That guy's a Maniac...

The World is an incredibly scary and unjust place at the minute and we've certainly found ourselves squandering our privilege by running to pastures digital to escape it all. Pokémon has been a staple franchise for us and arguably at the heart of the relationship of team TGAM and now feels like one of the best times to be a Pokémon player/fan. We're truly spoiled, despite what the very vocal minority has to say about the direction of the franchise. Here's a run down of just the last few months! Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Despite being less than four months old it's been a whirlwind of events and activities that even daily checking of serebii.net  has meant it's been difficult to keep up. Since launch we've been treated to a whole series of raid den events, we got shiny Magikarp galore to celebrate the new year, a trickle of new gigantamax forms in Snorlax and Toxtricity, crazy weather for the leap day, a steady flow of mystery gifts, two online int...

Looks familiar .

In between, twitter, reddit, forums and comments on all those fucking sites that never repay the favour I think we've given away a bit of our soul. We're all gamed out* Here's a thing. A feature. What she said until we've got some more inspiration. Uuuuuuugh. THAT WAS THE BAD THING. E3. We just remembered. Oh god. *Without actually playing any games. Aside from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon again. That barely counts. That's us in coasting mode** ** NOT TRUE, NOT TRUE we played Paper Mario. It's s'alright.

We picked this up from father of MUDs (or another appropriate title), Richard Bartle: When role-playing games offer the possibility for player characters to romance non-player characters, the pressure for including same-sex relationships doesn't come primarily from gay players. Rather, it comes from straight male players who are playing female characters and get creeped out when they get hit on by male non-player characters. Now he's a man who would know but I'm going to call Bouffalantshit on this one especially as it isn't qualified at all. is this an assumption or assertion? Are we talking about existing games, theoretical games or the two or three games that virtual world scholars study? Has anyone talked tot he developers who make this decisions and asked why they do/don't allow same sex relationships? Or at least I'm hoping it is all codswallop. Far too much has been written about gender and identity in games but for our liking none of it has re...

The wii is good an’ all but what I’d really like is 51 episodes of an awful Kirby TV show, for free as a wii channel. Not all at once mind, I want them to be staggered over the next 6 months. Would you look at that! It’s come true. Sure, let’s mess around with Kirby ‘canon’. Let’s give King Dedede a stupid voice. Let’s add two annoying kid characters. Let’s make Meta Knight some kind of Johnny foreigner. Let’s add a stupid theme tune and let’s not use any of the awesome Kirby music that already exists. Still it’s free and yes I’ve watched every episode and will continue to watch them all until episode 51 on the day of release. I’m gripped. Turn on your wii and download the channel now!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllshit . I call bullshit on this oft quoted excuse for men playing as female characters. Because in most games you rarely look at your character, you're focused on the environment, stuff and things. Also, depending on how you associate with your various avatars it's kinda creepy to perve on the character that you are playing. SO here's the reasons why, given a choice I'll probably play as a female character. ITS ALL ABOUT ME HOLMES. Male Characters Are Boring. Dull, dull, dull. Chinned stubbly affairs driven by revenge or sometimes sheer gruffness. The mind numbing you-aren't-kidding-anyone shit that leaves their mouth, normally with a voice like a 40 a day batman with an acute throat infection, is nothing any man has ever knowingly uttered apart from actors in exciting action films with awful plots. More often than not they are the default character too. The guy will have the standard punch and the standard gun. ...

This kind of thing ( IF we notice it, that's a big IF) is game breaking for us. It seems more and more to use that hardcore games are anything but and casual games seem to be good for the kind of challenge that made games so compelling in the first place. Doesn't matter anyway BECAUSE YOU ALL BOUGHT IT IN THE MILLIONS. P.S Multiplayer is for Phags before you even go there. UPDATE WHEN I WAS FIXING THE VIDEO. It turns out I know quite a lot of the Spanish from Resident Evil 4. I don't know what they are saying but I imagine it is the equivalent to Achtung! Schnell Schnell and ACHTUNG GRENADES! in German.

So editor of Gamespot UK, and owner of a name that still makes me giggle, has come out and stated that the 360 should be gadget of the 21st Century: As a gadget fan with an iPad, an Android phone and many of the other gadgets on this list, there's still only one thing I'd take to a desert island -- my Xbox 360 S. With a flat screen TV, an Internet connection and a copy of Halo: Reach, obviously. Surely the flat screen and "teh internets" is cheating? but yeah, ok 360 as Contender for Gadget of the 21st Century? It's a big claim! I mean we are only 10 years in (I assume this must be some sort of rolling competition?) anyways. I love the 360, i prefer it to the PS3 and the Wii. So yeah if a console is gonna get the Gadget of the 21st Century, I would vote for the 360. Honestly though, I don't see a console winning. The contenders consist of the usual Apple products, a selection of Phones (some as outdated as the Motorola Razr), some Cameras/Camco...

Bank holiday Monday is for plans, plans, plans and then those plans getting totally scuppered by The Yesterday Channel (the past is always present) and back to back episodes of Nazi Hunters. Spontaneous thought for the day: when will games be able to 'do' the liberation of concentration camps with the due gravitas? Looking to the awful (single player) Modern Warfare 2 (awful game, awful story and awful schlock tactics) which in many ways is the (inappropriate) poster child for games if not gamers, I'd say not for another decade at least. So instead of generating actual new content now that the bank holiday has been practically spent, I'm going to write up my thoughts of the MCM expo whilst they are still fresh in my mind. Firstly, the day involved at least five types of queueing but fortunately, impromptu games of identify the cosplayer made all the queuing a bit more palatable. For a ticketed event, you would assume that the venue would have been a little bit more prep...

This is the first post in one of our signature 'series' that never had more than one post in it. You can find all the others (there aren't any and there never will be) under the tag of "Us vs them". This Friday London Fashion Week um, it, well it comes to London? Although it doesn't really go anywhere else. London Fashion week will get miles and miles of column inches over the next couple of weeks from articles in those wanky glossy fashion magazines that look like future porn through to the columns written by plump middle class Bridget Jones wannabes who write for the Guardian. Fashion is an okay thing for people to be interested in. Gaming not so much. Its fine to waste money on shoes, clothes and bags. Not fine to waste money on games. In an not so scholarly analysis we'll have a look to see why one interest is perceived as socially acceptable and the other as socially abhorrent by comparing two of the biggest events in each camps calendar. It...

We have totally forgotten to review No More Heroes. Even though we bought it ages ago. With Zack and Wiki for £20 from amazon.co.uk It is a very very good game. You drive around and something. We're addicted to watching the lucky star video on repeat. We scoffed at playing with the cat in other reviews. But it is nice sometimes. It has nice controls too. The bit where you use the wiimote as a phone is probably our favourite so far! We must admit though. We haven't finished it yet. We're savouring it. The bike is good as is finding all the T-shirts. What's more is that the T-shirts are backwards in the mirror. Genius! The trash collecting mini game is second only to the lawnmower one. This is for the person who searched for pregnant samus and found TGAM. Sorry but it's the best I've got. The Samus mission is by far the best. Quite how they convinced Nintendo to have her as a boss, we don't know but it is brill...

After years of attention seeking it finally happened. It's the fourth biggest day of our lives. We got a link on Kotaku after we sent a link to this post after Brian C (Big C we call him) didn't take to kindly to our latest tip. Tip 25 reposted here for your eyes only: 25. Rumours abound tips too Handwashing and gargling? Seriously. Are you even trying over there? Here is a good tip for you though which might cause your stomach to erupt if handwashing floats your boat! In the game 100 Classic Books for the Nintendo DS, the summer evening BGM makes a fine accompanyment to a quick read of the Hunchback of Notre Dame because, wait for it, it has bells tolling in the background. Share this tip carefully boyos. He replied with "Hey how’d that happen? You’ve landed on my spam filter." Then I shared the link to the post and it turns out he was a lie head because he then went on to share the link with the whole of Kotaku. What happened nex...

This weekend we got a copy of Resident Evil Degeneration, the new CGI Resident Evil film. Despite watching the first ten second trailer a hundred times we managed to stay away from any kind of exposure of the film at all. After watching it, here are out thoughts on the film and exactly where capcom got it all exactly wrong everywhere. Warning: SPOILERS, although technically there has to be a plot in order for it to be spoiled at all. What we wanted. You may remember this post (before all the Wow gayness) about our hopes and fears for the film that takes on the most precious game in the entire world, Resident Evil 2. Here was our wishlist: 1) Will Smith cast as the face of Marvin Branagh. 2) Zombie and/or Claire tits. 3) Herbs. 4) The line "That guy's a maniac, why'd he bite me?" 5) The exact same plot as Resident Evil 2. In fact don't spend money making a whole new film just record someone playing Resident Evil 2 and stick it on DVD that would be bes...

Is anyone else totally addicted to the diorama mode on Super Smash Brothers Brawl? YES! You too! Great here are some of my creations for people to use to add some spice to their fan fictions. I've given some title and synopsis hints but feel free to use your own okay? And don't say I don't ever give you anything disgusting fanfiction people. Suggested Title: BigglypuffStar. Synopsis: The galaxy is in a state of civil war. The Psychic Type Alliance has stolen plans to the Normal type empire's BigglypuffStar: a space station capable of annihilating a planet. Suggested Title: High School Musical (Fire emblemxPokemon) Synopsis: Marth and Lyn both have strong feelings for Wobbuffet even though they are all in the same band with Donkey Kong. Will Marth and Lyn manage to sort out their differences before the performance of the high school musical? Or will their fueding ruin the whole thing? Suggested Title: 'Upskirt days' Synopsis: Rumours are ...

Has arrived and been played by me. It's good or is it? Well yes I think it is. You start off and it is all so familiar, you can import your face, hair and some of your catalogue from wild world but unfortunately, you are still back to square one otherwise. As ever, you need to meet the villagers, undertake some tasks for Nook, and then start afresh increasing your box flat to a mansion, destroying the local ecosystem through over harvesting and turning your hick town into a thriving country 'destination'. Some veterans might be a bit peeved that although your catalogue can be transferred from the DS version, you still lose all your fish, bugs, gyroids fossils, art works, resident potraits, golden equipment and Sahara carpets and walls. I am peeved at this. I don't mind catching them again to give to the museum but would it have been so hard to have transferred over the data so that it shows that you have, at some point, caught a banded dragonfly, without neccessarily c...

You may have read about some recent controversy surrounding some copies of Animal Crossing Wild World that were shipped to journos for testing with the inbound Animal Crossing Wii. One character, Baabara, has been seen chucking around some nasty racial slurs. TGAM has been contacted for comment. Our comment is divided into 4 easy to read sections: 1) Tellingly, this is being reported with some akwardness by the online gaming journos clearly unfamiliar with Animal Crossing but desperate to report this headline-friendly issue. Some 'journos' even claim that you have to train residents to say such things. This is untrue, you just have to befriend them, then once in a while they'll ask you to change their 'greeting' or 'catchphrase'. As long as it fits the letter count you can get them to say it. This has been a feature of Animal Crossing since 2001 (Europe only got it in 2004 though bastards) and no doubt all kinds of friendly animals have been taught ...

So it seems from my all important viewpoint that a whole bunch of losers insist about worrying about gender in games the whole frickin time. "All girl characters in games just look hot or cry except when they are big and fat ". And someone will whinge about it if they are all, any or either of the above. So what? Get over it. Male characters have a raw deal in games. So there. All genders get a raw deal when depicted in games. But that's no surprise the same is true in children's drawings, advertising and every other medium ever. Street signs have better narratives than most games the only good thing games have is shiny graphics and a distraction from daily life or news of stabbings, economic crash, climate change. Do not look to games as a fulcrum in your hack paper on gender in games. I mean you Terra Nova . No. The losers mentioned above use their internet moaning like a horde of "liberal" zombies to skirt around the real gender issue in games. This...