That guy's a Maniac...

With the advent of the  Nindies  and the recent  Konami re-releases , over the past few weeks the term Metroidvania has been slung about a lot at me. While this has not really given me a desire to play either Castlevania or Metroid, is has made me wanna play their estranged cousin - Turrican on the SNES:  I decided to pick up the SNES version of Turrican and burn through that, though... my first fond memories and experience of Turrican was on the Commodore 64: On the C64 the game was a different beast, for starters it was just "Turrican", not "Super Turrican". Note:And just to add further confusion to the whole thing, there was also a "Super Turrican" on the NES, which was a mix of Turrican and Turrican 2... Phew... Turrican on the C64, or the original Turrican had vast expansive levels and despite Turrican being referred to as a "Run and gun" it had many secrets and paths and caves to negotiate and explore which you certainly were ...

Like everyone else we were reaching for the pitchforks when Pokemon Shuffle was launched, a title published by Nintendo with explicitly freemium bullshit unlike the freemieish Steel Diver: Sub Wars which started life slightly less free to play and then got updated to be slightly more free to play and of course the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online which is a card game so for whatever reason the gaming press give it a pass or don't bother covering it. As lifelong Pokemon players I'd also like to throw in the "physically drag yourself to a GAME store to download a legendary Pokemon" for the Pokemon main series into the same category but only because those experiences have been so harrowing in the past it feels like a cost that transcends money. Our trajectory with this game went like this:   Please won't you buy some jewels to errr shuffle me? Please? Boo. Hiss. Ninty sellouts! It's... okay but I'd like to buy it. I doubt I'll stick with...

We know, we know . Yes you can touch it.

THIS IS GOING BADLY . STUPID FUCKING MEME .

Wii game Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is due out in less than a month and already, with some predictability, it is picking up some great reviews. The EDGE review goes as far as to say "How apt that this ultimate tale of hero-making should see Nintendo’s hardware become the console it was always meant to be." and ONM gives the game 98%. The editorial of this month's EDGE encapsulates how we feel about modern gaming. Oh how we've forgotten what "proper" gaming was with the seemingly unstoppable tide of "games" you "play" on your phone. This is gaming. That sense of wonder at a virtual world that is unique to the feeling that games give you. We should be happy. LoZ:SS is evidence (alongside Xenoblade Chronicles and the upcoming project rainfall releases) that there's life in the Wii yet and further proof that graphics do not necessarily make a great game. Much like the Gamecube, at a time when the Wii is increasingly referred to as a ...

This is part of an occasional series. Normally we catch up with the Nintendo Channel every fortnight and give the low down on what's happening. In August we got pretty fucked off because the only new content on the channel since August was a weekly downloads trailer that included 1950s Lawnmower Kids as its only download. I wish we were lying. YEAH THANKS BECAUSE I WASN'T SOLD ON THE CONCEPT UNTIL THIS STUPID ANNOYING VIDEO CAME ALONG. EGG ON MY FACE. I TAKE IT BACK. 1950s LAWNMOWER KIDS IS AN UNDER APPRECIATED CLASSIC. I IMAGINE. This months output has us grinding our teeth into dentine dust. It drives us nuts. Nintendo has a channel that sits on every single Wii . That's about 87 million owners right there. Okay so probably not all of them have ever used the channel but the channel has been watched for over one million hours by approximately 500,000 users. This number could be more but that's the minimum amount of players who have allowed their data to be com...

We're not even going to do a proper Now Showing this week because it is so dire but jump on the Wii and check out the latest weekly download video. For those nintendinly challenged the only download this week is this .

You may have read this story last week about the tragic death of a 20 year old killed by deep vein thrombosis, supposedly from playing Halo online (ODST? Reach? The original?). You can predict how the rest of the story goes. The parents say they thought it was safe, Microsoft point to that small print that comes with their console, in the instruction booklet for every single game and even flashes up as a message in many games "Time to take a break kids". My initial response was that long stints of doing anything causes all kinds of medical problems but a friend pointed out that even if you were reading a book for twelve hours straight you'd move around more than if you were gaming. Nothing else exists like gaming to fix your attention so avidly. Dead arms, pins and needles and head rushes are par for the course for gamers and chillingly, this story reminded me of marathon sessions in my youth. Fortunately, necessity means I don't have time for hours and hours of play...

In this month's Official Nintendo Magazine the paedo and the three five year olds are asking for readers to vote for their games of the year in various categories. I tried to find a weblink for this activity but alas! The ONM website SUCKS . Properly SUCKS . Okay. It's all here apparently . Anyway the point of this post is that I have only played one game in all those shortlisted in all seven categories (obviously, not including Most Anticipated). The only game I have played is Dead Rising: Chop Til' You Drop which is nominated for biggest let down. Which, isn't fair. It is purely misunderstood. Where do you people get the time to buy and play all these games? I'm a fan of gaming, a fan of Nintendo with a bit of disposable income and I haven't played a single game highly rated from the last year!? Where do the kidz get all the money? How many have you played TGAM reader(s)?

Yes. It is indeed Xmas. The time of year for family, eating, drinking from 11am, presents and sleeping. But as Sir Bob highlighted we should also think about all those people living in the third world who don't get to celebrate christmas at all. They also get stomped on by a dungaree wearing maniac too. Sucks to live in the third world. Believe it or not, this post was inspired by an excellent joke in ONM issue 51. Kidding you, I am not.

:(