That guy's a Maniac...

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 ...

Gamers in their droves pretended that they might stop love/complaining about shoot astronaut simulator Destiny 2: Destiny; Final Destination: The Game  when it was announced last week that developer Bungie had managed to break the orbit of publisher Activision. Gamers rooting for the underdog slightly smaller multimillion pound company took to the streets to celebrate but what does this mean for future Bungie titles and the 'ten year' franchise that is love-crack Destiny 2 ? Was Activision in any way stifling creativity? Does anyone remember Halo Wars ? Will Master Chief make it into Smash? Has anyone, anywhere asked about a new  Marathon this Century? Fortunately, our industry insider has the latest. Here's Alcamoth Citizen reporting live from Bionis with the scoop: Can you believe that? I don't think anyone anticipated that. Thanks Alcamoth Citizen, now we're back to the studio with Ravelle Velvet for Waxing Tips with Ravelle Velvet.

We've always got a bit of time for a downloadable game on the console that may actually be alright. sure, juggling the games and channels on the Wii between an SD card and the hard drive can be tedious but it goes to show that if you give people the tools to make their own games, five years later there might be one or two worth playing. With all the E3 hype it might have been easy to miss generically titled FAST Racing League but we're glad we gave it a download. FAST Racing League takes 'inspiration' from N64's Pod Racer, Wipeout and we imagine that FX racing series but we were never a fan of that. There's only twelve tracks but it is blisteringly fast, hard as nails and comes with two or four player split screen multiplayer. Not bad considering that this £7 download is more fun than most racing games in recent years (Motorstorm 3, 4, 5? was awful but that may have just been the 3D experience). I will say that it is a bit soulless and when you are whizzing arou...

Just Monster Huntering. In the meantime, here's an image and some tasters for posts I won't write anytime soon 1) About the time I went to buy Monster Hunter 4 months after it was released and couldn't find a copy. 2) About the time I 100% Zack and Wiki after swearing a lot. Really really a lot. 3) About how there are no good British games bloggers left anymore now that Kieron Gillen left. 4) About how I tried to play Monster Hunter Tri online but was too scared.

I've just received my subscription copy of the latest Official Nintendo Magazine to find that they have a WORLD EXCLUSIVE on Goldeneye Wii. Which is brilliant because it is only two days behind the actual world exclusive announcement at E3. Okay, what, so maybe they wrote the article earlier but then had to put it in a bag to mail it out. So the exclusive was written before it was exclusively announced at E3 so technically it was at some point a world exclusive but only to the person who wrote it and an editor or two. If this is how exclusives really work then we're officially calling the exclusive on Gears of War 4, Megaman 18 through 21, FIFA 2012,2013 and 2014 and Colony Wars 4. You read it here first.

I am Jack's Complete Lack Of Surprise.

Over the weekend we had a hands on ( this time ) with the Xbox 360 Mii creator. Unlike Spore, the system is unbelievably flexible for avatar creation and this application is a great way to pretend you have a Wii without so much as spending a penny! We made this as our first avatar: See how easy it is! Then we got creative and made this one: Ha ha har! All our British Xbox friends are gonna laugh so hard when they see this on the 360 version of Home when it comes out (due out November 2009)! Unfortunately due to video games and television stunting our imagination we literally couldn't think of another avatar to make that wasn't already a videogame character. We tried to make mario but around the time we got to adding the tits the microsoft execs looked at us and shook their heads very slowly. In summary then, this could be the tool to bring the Xbox 360 out of the stinky underground and to the masses. I'm not too sure how much we are allowed to say about an...

Remember this? Well it is still on for release on the Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Gamecube, GBA, PSP and DS. There is even a version for the Wii which is like the other versions but with retarded controls so that everyone from the hardcore to the nubians is on a level playing field. Well we've been playing our cards close to our chest on this one but if you were at E3 you may have seen a trailer of it at the Nintendo stand. Anyway here are a few more details: Levels As well as the ice, fire, warehouse and sky levels we've been working with the developers on a train level, an Orc level, a space level and a level set in a post apocalyptic warehouse. One of these levels will be available on release but the others will be released as downlodable content but it'll be worth spending your Wii points and MSpoints because we will bundle the levels with a bunch of other crap you don't want or need! Controls Players can now dual wield weapons and customise their characters...

Here in the good old U of K it is snowing. In England (Scotland can handle snow and no-one has heard from Wales for years) when it snows everything breaks. Trains, cars, airplanes, TV reception, Everything. However, Lady and Gentlemens even though we are currently all snowed in, with only a couple of cans of Heinz Beanz for sustinence until Spring, wonder-commentor and Honorary Hardcore Maniac, Chuff_72 has written the world's first review of Lost Planet to coincide with more than a little bit of snow in England's capital. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IT HAS HAPPENED PEOPLE, you saw it here first* Take it away Chuffter: "Is it cool to tell yourself, "I told you so"? I watched all the video's, downloaded all the demos and masturbated over my copy of EDGE, yet at the back of my mind there was a feeling that there was something wrong with this slice of arcade pie... To begin with I followed the crowd, the Dr ( Dr Wo 69, also a stalwart Maniac and long term gamer. He ...