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 image has very little to do with the film. Richie and I were supposed to be saving watching this for a girl's night in but now we live within 600 miles of each other we don't see each other half as much as we used to. So I caved and watched it and unfortunately I roped my better half into watching it. She'd sat through the first Silent Hill film and it had such an impact on her that halfway through the film she confessed that she thought Silent Hill was Hellraiser . In a way I was wishing it was too. This film is bad in a generic and inoffensive way delivering a double dose of cringe. One cringe for it just been a not very good film. Another cringe for it being yet another not very good movie adaptation of a video game. I've not checked the rankings recently but surely in the order of genres of film, video games adaptation must be down near the bottom of the list just below 'American TV dramas about big city people falling in love with a rural '

On first inspection it looks just like a normal Midgar bar complete with a jukebox, TV and a seedy bar. However, the pinball machine hides the room in which the bomb attacks on mako reactors was planned by the terrorist cell AVALANCHE. A big TV for following the news. A white-board for planning where bombs should go and a umm pirate flag? A punching bag? Not much in the way of terrorist paraphernalia laying around. These guys were pro and it's a bloody good job they helped to stop that big meteor from destroying Midgar otherwise we'd be really really angry at them.

Watching the goggle box yesterday was almost like watching the PS3/Xbox360 ads channel with the occasional television programme in between. PS3 are gunning for attention with an Assassin's Creed Brotherhood ad with music and very mild violence ("exclusive features for the PlayStation 3" presumably means you can play as a Sackboy). Meanwhile Kinect ads ran almost every single break. I don't know if it was deliberate or not but every single advert had a glitchy blip at the same place when the 360 logo came up at the end. Maybe they've changed their branding to be more in line with the Kinect experience. Anyone else notice that (for reference, during Vampire Diaries- yes now you can JUDGE ME ON MY TELEVISION WATCHING HABITS)?

Attending prior international affairs, means that today will be spent trying to hunt down fucking E3 videos (we just don't trust your spin) and catching up with the good ol' Nintendo Channel. Fortunately, a paltry FOUR videos since last time means it'll all be over soon and we can get back to finding E3 videos. Nintendo TV continues with episode two all about the 'Wii world cup'. This video feels oddly familiar pitting the Miis of various famous Englishmen against the Miis of various famous Germans in a five challenge in Wii Sports Resort, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Mario Kart and Wii Fit Plus. Why don't you create your own Wii World Cup? Nice idea ONM but a credit would be nice next time Chris. Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a third trailer up on the channel. Fortunately, it's a medley of the all those bits you've no doubt seen before so don't worry about more spoilers. We get the point Nintendo. We'll buy it already. Christ on

Click the title for the link. Some nonsense about a lady off the telly going on about violent video games again. Which reminds us we wanted you all to have these links if you are genuinely interested: The Byron review . 2007-2008 review into keeping children protected online. A full report, a summary report and a report for young people are available so no excuses. Review of research on the impact of violent computer games on young people . A DCMS review of the research up until 2006 on the link between violent videogames and young people. With interesting conclusions as to the nature and quality of that research. How to set parental controls on the Wii , Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 . That awful Susan Greenfield woman again. Digital Britain 2009 report into Brits and what they get up to online. Some interesting stats here. Don't Shoot a 2007 proper look at violence and video games links and you know, proper research. Lastly and we're being naughty here Atro

Over the weekend we watched the first episode of The Virtual Revolution . A series all about the history of the web innit. Presented by I'm-A-Doctor-Now-Former-Bits-Presentertator-Aleks Krotoski. Anyway here's the breakdown just in case you missed it: 10% Gratuitous shots of Dr Al's breasts and butt. Really gratutitous. 5% Aleks nodding/glowing/gushing in the presence of an old San Franciscan. 15% Dr Aleks walking around looking pensive. 15% Dr Aleks walking around looking pensive with her shades on. 30% 5 of the richest men in the world celebrating how the web is the great 'leveller' specifically their software. 5% Bitter hippies claiming it's all gone to shit now. 7% Aleks looking into the camera and flicking her hair out of her eyes. 5% Aleks typing away on her laptop WITH HER MAN HANDS in the street near a famous landmark. 3% HIPPIES! 10% Some pointless graphic which was being 'unveiled' for the first time ever. Episode two i

Games Industry biz has the scoop parsed via Kotaku because we can't be arsed to register for GIZ! Because that means cum. Basically, a bunch of nobodys are whinging about Nintendo not doing enough to advertise WiiWare and DSiWare and all the online stuff. Unfortunately, this coincides with Nintendo running some rather good adverts on the telly box about how to get your Wii online and why you should. Unfortunately neither umm Pong Toss or Christmas Clix are featured in the ad.

They put out a call to all bloggers as they are looking for some weekend staff. So we thought we would apply. Why not? Well because Joystiq is a bit of an in joke for all gamers. And as with all great humour, you should never have to explain your own joke. So we're going to explain our own joke: Joystiq is a site that has ambitions. It so desperately wants to be Kotaku that it regularly steals posts from it except the posts are never as good. Also, they have stolen a site design from the early 1990s and I think you'll agree that it looks like one of those sites you get when you accidentally type http://www.hotmaik.com/ or if you type " bored at work " into a web browser. So here's the application and before you start it does look like we are a bit ghey for Kotaku. That's not neccessarily the case but they are the best place for regularly updated gaming news. Dear Nintendo Blogger at Gmail This here email is an answer to the ‘call for bloggers’. We’ll

This post was going to be a "how-to write a generic games are bad article for newspapers". You know the kind of article that is blindly ignorant of Jenkins' 8 Myths about videogames. I say this post was going to because dirty love rat laughing stock Mario Party "politician" Boris Johnson already did it for us here . We read it in the more cost-less content EDGE this month. We were thinking of making him the That Guy's maniac of the month but then the Telegraph might pick it up and put it on the front page. The Telegraph is allegedly one of only two UK newspapers that employs a person to google the name of the paper every two hours. Any results are then cut and pasted into the letters section to make it look like they have readers. We do that too. All the anonymous comments are secretely us except "I love the way all the comments are between themselves". That's one of Amber's flunkies. Anyway, the thing: Here's a list of phrases and