and just going straight to the Desktop. "Why bother?" you say? Well, its faster straight up the loading time of windows is reduced immensely, and (we assume) the whole environment is more lightweight as games are actually faster and most importantly everything works. Windows 8 is essentially a faster, more stable (even in beta) version of Windows 7 so all those peripherals ...

Out-fucking-rageous. This advert is on the actual telly-vision. Except unlike the version in that link it carries the disclaimer along the lines of "visionary applications only".  Basically, Microsoft have created an advert for the Kinect, yet another advert featuring a chilled out version of the Pixies' "Where is My Mind?", showing a whole host of things that might be possible in the future using Kinect but which aren't at the moment.  Amazing new low from MS when it comes to Kinect. Can't sell any when you show what you can actually do with it today? Then hypothesize about the future. When the product might be useful. I think more ads should be like this one. Fuck four wheeled cars, just advertise flying cars with the disclaimer "made-up future bullshit in no way reflects existing product". Tobacco companies should advertise non-existent anti-cancer medicines to allow us to smoke as much as we like. Just occasionally take an "n...

Windows Phone 7 series Xbox Live integration Is this the future of handheld gaming? I hope not. I might be being shortsighted here but I really think there needs to be separate real estate for controls for any meaningful gaming. ( Tap Tap Revenge isn't meaningful) With Web browsing and scrolling through contacts, touch makes sense, you touch it once then view, with a game (short of a Guitarhero style rhythm game) you need to be able to view the screen and react quickly without smudging it up with your fat fingers. Bring back snake I say! However given the Xbox Live integration with achievements, there will no doubt be endless subpar titles purchased and played solely for boosting their penis compensating GamerScore. However, with that said if they make Diablo 2 on this sucker, with cheevos, I'm in!! Đ

So yeah Project: Natal? We all know and realise it is a glorified Wiimote (but better). But it must have some use in that moral grey area dividing sex and games, here are a couple of suggestions. 1. Interactive Web chat. Webcams all over the world are currently being used to allow wannabe pornstars work from home, and using the conduit of the internet project themseves naked into the bedrooms of curious teenagers who stole their parents credit card. So why not apply this to Natal, allowing gamer chicks to make some cash to fund their habbit. Hell I can see in the near future a website of gamer chicks avatars showing who is online and you just buy their gamertag. So where does Natal play into this? Well from those of you that saw the Natal preview you'll have seen that there were two burds discussing what outfit to wear and projecting it on them. Cue the frenchmaid, dominatrix and Jill Valentine outfits... But how will this funtion from the fappers point of view? Well ideally you...

Finally!

Ugh, so I was playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (Terrorist Hunt) the other day as I was playing it I was finding myself more and more frustrated about the positioning of the analogue sticks on the 360 controller. To the point where I decided to have a look into third party controllers that have the analogue sticks in the "correct" positions. But to no avail. It seems as though the entire gaming community has become enamoured with the layout of the 360 joypad. I found myself (dual)shocked by this, the Playstation controller is staple in my mind, I'm pretty sure when I die and rigor mortis sets in my hands will clamp up on my chest in the exact position to hold a Dualshock 2. Yeah, so I was (dual)shocked that there were no Madcatz, or whatever third party controllers, that had decided rip off the Dualshock design and create a controller for the 360. I even went as far as to check if there were some crazy mod sites out there that maybe did it, then I find that thay have actual...