That guy's a Maniac...

INSIDE SCENE A SMALL SCIENCE SPACE CRAFT FLOATING THROUGH THE VOID. From some general disarray and darkness it’s clear that this small craft is abandoned. The only light is that coming from the Sun’s reflections of Earth and starlight through the small viewing windows and portholes throughout. Varying shots establish that it’s been some time since it’s been lived in. A shot through one of the windows with a view of Earth shows what is clearly North America, however there is a gigantic circular crater on the East coast, indicating something happened. Unexpectedly. Some of the machinery whirs into life like that scene from Aliens. You know the one. Various lights flash and static emits from a speaker. The signal, starts semi audible and begins to improve. It’s clear that its human speech before words can be heard. SPEAKER: …..ember…. cool……egular [SPEAKER CLICKS OFF] [SPEAKER RINGS THEN CLICKS ON] SPEAKER:…ember… uper cool… ifferent from regular….. entage of all...

Minor content spoilers ahead, major if you've somehow managed to avoid one of the most rereleased games of all time For veterans like us, Pokémon Let's Go is our fifth tour of Kanto starting with  Pokémon Blue and  Pokémon Red in 1999 then returning to a future version of Kanto in 2001's Silver and Gold, then a redux/remix with 2004's Fire Red and Leaf Green and the last visit to the region with 2010's SoulSilver and HeartGold. We've been there, done that. Got the T-shirt, medals, badges, magnets and pokéballs to show for it. So what does  Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Pokémon Let's Go Eevee add to the well worn roads and highways of the game that kicked it all off? Silver lining an all that The answer is strangely, not nearly enough. If like us, you've followed the  Pokémon games for a while, there is something satisfying in seeing the evolution (no pun intended) of ideas across the games. Pay close enough attention and the best elements f...

With the Nintendo Switch's Capture button it's never been easier to snap a screenshot or your favourite games as you play them. Something that Nintendo has never been great at up until now, beyond titles that offer their own screenie buttons or with a strange Miiverse faff on the Wii U. It's not the most straight forward to actually get the images off of the Switch but we've done it to share some of our favourite screenshots from all the Switch titles we've been playing recently.   ( Is this even a Switch screenshot?- Ed. )  Happy Screenshotting!

It takes a rare kind of game to awaken us from near permanent retirement from TGAM blogging but Nintendo's new Masterpiece, Miitopia is such a game. Love 'em or hate 'em Miis have been around for eleven years now and they've certainly outlasted the Xbox avatars (have they? I've not checked. Which Xbox are we on now) and whatever those fugly things were on PlayStation. We made a semi-topical picture joke which no one will get in 3, 2, 1.Old now.   We've had plenty of good times with Miis over the years, racing karts, fishing fish, golfing golfs as well as giving Nintendo personal information about preferences through Miitomo (is this still a thing?). Team TGAM loved Tomodachi Life  even though there wasn't that much to do in it, we still spent a combined 298 hours and 28 minutes doing it. Miitopia is what Tomodachi Life should have been and frankly, should have been released in 2007 but it's here now. The premise is simple, take the fairly st...

Remember gaming? Remember this blog? Ha! Well if there's one game to bring us out of apathy-driven retirement it's a new Pokémon game. I've not read many reviews, does anyone do reviews anymore? Is Zero Punctuation still going? There's something fairly unique about Pokémon video games in that we here at TGAM have been playing them for 20 years now and to the casual Pokémon player who dips in and out, it's easy to think that it's been the same game across all of those 20 years with the occasional roster update. But for those who are in deep. Too deep. The mainline Pokémon games is 20 years of iterative design and with Sun and Moon they've finally expunged many of the 20 year old mechanics and choreful quirks and built on designs that have been experimented on since Red/Green and Blue. Of course, some old skool players are going to hate these changes. If you've wasted spent hundreds of hours breeding and training that perfect IV shiny Pokémon then yes...

A while back my 3DS was dominated by the Pokemon flavoured Diablo clone: Pokemon Rumble World, a F2P game I actually spent money on... It was a great wee game but it got pretty grindy/repetitive/boring towards the end... I hit 719 Pokemon (yes I know there are more, but not in Rumble World!) And I'm done... Why am I telling you this? What is so fucking brilliant about completing the game? Whoop-dee-doo? Well, first of all that last one is not a question, and secondarily clearly you are interested since you are posing more questions. The real reason is I am not done, there is a plethora of other "achievements" one such would be to get every version of Areceus. This is the opposite of fun, this is grinding upon grinding. And there is plenty more like this, gaining all the "formes" of all the Pokemon with formes... So this is it, line has been drawn in the sand. I'm done, no more Pokemon Rumble world for me, no sir. Kaput. This is an Ex-F2P time sink....

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer for Nintendo 3DS The red squirrel is dying. Nothing can be done. It's cancer. Cancer. A woman loves a horse. But only because he lives in a castle. Not because of the size of his cock. A hippo studies cephalopods in space. He's close to a breakthrough. Sometimes an otter watches me when I sleep in other people's beds. He never says anything At the school, the animals watch each other go the toilet. They don't find it very interesting. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer . GAME OF THE YEAR 2015.

Every day I wake up and I check for Pokemon Every day I die a little inside. Love and Cofagrigus, Richie X

It has become clear to me that Pokemon X/Y is the best game ever, there will never be a game to trump it. As someone in the industry this dismays me, but that dismay is bittersweet as I can just play Pokemon X/Y. Also, I am embittered by this post, as it is eating into my Pokemon Time. Love and Pokemon Z? Richie X

Right now until Midnight on Monday, it's the 2013 Global Showdown International Pokémon tournament. For non-Pokémon aficionados, every now and then there are international tournaments that are run over Wi-fi. The tournament are broken into a number of categories depending upon the age information with your Pokémon game; Junior Division, Senior Division and Master Division for old farts like us.  Each tournament has an open registration period, places are normally limited to 50,000 (from a community of 3 million according to the Pokémon Global Link ) and tournament rules sometimes vary. For a short time the registered trainers can take part in as many battles as they wish winning and losing adding or taking away ranking points which everyone starts of with 1500 of. You get to register six Pokémon and then going into each battle you see the six Pokémon your opponent has, both of you choose three trying to weigh up the strategic combinations. This is the first Int...

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. WE'VE ABUSED ALL CAPS TOO MUCH IN THE PAST, THIS TIME WE MEAN IT. The Official pokemon website is running a vote for a pokemon that will be featured as a download via the Pokemon Global Link. It is clear that TGAM are poke addicts but it ain't all rosy . This could change everything. Here are the current rankings of pokemon people have been voting for: For the love of god Pokemon players. VOTE FOR DEOXYS! Deoxys has never been available in the UK. The empty spot in my almost living pokedex drives me crazy. It is a constant source of dismay to me and the people around me. Whoever the fuck is voting for ditto and pikachu needs euthanising straight away. Not metaphorical euthanising, deliberate hunting down, slaying dissecting and grotesquely displayed in public areas as a warning to others. As for the people voting for Arceus, sure, it is a nice third choice but there was an event for it a while ago. You missed out. Sorry guys. VOTE DEOXYS. For all that is...

Pokemon White Pokedex. SEEN 642 OBTAINED 640 Probably won't mean a lot to most people. The translation is, I've spent a shit load of time on this game and I've only got 8 more Pokemon left to get*, five of which have never been made available in Europe. I spent a long time yesterday trying to get two more. Each generation of Pokemon games is normally released in two editions (possibly with a third remake). Red and Blue, Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl and Black and White. The "genius" move is that some Pokemon are only available on one version and not the other requiring players to trade with each other or failing that buying both copies of the game to ahem, catch 'em all. In the DS iterations of the games, trading has been made much easier with the Global Trade Station. You don't have to physically meet up with another player, you can go online and leave a Pokemon of your choice on the GTS, specify what you want in return and nine ti...

See here for what this nonsense is about. Basically, I've successfully transferred 490 bits of code from one DS cart to another! Erm, yay me? Can't wait to do it all over again when Pokemon Black and White come out.....