That guy's a Maniac...

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

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

Last weekend was my stag do, which was organised by my gay partner, Richie! Unlike your traditional stag do there was not a stripper in sight. Or going out. At all. Instead it was this groom to be and his bezzy mates playing the games that we all grew up with. I couldn't have asked for a better stag do, I laughed until I cried, I drank until it hurt and we had one last gaming session with all my Slads in one (well, two rooms). Sadly on Sunday I realised this would probably be the last time we'd all be together with nothing but time for playing the games that we cut our teeth on. But enough of the gay stuff! AWARDS TIME! Group Awards. CLICK FOR BIG IMAGE. This will mean very little if you weren't there. Some of the games that came out: Quake 2, Mashed, Mario Kart, Boom Blox, Geometry Wars, Resident Evil 5, Timesplitters 2, Puzzle Fighter, Blazblue, Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur, Pod Racer, Red Faction Guerilla, Wii Sports, Army of Two and even a spot of doorsies. The weeke

The ever reliable Pat over at videolamer recommended that we listen to Robert Ashley's podcast series A Life Well Wasted . Being the impressionable douche bags that we are and worried that mean men will steal our DS on the bus we duly downloaded it and listened to it on the commutes. We recommend that you do too (if you haven't already, we are late to the party). Forts . Initially, after the first two minutes I hated it. Hated the kooky music, hated the America-centric irrelevant commentary (you might as well be talking about American Football rather than EGM), and hated Robert Ashley's drawl- "Editor and host of an innnernet radio sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew". However, I stuck with it. And it is worth sticking with it. I feel embarrassed to qadmit it, but my first approach to this podcast was to approach it like I would a forum, or blog comment or Youtube video. Guard up, my view point vs yours, I know more than you, you forgot about game X or X