That guy's a Maniac...

High School Student Uses Gameboy To Create Fake Bomb Think that's neat? I just used a sharpener to create a fake bomb. I just used a credit card to create a fake bomb. I just used my fingers and a mouth noise to create a fake gun. In fact I just this second used a pen and my keys to create a fake fourty foot mechanic titan capable of destroying civilization with nothing but happy thoughts. Sometimes. Just sometimes. I think that the gaming "news" sites stretch the definitions of 'gaming' and 'news'. Have you created a fake something recently?

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

From the Graudian article about tax breaks and umm acceptability of games comes the following comment from Mr Macabre: It doesn't help the industry in this country when British landmarks ARE used in games they threaten to sue! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_the_use_of_Manchester_Cathedral_in_Resistance What do you think will happen if they set GTA V in a replica London? Ooooh I don't know? Imagine if we set a GTA in London. What would we call that game? GTA London maybe? Is that what we might call it you fucking muggy cunt. Oh god and it would cause all kinds of controversy! Oh and to prove it, here is the wikipedia link you grade A moron. We might even be able to think of a number of shoddy GTA clones set in London if we thought a little bit harder but we're too busy firing off moronic thoughts into the internet site looking to pick up chicks. Mr Massivetwat is evidence enough that we don't want games to be acceptable in the same way that we don'

A bunch of people at the office were circulating the latest link for the latest masterpiece by Kotaku's Brian Crecente: Motion Control in Gaming: Rationalizing a New Dissonance . The usual jokes were flying around about how "Editor-In-Chief" means something different in America, and discussion arose as to when exactly Kotaku became (or desired to become) a science fiction pastiche of the real games industry. Deeply moved by the latest travesty from Kotaku Towers, I decided to get in touch with the big C for some constructive criticism. Here's how it went: TGAM: Hey. Just read your post about motion control in gaming. Thought I'd drop you a line to let you know it is one of the worst pieces of HTML pretending to be writing on Kotaku (FYI this is akin to saying it is one of the worst pieces of writing on the internet). Next time leave it to Leigh Alexander or someone else who can write their way out of a paper bag. It couldn't be more high school even if it ment

Apparently, Dittos* are going extinct, according to yesterday's newspaper the METRO. This is stupid. Everyone has a Ditto right? And they aren't fished, you just catch them in the grass. I have a spare if anyone is interested. Or find them at music festivals. But they aren't very good. By the time you have wasted a turn you are then in the unfortunate position in that your foe knows all your moves. We hate it when newspapers get all their shit wrong. Stupid newspapers. Sadly I only worked out Ditto wasn't great when it dinged level 89. *We know it should be Ditto not Dittos but we love annoying those wiki pricks who genuinely care about it. Because when the aliens find part of a server floating round in the space where Earth used to be, they're really gonna be concerned about the correct way of pluralising a fictional monster. Anyway if it does go extinct we won't have to worry about that.

Read it here . Basically, former who-is-that-guy-again? leader of the tory party, IDS has pulled a Vaz. This time though, avoiding Vaz's idiotic mistake a few weeks back, he appears to be aware of all the laws about selling stuff to people who aren't old enough to buy it all. He just says nobody pays attention. He also comes out with: “We are driving children to lose their childhood, and some video games are incredibly violent, like Grand Theft Auto. They are meant to be 18 but nobody cares what it says on the label." Fuck off IDS. Just fuck off. When was the last time you took a bus after 11pm in this country? That's violence right there. Real actual violence. In fact for anyone living in London they probably see violence every week. I know I do. And then of course there are violent films on TV all day every day which anyone can watch with no restrictions whatsoever. Oh and books. When was the last time you got ID(S'ed?) for a book? And even then. Even if 1997 gam

This one is from the only other fellow  gaming celebrity   Leigh Alexander. "I prefaced this post with a reminder of the business realities major blog networks face because I find it hard to believe that Brian, who taught me quite a great deal about going the extra mile on news reporting -- because our audience deserves the whole truth -- would thumbs-up a porn star's "celebrity" advice column unless it were part of a larger and necessary Gawker initiative" Brian Kotaku Brian? The whole truth? Good one Leigh. Good one.

Theif and MP Keith 'clueless' Vaz, having got over being ridiculed for various tedious and hyperbolic lambasting of games based on no evidence whatsoever once again gets in the Daily Mail off the back of "outrage" at a big game launch this time over Modern Warfare 2. Read all abaaaaat it here "Outrage as new video game lets players kill civilians in terror attacks". Bored, bored, bored. Surely Mr Vaz has more important things to be sorting out? Or maybe he could plough back all that money he skimmed from the tax payer into fixing Leicester before attacking games? Change the tune Vaz. You're so out of your depth once again. How about instead of knee jerking every time you want a bit of press coverage, you do some proper research into the non issues you soap box? God knows the UK government is so shit at supporting the games industry, to be even more damaging when you make moronic comments is insult to injury. Do you want to drive the gam

Yes people an exclaimed SIGH! This is the cause of the now doubly exclaimed sigh!!. We are literally sitting two clicks away from a whole section on wikipedia called List of Disney video games by genre Mickey Mouse Series.

The other day we were reading the TGAM archives and laughing out loud at ourselves. Out loud. That’s pretty wrong no? But it was when we were reading the TGAM archives that we realised that WE ARE FUCKING GAMING CELEBRITIES! Yes folks, without actually knowing it we went from mediocrity to gaming celebrity stardom. Like that news about the goose that levelled up and became a swan that time. Here is the story about how we discovered we were celebrities (this will probably be in our second autobiography when we publish our book now we are gaming celebrities). We got a link on Kotaku once and not one of those news stealing links a proper link for creating something unique. Our best friend totally met Pentadact , secretly James secretely Tom at University. He even emailed him to check and Tom emailed back. What a nice chap. We insult Richard Cobbett on a regular basis and he doesn’t even hate us. We interviewed that photographer who did the Devil May Cry shoot for Front magazine. We are

Internet fiend and Leaderboard legend the Hockster just gave us the tip-off about the new Resident Evil 4 HD version. We're pretty sure this is breaking so you'll see it in a TTECNK on lesser sites soon. Here is the original: Here is Resident Evil 4 HD. You can see that Capcom, fingers burnt from Resident Evil 5, have played it safe and set the whole thing in Asia land. Can't racist yourself! Except you are being racist if you just racist yourself and not everyone. Try again Capcom.

Gaming is trying hard to be mainstream, even though it already is but not in the way many gamers gamers can appreciate because they are too busy grinding and cyberring to spend enough time in the real world. A world without elves and muscle men and barrels and princesses and invisible walls. One thing that might help the deluded to believe that gaming is more mainstream is if we create some Gaming Celebrities. That way we join the common woman by slating off how fat, ugly, beautiful, stylish, hideous and underweight our favourite gaming people are and we can OMG to our hearts delights every time Jeff Minter takes a crap and it makes headlines. Our part in all this is to interview the top 100 gaming celebrities pushing them from blogosphere obscurity to the heady heights of celebrity and maybe see them take part in ice skating, ballroom dancing and orgies-on-islands television programmes like real celebrities do. This is not Leigh Alexander. We emailed over 500 gaming celebs and

From the Graudian Gameswipe With Charlie Brooker 10pm BBC4 Following in the footsteps of Screenwipe, Charlie Brooker's new show- you guessed it- aims its remote at the world of videogames. Whether you're a gamer hater or lover, Gameswipe- part of the Electric Revolution season on BBC4- shows how games can be just as dumb or brilliant as TV and movies. And Charlie certainly knows what he's talking about, having spent his early career causing mayhem at PC Zone. Graham Lineham, Dara O'Brian and Dom Joly are on hand to join in the pixellated fun. Thoughts on the bit from the Guardian: 1) TV and Movie envy :( 2) Gamer hater or lover? Surely this should be game hater or lover? Who loves gamers? 3) Would have left out the bit about PC Zone, most people think that is a shop where you buy printers. 4) With the exception of Graham Linehan funny men from elsewhere on TV have no place here. 5) Videogame rather than video game? Controversial. 6) Forgot to mention the guys from Video

A new video game created by celebrity scientist Baroness Susan Greenfield is set to finally harness the power of video games to make children do 'good things' rather than 'bad things'. Ever since 1996, children have been playing video games to kill zombies, pilot futuristic spacecraft and connect gems of the same colour in a line to make them disappear. "And what we've seen is that children go out into the real world and do these things" Greenfield explains. "Scientists reckon that video games are more powerful than influences from parents, peers and even television". "So rather than control them to manage a house of people as in the Sims or identify Pokemon footprints as in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time, we've harnessed that power so that children will do better in life by playing this game". The new game called The best you could probably do given your socio-economic background will launch ready for the Chris

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Noooooooooooooooooooooo

Here's a little insight into the world of video games journalism. We've all thought about doing it but no journo with integrity would ever go through with it. Hell, we flew pretty close to the wind one time but we pulled out at the last minute. However, Owen Good at Kotaku has broken one of the golden rules of games journalism. It's so meta we just don't even know where to look or to start reading it from. Yes. Kotaku has lowered the community IQ by several hundred points by doing a top 5 list of other top ten lists . Click only if you are brave enough. Oh and Owen, don't forget some of the top tens we've had here over the years including: Cunzy1 1's Top Ten Non lethal Weapons in Video Games. Cunzys top 10 computer game characters he like to get screenshots/photos of cos-players of, so that he can get hard, as nothing else does it now. Top 5 Shit pokemon that are shit, but not quite as shit as the top 5 lamest pokemon that 1up posted: TGAM&

Semi-retired Ram Raider have come back out of retirement again again to bring us this news about a game called Darkfall . The essence of the issue, for those too lazy to hit the link is that Eurogamer staffer Ed Zitron was unfairly treated by the company behind Darkfall Online, Aventurine. Including the not deleting of personal details put up on a forum. Or something. This is unfair treatment and an issue that we are happy to bring more attention to, through the time honoured review of Darkfall Online Boxart. Cunzy1 1: What? No boxart? Richie: No due to the cutbacks we can't afford to google images anymore so we'll have to review the game title itself. Cunzy1 1: Another world first from TGAM. Second greatest etc. etc. Richie: Hmmm. Darkfall. Doesn't that game exist? Cunzy1 1: No you are thinking of Darkwatch. Richie: No. I was thinking of the Darkness. Cunzy1 1: Isn't that a band? Also, I was thinking of Dark Stalkers. Richie: Racist. Cunzy1 1: Not racist. But by findin

I skip town for a few days and all hell breaks loose. Reports of abuse, AXE MENTALISTS and the credit change crisis. Not to mention the weeds. GOD the weeds. This seals it. I'm boycotting Nooks until all this blows over* Economic crisis and or credit crunch hits virtual world. Would be the headline I would get the BBC intern to write using this screenshot. I'd put climate change in there too. An AXE MENTALIST came to town too. This is not how you talk to AXE MENTALISTS. Nor this. Expect lives to be lost. *Well maybe next week. I have turnips I need to sell this week.

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

What a prick