That guy's a Maniac...

In this week’s podcast, the maniacs take on the challenge of defining Retro Games. What is a retro game? Are there handy definitions that can be pinched from fashion,music or wider culture? Is it a console generation thing? Can it be defined technologically? Chronologically? They also pick the Definitive Top 3 Retro Games of All Time. May be some dog chat too.

  We'RE:Back for the first episode of the fifth season of the TGAM Podcast! Will this be the season the maniacs don't neglect the blog despite directing everyone to it every episode? Well just between you and me listeners I'm already an episode behind! As ever we've got SEASON GIMMICKS including a bit that we're not sure if it works or not THE WHOLE SEASON. Just like old times (remember the office skit? Like that but worse!). We also debut new game Character, Item, Level to the world. 

So I have been delving deep into the WoW Classic expansion "The Burning Crusade" And have been picking up some delightful outfits to share with our readers <3 First up we have the Spellfire set, a unique number for Warlocks, shying away from the shadow side of things and instead focusing on setting the world alight with fire! Next up we have the T4 set "Voidheart" modeled somewhat after the voidwalkers,  very cool effect with darkness swirling and pink lightning crackling from the shoulders!  Next up T5 or the "Corruptor" set, Iconic spikey shoulders, skulls and chains, a very "bucket-list" collection of items from TBC!  Along with these sets I have been grabbing some more "must-have" grindy items of TBC: the Cenarion Hippogryph -  The Nether ray -  I'll be back for an update on T6 the Maleficent set! Love and Hugs, Richie 

Following on from my conspiratorial rambling I also have a few desires of wants for what Classic+ may be: For those of you who don't know the concept of Classic+ is that, contrary to moving into TBC or perhaps in parallel there would be additional work done to Classic WoW to enhance change up or rejig the Classic experience. Part of the reason that this or something similar is likely to happen is that by the end of the year the final raid will be out, and it is a toughie, but will likely get trounced withing a few weeks, after that point what happens next? In private servers there was the concept of "fresh" where you start again from scratch. But what is the benefit of blizz just opening new servers as is again? Who know regardless I have some thoughts on what I would like to see in new Classic+ Content Add Raids: This is something I have floated in my head for a while, there are many raids which are set on the classic continents such as Karazhan, Uldamann, Grim B...

Beginning our foray into more multimedia areas we have our first Podcast available! On our youtube channel, and also audio only wherever you get your podcasts from! In this episode Richie drags Cunzy, kicking an screaming in front of  keyboard and mouse, and makes him make a WoW character.  Aesthetics are critiqued, names are punned, Scorpanoks are farmed. Enjoy! Luv n' earhugs, Richie + Cunzy1_1 X

For 15 or so years I have found myself fantasizing about whatever the next WoW patch or next WoW expansion will be. E ven now in the midst of this nostalgia fest that is WoW classic I am wondering, "what's next?" . We have reached a halfway point of sorts with WoW classic we are about to hit phase 4 of 6 in the WoW classic journey. Phase 5 and 6 are beefy phases of new raids AQ20/40 and Naxxramas, which may be quite lengthy, and after Phase 6 this is where vanilla stopped back-in-the-day.  But what comes after?  There is a general consensus that we will just get The Burning Crusade: Classic, the expansion that followed on from the original. I however, have another theory, hinted at from the announcement of the next expansion for current (retail) WoW: Shadowlands. It's unpopular but I have a wild theory... Since we haven't had an announcement and it's not confirmed perhaps there will not be a TBC-Classic. But instead what if there is some plan to brin...

...is the name of the resource expensive youtube music video parody of Aqua's Barbie girl I would make if I had (in no particular order): 1. Time 2. Software 3. Skills 4. Talent 5. Personality In it's stead I would like to offer another ham-fisted squat in the blogosphere: Lvl 60 brings an odd responsibility, Maintaining and gearing yourself up to get "Best in Slot" or "BiS" pronounced "biss" which as an acronym is now noun, adjective, verb and expletive. BiS is a concept whereby we (the WoW community) realized that the itemization and sets we were chasing back in the day were not optimal. It was generally believed that the tier sets were the best you could get, but that some of them were just shit. Now we know better, thanks to all the years, and all the private server time, for all sorts of reasons that there are more specific items that are more advantageous to chase. As there is a limited number of items in the game, the databa...

So WoW Classic came out ages ago, and I have finally reached the pinnacle of lvl 60, which is less of a pinnacle than a plateau before you continue to hike up that mountain. Having debated what I wanna do at 60 with my little Paladin I have decided I would like to get into at least a couple of raids and have been doing my attunements. As well as this I have been picking up that all important gear! But as a Paladin I have many options open to me, the go to is healing, but you can also Tank, or create soloing builds, or even RET-LOL, I have decided to take this further and dive into a niche retadin build! The Spelladin What is a Spelladin? Spelladin is essentially a ret-pala, with very similar talent setup, however rather than using Seal of Casino, it uses Seal of Righteousness and is with buffed spell power. The benefit thereof is that SoR is straight damage applied to every hit, and SoR is boosted by spellpower. As such the difference between Ret and Spelladin is Gear/enchants...

WIMMD: A little micro feature on the the buttons we press and joysticks we waggle! Recently I was rummaging around in my computer detritus box. A box which contains, SD card adapters, proprietary USB cables for devices I have long since lost, devices which have long lost proprietary usb cables, external dvd drives, scratched DVDs with ancient Linux distros etc etc and Controllers, I have collected quite a few, and I'd like to share a few of my favourites. With the advent of the WoW Classic release (ed: Dude that was half a year ago?!!) I decided to dust off an old PC controller from the late 2000s the Belkin Nostromo N52 . I initially briefly mentioned this over a decade ago when I had a sour rant about Steelseries' crappy WoW mouse . Now I know it looks like an abomination of a peripheral, akin to that of the weird human/alien hybrid in Alien Resurrection: Except rather than Ripley/Alien it was a genetic material threeway with a mouse, joypad and a keyboard. S...

The Kotaku version of this post would go into detail with some wistful unimaginative bunk like how the dragonball characters related to the tough times that we were going through in IRL and how despite the lack of IRL friends,  the dragon ball have given me great memories, akin to the first time you fingered someone, but hey we are not kotaku and we do not condone that sort of practice! No Sir! No fingering here... Much Anyways! Dragon ball: Kakarot is out so soon 17 January. For the longest while we were a religious consumer of dragon ball games harking back to SNES. there was a glorious time in the PS2 when the games were brought out yearly, allowing you relive the iconic blake-esque "epic" that is following Goku (Spoilers: AKA: Kakarot) through his life and sees him battling foes, finding friends and love. At this point we believe it is customary to write a list of every dragon ball game ever But wikipedia can do that better than me: https://en.wikipedia.org...

A.K.A it's 1998 again, A.K.A Richie and Cunzy's gaming tastes are so on the beaten track that there's a well worn runnel slap bang in the middle of the beaten track, the very beaten track if you like, and that's the only place we'll ever walk. Apologies to all those indies, new IPs, unique genres and innovative games we're only playing stuff we know, stuff we played already, remasters, re-releases and sequels. Looking through the games of 2019 I made myself actual chunder with how boringly quotidian our games list was going to be. We apologise to both of you in advance. IT WAS ALSO A BUMPER FUCKING YEAR FOR GAMES. It's like 1998 again. The Switch is the new PlayStation and we've not been excited for """"""new""""" releases like this for a long time. I think we picked up almost all of these on launch day and it's been a long time since a year has inspired us to do that. In no apparent ord...

Yo,  WoW's Character creator is shit. Just putting that one out there. Don't get me wrong the initial models are fine, but when it comes to customisation of the actual character its pretty fucking limited. especially when you compare it to the multitude of slider scale options seen in other games. Curiously not much has really changed on this even in today's iteration of WoW. So lets jump into it. I am just going to mention a few of the races and the more iconic looks. If you, gentle reader, feel that there are looks missing that is because the looks are so fucking bland and indistinguishable that they are not even worth mentioning. Foresaken Male, is actually probably the best in terms of "individuality" i.e different looking from one male foresaken to the next.  First up Bondage Zombie, easily the most iconic look of the undead characters, leather straps to hold their skulls together, they are blind, yet at no disadvantage... I guess you don...

In roughly a week a swathe of 30-40 somethings are going to relive and re-start a habit in a bid to re-misspend a misspent youth. There is a swell of hype in niche pockets of the Internet as people get more and more excited for the launch of World of Warcraft Classic . But why? Why is there the familiar toot-toot of the hype-train on the horizon for a product that is over a decade old, has a newer shinier iteration currently out and available to play, and a product that held marmite-like, positive and negative criticism when it was out. Just to clear things up I have bought my ticket (e d: and a train drivers hat, matching t-shirt, undies and socks and the special edition coke cans ) and I am on the hype train! I am genuinely looking forward to Classic, but my goals and approach are going to be massively different to it, as will it be for much of the community. So I'm gonna play a little bit of devils advocate here... Upon launch many, many people will just be diving in fo...

On August 27  Blizzard is launching their WoW re-boot: WoW Classic.  15 years ago, as our steadfast and loyal readership will remember, I just wouldn’t shut up about WoW, offering almost daily updates on the most mundane aspects of my (crappy) fire mage. And I shall be re-joining the masses this August, this time as a Human Paladin.  I have dipped my toe in and out of WoW, over the course of its evolution, to it’s current iteration. Though I have not partook in the past 3-ish expansions. WoW has changed a lot it's so fast paced and it’s almost impossible to die, but I will lay out my grumbles on what it has become at another point . One of my favourite things in WoW was “Transmog”, which initially was collecting pieces of armour or weapons and by taking it to a dude in-game, he could make one look like the other. Previously this worked by having to own the armour you wanted to Transmog with, resulting in bags and banks full of low level armour. Nowadays, however ...