That guy's a Maniac...

Acid rounds is a semi-regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Sunday is the day of God, apparently it was made his day cuz he had just churned out a 6 day week, and decided he was gonna rest on his laurels. Every week we do the same, except instead of resting on our laurels we brag about games we have beasted from start to finish, Last week I went off on one about Oblivion this week Cunzers tells us about yet another spaceship game ! So What's this one about? Cunzy1 1: Starlink: Battle for Atlas is an interesting mix, it's part space game, part planetary exploration and part RTS with a more-complex-than-it-needs-to-be toys to life element. Pilots, ships, wings and weapons can either be changed on the fly by plugging and swapping around physical parts or used to unlock parts and pilots for time limited use in digital/handheld mode. The story in Starlink won't be threatening narrative titans of Sci-Fi, Starlink is a b

Having historically shown but a half-arsed interest in video game development and support to date it's interesting to see that both Google and Apple have recently announced half-arsed plans to continue. In the Red Corner we have Google Stadia. A website which...YouTubers...terraflops at 60 fps which is technically very impressive. In the Blue Corner Apple have announced Apple Arcade which will...games...apps... so expect to see that in coffee shops all over the world! The pixellated elephant in the room however is WHAT VIDEO GAMES ARE WE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT? The administrators and system designers have spent so long on the beanbags in the flexible working open plan offices, they forgot to tell us the key part of these boring projects. Fortunately, dear readers, we have the ultimate inside source, it's Alcamoth Citizen reporting from inside Xenoblade Chronicles and she has EXCLUSIVE news on the games to share. This, her first report from the stream cloud piss:    

Flame rounds lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame roundsded?). Richie: So! What trope has bested you this time! Cunzy1 1: Super Mario Brothers 3. Level 3-3. You're having a good time with your brother Luigi fighting the Koopalings and making progress then this level happens and it gets real. It gets brutal. Boss Bass just outright murks you. It's not so much the being swallowed by a big fish thing it's just the sheer bluntless of it. You're there one minute, fish boy jumps, open gobbed then. Gone. I want to remove Boss Bass from gaming so I can sleep at night without waking up bolting upright and screaming because I thought I'd been swallowed out of fucking existence. Richie: Just dodge him/

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

Acid rounds  is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Cunzy1 1: Ahhh yes the game that started it all The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion . Aside from a few ill fated forays into Skyrim, I've not touched the Elder Scrolls games at all so interested to see what you have to say. First up this is that sword one in first person with the dragons, dwarves and fairies right? Richie:  Just the one dragon in this one, unlike Skyrim where it's hard to move with out one overencumbering you with bones. No Dwarves or Fairies either, Dwarves are in Elder Scrolls are long extinct, dunno about fairies, maybe. But yeah this is the fourth Elder scrolls game, set in Cyrodiil, notably with Jean Luc Picard, Wonder Woman and Ned stark doing the voiceovers. Cunzy1 1: Did you play any of the other Elder Scrolls games? Richie:  Well, Skyrim, to death, but back in the day I did play Morrowind, but it suffered very heavily from PC-game-itis. Relying he

Konami announced a Castlevania collection ( among others )  due for some point this year in summer, for some anniversary. As ageing gamergirls, one would expect us to be "flooding the basement" on this one. Nah. One of us once played the one with Jean Luc Picard and Begbie, and found it too hard, so we locked it away. We did play "that bit" in Smash bros adventure mode, does that count? Due to the impact these games had on us we listed out the full titles as best as memory serves, I'm sure the right one is in there? Castlevania: Shadow of dark Castlevania: Dark shadows Castlevania: Shadows Lords Castlevania: Lord of Shadow Castlevania: Lord of Shadows Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Castlevania: Lords of Shadows Castlevania: Simon's revenge Castlevania: Belmont's revenge Castlevania: Samus' revenge Castlevania: Castlevania two Castlevania: Dark of the night Castlevania: Shadow symphony Castlevania: Fates of Shadow Castlevania: Retur

Mario Kart 8 was released for the WiiU in 2014 and the Deluxe version of the game came out for Nintendo Switch in 2017. The Mario Kart series of games remain highly popular and although the longevity of these titles through online racing means that these games demand high prices years (almost decades in the case of Mario Kart 7 ) after release, the communities that build up in these games are rarely subject to academic enquiry or basic coverage in the average games media.  Fascinatingly, because Nintendo EAD, the developer of the game and Nintendo the publisher take online harassment and bullying seriously players of online Nintendo games and games on Nintendo platforms often have a highly limited mode of expression to communicate with other players when playing online together. This is of interest because enterprising players use the limited tools they have to contrive and develop new languages and forms of expression through cosmetics in games (costumes, 'emotes', equip