That guy's a Maniac...

Every now and then a conversation sparks up round the water cooler at TGAM Towers that goes along the lines of someone asking "So is gaming mainstream yet?". Hours, insults, fisticuffs and a reminder on policy on worker in the work place later, inevitably the conclusion is a firm not yet .  We're not expecting an overnight transformation. But what would it take?  We have game inspired video games at the Box Office (okay so they're rarely great), Final Fantasy menus in restaurants, Splatoon and Pokemon collaboration ranges with Uniqlo, LEGO collaborations with Blizzard, Midway and SEGA. Museum exhibitions on video games, design and art. Gaming content seemingly dominates large swathes of the Internet from Youtube through to Youporn. Yet admitting that you choose to spend your time playing video games every now and then still feels, in the UK at least, akin to admitting that you strictly only eat the faces of babies because that's where the softest meat is....

This just in, stoic TGAM contributor Chuff_72 who hath spake the BIG ONE , Sold Out , and spake t h r i c e, wades into our flip flopping about PC Games to speak once more. Chuffty: I did not grow up owning a PC, but my best friend always had the most up to date system, 386, 486, Pentium etc, so I played all those games when they first came out; Wolfenstein , Frontier , X-Wing , Warcraft 2 , Dark Forces 2 , etc. Great times. Then at a certain point “Graphics Cards” and “ETC” came along and suddenly there was no standard PC anymore and everything stopped working. I didn’t touch a PC to play a game from about 1999 to 2004. In late 2004 I gave a mate £400 and asked for a PC that could play Dawn of War (“a good 40K game, holy shit take my money!”). My custom built PC died about a year and a half later, Limewire + 4gig of porn resulted in about 3000 viruses (literal, not figurative). After a deep cleanse the graphics card stopped working, at no point could I be arsed researching...

Remember when we promised content ? Here's some of it. About four years ago we played Rise of Nightmares on the Kinect and on the Xbox 360. We weren't impressed with the Kinect line-up at launch  (still aren't to be honest or happy about subsequent Kinect games) it was a rushed gimmicky effort to try to sway some of the bajillions of people who had played Wii Sports into buying an Xbox 360 and then, presumably get them onto proper games or something. Although games seem to be a low priority for Sony and Microsoft who seem to be fighting to be the all-in-one home media centre of which games is a small part. Then, it turns out that everyone and their dog is doing cool things with a Kinect. Everyone except people who make Kinect games that is.  That would have been absolutely fine an' all except the Kinect games were all a bit pap. Including Rise of Nightmares . Under no circumstances should you play Rise of Nightmares single player. It is an exercise in extreme...

Where did Peter Molyneux come from? Recently, it feels like every other video game article is about him, something he said, where he moved to and what he thought of game X. He is on a mission to get as much coverage as possible (presumably as two Fable games are due to come out soon). Well his reach extends far, even into the world of Xenoblade Chronicles where Alcamoth Citizen has this breaking news to report: Should Peter be worried?

As summer begins to close its legs to the sporadic penetration from the suns rays, and winters chill creeps its icy fingers up those luscious thighs, we get stuck in the limbo that is Autumn, leaves turn brown and fall, but most importantly the nights get longer and darker. And thus we are justified in sitting in front of the box rather than constantly saying to ourselves that we need to get outside and soak up that hokum "Vitamin D". Rather than catching up on that latest drama series, or episodes of Family Guy, don't you thing you should give your console some love? This Autumn, Xmas comes early with a plethora of KILLER games, we kicked off the season a week ago with the much awaited and highly regarded sequel to Deus Ex! Booya some Sci-fi Action RPG with some beautiful and haunting sci-fi goodness. A long awaiting sequel that is a swing and a "hit" that hardly ever happens! but we also has some mishaps XBLA and PSN g...

We twatted this the other day but seeing as we have a spare 8 seconds instead of the spare 2 seconds it's another post! You lucky mugs. In the Gamerati circles video game culture striving for acceptance by the rest of the world is a popular subject. Many critics are eager to point out that we are already there. Sadly, film is, without warrant, still wholesale held in some higher regard as an art form. Even though most films are genuinely ridiculous or awful. A look at the box office over the last year though indicates that video games influence runs far and wide. Not necessarily for the better either. Non-fans of super heroes, zombies, aliens, werewolves or wizards have had three okayish films to watch in the last twelve months. Enough already. This was compounded on a recent trip to the movies when ever single trailer was either comic book sequel or strangely familiar . No More Heroes: The Movie God of War: The Movie* Heavy Rain** *Yeah okay, wh...

I am Jack's Complete Lack Of Surprise.

Today we are tacking a few questions from the games industry and its state of play (sic): Dear Thatguys, Everybody loves me, they all want to be like/with me. I am great, my games are great. I am a modern day Da Vinci of the games industry, My cock is so massive, marvel upon the cock of me, gaze upon its stature, admire it’s spectacle, erect a statue in it’s honour…. [Edit it goes on like this for 17 A4 sheets, front and back.] Your Saviour, Molyneux Well Molyneux, not so much. All of your games suffer from mediocrity, but you don’t seem to get it. Every time you announce a game you over-hype them to the point of vomiting, in the hope that the next generation of players will buy into your elaborate Molyneux-cult like fantasy™. I could go into much more detail about the shoddy implementation of (Heads-up, compliment incoming) what is quit unique and interesting artwork. In a shallow unfriendly shell of a game (RE: Fable 2), but I wont. Because then it becomes constructive criticism...