That guy's a Maniac...

I have holiday and I've been trying to bust as many games that I've half started as possible. Kirby's Epic Yarn A lovely little game that appeared quite easy to 100%. I was wrong. Clocked it in at just under 20 hours in the end. Stupidly, I left all the challenges until the end so the last hours or so was just burning through the repetitive and sometimes tricky challenges. Soundtrackwise, many of the new tracks are as sublime as the classic old tracks. Fun. Little King's Story I'd put Little King's Story on the back burner for a long time. Typically because when I play it I get sucked in so I don't attempt to play it unless I know I have time free. It's a game that still gives even late on where lesser games tend to add all the padding. It is also still challenging although I do end up restarting a lot because I'v become very attached to a little hunter of mine called Stella. She was one of my first citizens, she's married to a guard and has

Tits? Check. Big gun? Check. Progress is so over rated. This is a screensht from Koei's Samurai Warriors 3. Not Samurai Warriors 3 but the Capcom one that looks just like it. In other news. This is an image of the new pokemon called Scrapebotto. Scrapebotto is a scraping the bottom of the barrel type Pokemon. Other new Pokemon announced are household appliances (did that), letters of the alphabet (also done before) and a new Pokemon which takes the shape of other Pokemon . All the ideas have been used. All of them. Just go for a squirrel thing, a walking ball thing and a Dr Robotnik Pokemon . Oh FFS.

This is breaking news. This news occurs nowehere else on google. It is regarding a weird noise you get when you die playing through Story Mode on Timesplitters 2. Here's how to access the noise. Start playing through story mode on Timesplitters 2. Die and then the restart/quit screen comes up with a big floaty blue thing in the background with some loud music. Just put the pad down and listen to the music. It trails off and then you get some scary noises. Then right right right at the end after the scary noises a woman's voice asks "Is that too much?". In the interest of full disclosure here is the email I have sent to LEGEND Graeme Norgate for info: Hi Graeme Huge huge fan! Huge. I became aware of your work through Timesplitters and restrospectively found out you did the music on Killer Instinct too! What a legend. We used to listen to Killer Cuts all the time until the CD wore out. Anyway fandom aside I was playing through Timesplitters 2 again last week (Siberian D

So.... Spore. Guess we were right about that one then. Anyone still playing it? Anyone at all? No. Told you so. Little Big Planet. Team TGAM doesn't own a PS3 for a number of reasons, the one we most like to pretend is true is because we have standards. The real excuse is that the fucker is still too expensive and there still aren't anywhere near enough decent games to justify a purchase. Anyway, if we did have one I would probably get LBP because I like creating shit in games like gay little designs for Animal Crossing, Crap Levels in Timesplitters or Miis that look like Charles Darwin. We do have some friends (21 to be exact). And some of those friends own a PS3 (12) they aren't gamers in the classic sense. They are normal people with cars and houses and the like. They don't obsess over games or write 2 and a bit games blogs. Aside from dusty copies of Resistance they all own LBP and without exception: 1) Haven't even tried to make their own levels. So

Because copying and pasting articles from the magazine and news from Kotaku can get really really tiring quite quickly.

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

Two 'interesting' articles went up this week Why are black game characters failing audience on EDGE and Resident Evil 5 Coverage Reignites Racism Debate up on some shit blog we found. It appears that discussion about racism, race and games once again rears it's ugly head for do gooders to send their good thoughts out into the ether. However, this time around it is black history month and Resident Evil 5 demo is live so it's kinda topical. However, both of these posts completely gloss over the main meat of issues about race in games. We've all played the Resident Evil 5 demo by now and realised that there's nothing there really. Anyone wanting to single out things that they think are racist are overstretching a bit and any gamer who has been around a while can easily cite other games where the race scenario is reversed, irrelevant or ambiguous. And no one got the heeby jeebies then or had to try so hard to fight for race rights. On the internet. On a blog.

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

Almost exactly a year ago, we started emailing tips to tips@kotaku.com for those of you who don't know, Kotaku is a gaming news site, probably the best one actually at least in terms of volume and frequency, not neccessarily consistency. Anyway the above email address is for Kotaku readers to email in tips or rumours so that Kotaku can copy and paste the post on their site with some insightful sentence of commentary from one of the editors, 80% of which are called Brian. From here the escapist and then EDGE copy and paste all their news. So, for the last year we've been emailing in 'tips' sometimes once a day, other times once a month. But we did get a rise out of Brian Crecente once before they presumably blocked any email we send to them anymore. Question is can you guess after which one we got a response? Answer is on the reverse. 1. Hot Tip If you look at the ground in Golden Eye on the N64 you run a tiny bit faster. 2. Another Hot Tip In the videogame

We're thinking of doing a big 2008 retrospective because we are lazy, like to recycle content and love to use any opportunity to show off our unforced 'whacky' comradorie?, comradory?, comodorarody? and witty office banter. So I've been going through the archives, pulling together bits for this epic post about what we did this year, shifting computers every time I finish checking through a month in order to up our unique visitors. Whilst doing so I found this piece where we managed to stay focussed enough to ask our future selves some questions. Now it is the future and I will answer our pastselves' questions for my own pleasure. 1. Did all the above games come out in 2008 (Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 5, Silent Hill 5, Super Smash Brothers Brawl and TGAM: The game based on the blog based on the games that influence our lives.)? Yes, Not yet, yes, yes and no. After seeing the shitty Penny Arcade game TGAMTGBOTBBOTGTIOL got shelved. 2. Were they good?

*Is it because you stop looking or is it because the press coverage runs out?

Did you set up a website to discuss the hot topics in your lifestyle/hobby area of interactive gaming? Were you underwhelmed when nobody cared about what you had to say because the coverage on Kotaku was more even handed and up to date? If the answer to any of those questions is yes then fear not. You are a sad fanboy but by following our hot guide you'll have that template blog up and running again before you google your site url to see if anyone linked to you this week. Step 1: Even if your site is really shit, get sponsored ads almost before you have any other content. This makes your content-lite website look professional and if you get any hits in the future you might generate an income! To add a further professional air get that advertising that highlights words throughout the blog. There's nothing less frustrating than boxes of text popping up every time the cursor accidentally floats over words like "here" or "price drop". Step 2: After taking

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We got a reply!! Which will go down in TGAM history because no one normally replies to our open letters. Here it all is: Hi Cunzy1 1, or whoever. Thanks for your email. I always appreciate it when somebody takes the time and effort to contact us, as you have done, regardless of your opinion. Thank you also for continually buying the magazines. Your loyalty pays our wages and funds our passion. Thanks for your points and the detail of your email. All criticism is taken on board. It's kind of flattering to see that you're 'onto us hacks'. It's always nice to hear that people actually read the words and don't just look at the pretty pictures. I look forward to reading further analysis of the magazine, should you see fit to provide it. Lastly, let me reassert the point that I/we really appreciate the fact that you continually buy the magazine despite thinking it's far from the standards needed to satiate your refined gaming ideals. Have a great Bank Holiday, Cha

...isn't all pointless shit. Some of it is cool pointless shit. Yeah so Wow was so a year ago and even Portal is starting to get old. Just you wait. GTA IV is gonna land and you won't ever have to hear that cake song again! WoW Videos Congrats to BaronSoosdon. Oh and also, if you've got time to waste Halolz is GOLD at the moment.

What with being listed as an "industry link" over on RAMRAIDER and now knowing** the top Geometry Wars Galaxy player in the world surely this is the year of the maniac. And look!, Games Media Awards people, no ads so perhaps we should win the Best Commercial Non-Commercial Commercial Website Or Blog this year yeah? Yeah? Then we can finally give up our jobs packing battery chickens and write posts about Resident Evil full time! So without further ado, congratulations to DR Hamhock MD who by now must have been signed by Nintendo and is currently developing a Dr Hamhock limited edition Wiimote holder and/or DS stylus for mass release. Well done, you made it son*****, you made it. * By we I mean me. Cunzy1 1. Richie left the blog about two years ago and since then I've been dressing up as her and doing posts about dildonics and naruto. That was until Claire interrupted me when I had the Richie wig on and was posing in the mirror talking in a Scottish accent. I went

Sup maniacs? We were at GDC and we've had precious little blogging time so here's a brief catch up in the form of a numbered list: 1) The Guiness World Records: Gamer's Edition is now out (already reduced by 33% in many shops) and it is worth picking up in the future when it is somewhere around the £5 mark. Packed with a lot of tenuous records and inaccuracies but it's worth ignoring the blindingly obvious mistakes (Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 are not PlayStation2 games, why didn't anyone consult us?) to discover some lesser known gaming related gems. So for example, did you know that David Lynch directed the PS2 'Third Place' adverts? Or that the PSOne could connect to a number of Sony mobile phones? I don't know what they could do when they were connected but you could do it. In Japan. 2) Both myself and Richie have had our IPs banned from the Resident Evil Wiki for trying to add the articles "Jill Sammich" and "That G

Yes it is. Five points if you can get the reference.

To:1 1 From: "Type-0" Wow! This new set up is very interesting Cunzy1 1. Your day note was quite boring you should really make an effort to learn japanese or some shit. I'm not doing the Wii jokes again! Anyway, here at TGAM Towers everything is great. We still have the same asinine commentors and a whole bunch of posts from the puerile to the interesting. What you missed (because it is possible to miss stuff that is posted on a website if you can't detract your eyes from the puke inducing colour scheme): Bewbs Bewbs Bewbs Oh hawt bewbs Bewbs Lol Bewbs and Biff