That guy's a Maniac...

OK do you remember we used to do a regular feature called That Guy's A Maniac? No? Because we only did three in a year and a half. Anyway, it's the return of That Guy's A Maniac and this years maniac is Randy McSporran. Randy McSporran used to be both our housemates and was a cool guy but now he's getting married and stuff in Estonia, so his wedding is essentially a funeral for the man we used to know. He's all about commitment and changing himself now. I'm kinda worried about it because I still owe him £200, but I always remind him when I see him, so it doesn't count. He also pronounces else as "elts" and is the only person I know who was once on the True Man List but then he did something which meant he was taken off the True Man List and could never get back on. No one can remember what he did though but it was during University so it was probably something like he wouldn't go to the shop at 3 in the morning to buy munchies. Anyway he is a g

So it looks like pokemania is taking over the world * and at the same time nothing of interest is happening in the rest of gaming. Seriously, check Gamespot's news page. Snorarama. Looks like everyone took the month off because they aren't going to knock Diamond and Pearl off the top spots (except umm Transformers the DS game apparently). Anyway this week in Omastar Comics, well, see for yourself. This one goes out to TTEchidna in a bad way. *This may not strictly be true but wikipedia doesn't have an article on "Is Pokemania taking over the world?" so what do I know about it?

Yep. As you may be able to tell we're pretty gay for pokemon and we don't feel the need to put the accent over the e either. The games have been going for 10 years or so now but for those who truly want to catch 'em all there is a heap load of effort involved. The question I'm asking today is IS IT TOO MUCH? For example if you wanted to get all of the pokemon from the start here is what you have to do: Buy Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow (£30 at the time) And Gameboy (£100 originally) Play the games and trade with 'friends' (Probably 150 hours to get them all) Buy Silver/Gold (£30) And Gameboy colour (£90) Play the game and trade between friends or yourself to complete the dex (200 hours including legendary efforts to get the legendary dogs) Buy Pokemon Stadium 2 to get pokemon unavailable and to facilitate self trading (£120 N64, Pokemon Stadium for GBA Adaptor £40, Pokemon Stadium 2 £40, Extra N64 pad £30, spare GBA adapter £15) Buy GBA in preparation for th

Yeah Omastar Comics number 6! This week Omastar takes a little stroll down memory lane. He doesn't often like to reminisce because then it dawns on him that HE HAS LIVED A LIFE AND DIED ALREADY . He didn't ask to be resurrected. No siree. Next on Omastar Comics:- Controversy at the MORTO (Music of Rock Type Origin) Awards.

An anonymoose sent me this link (via the Beeb). It's former EDGE editor Margaret Robertson on why she plays games. She starts the piece very controversially saying that games are rubbish! Oooh1 I'm outraged but then she ends it by saying this about Guitar Hero: "But somehow, even though I can't do it, my brain can. And so I get to watch, astonished and really rather proud, as my hand taps out the right sequence. If I'm playing Guitar Hero on the expert setting, I know as a matter of certainty that I can't keep up with the sequence of notes streaming by. Not least because my eyes go completely out of focus within about a minute. And yet, somehow, my brain and my hand have done a deal, and notes are streaming out of the screen and my score is through the roof. Check me out - I'm amazing. And that's not arrogance. I don't take any credit for it. I can't." And I think she is saying something here that I haven't really seen expresse

You may have heard of a machinima called War of the Servers already. If not watch it now! That's an order private! Here's the trailer: It's good machinima it has a classic plot retold and revamped, it's beautifully shot, plenty of action a splash of drama, there are in-jokes,,cameos. It really is great, the score even. If you have never liked or even watched machinima then give this one a go. It's all on Youtube, some meaty 7 episodes and over an hour of material. Watch it! Watch it! Watch it! You won't be sorry. http://www.waroftheservers.com/ "Kind of like Blue Screen Of Death without the cringeyness mixed with Red vs. Blue without the boredom of all the bopping men" Four Stars, Cunzy1 1 TGAM Put that on the DVD box Stoneman you mentalist

Pretty straightforward post. Just name your pokemon one of the names on the left if it has one of the moves on the right and LOLLERCAUST city here we come* Midwife used Cut Nympho used Horn Attack Cock used Horn Drill Richie used Leer Tia used Bite** Butt used Gust, Mist, SonicBoom etc. Injacuzi used Hydropump Gimp used Submission/Bind/Wrap/Disable Richie used Siesmic Toss ToxicSS used Absorb Penis used Growth Penis used String Shot STI used Toxic Daterap used Hypnosis/Disable Cock used Harden Cocks used Double Team Postorgas used Minimize Catholic used Withdraw Sensible used Barrier/Protect Hutchence used Self Destruct Fellate used Lick Butt used Sludge Vagina used Waterfall Bum used poison gas BJ used Lovely Kiss/Sweet Kiss Tranny used Transform/Double Edge Cock/Vagina used Explosion Ozguy used Bonemerang AgresivLes used Conversion Suicidal used Slash Richie used Substitute Daterape used Powder Snow Imcumming used Scary Face Brown love used Sludge Bomb Poofetish used Mud Slap No4play

Yep it's been at least 4 posts but here is another Canon comic in the ongoing saga. This week Omastar has lost his bleeding keys

..... and I mean finally! After a failed preorder and a bad case of "insufficient funds" I have finally procured my copy of Pokemon Diamond. You know what that means, a TGAMer buying a new game, nearly at launch! That's right kids it's time for some NEW GAMES JOURNALISM! I open the case and instantly take out the book and give it a deep sniff. Mmmmm that new game instruction booklet smell. I place it to one side and imagine the photo I'm going to take with the Diamond instruction booklet as the top book in a fan of booklets in chronological order with Yellow at the bottom then the Gold and Silver book, then the Sapphire Ruby book, then the Fire Red Leaf Green book and then the brand spanking new Diamond book on top. "At last" I think. My years of loyalty to the franchise finally paying off "Thank you Nintendo, thank you". I thought it was all over after Leaf Green and Fire Red. I mean essentially they were remakes of the original and then X

Tower Tycoon Palmer is a dick, swanning in with his stupid milotic... You know I'm just enjoying the Battle tower, i didn't ask for you to turn up and ruin my fun with your CHEATY pokemon. Wanker

1. Kotaku did some posts on some video games related news. 2. In other news Kotaku has possibly posted the most wondrous and amazing photograph EVER, I was scanning though some post on the perils of conventions, the photo didn’t immediately grab my attention as on first glance it seemed to a be a usual collection Cos-players: But look closer to the middle one… That’s right! It’s Claire from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code Veronica. (Though I believe the outfit depicted is Claire’s Code Veronica outfit) As such I wanna make a call out to this woman, or indeed any like-minded women out there: Wanted for Casual encounters: 1x Woman 1x Claire Redfield outfit Contact: richie@thatguys.co.uk Nice… Claire Redfield = Wnak factor 13 Signing out Richie.

"With the arrival of the new generation comes the departure of the old and thus the circle of life continues.." So I had last week off and I took the opportunity to catch up with some long overdue gaming. I spent hours on Super Smash Brothers Melee, I now only need three more trophies (Diskun, Sheriff and Mew) and I’m done. I also finally finished campaign mode on Advance Wars. Seeing as Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are finally out in the UK I also thought I’d whack Pokemon Stadium on and take the opportunity to spend some time with my old friends on Pokemon Yellow and Silver. That’s when I found out. That’s when I discovered something that would sink my heart and almost bring a tear to my eye. I set up the N64 and put Pokemon Stadium 2 on with Silver and Yellow in the Gameboy adapters. Yellow was registered fine but the N64 kept saying that Pokemon Silver ID###### didn’t appear to have any save data. It’s fine I thought I just took the game out, blew in all of the slots

Right well, Only 2 more days till Diamond and Pearl hit the shelves, for the UK. But since I was an impatient bastard I decided to get the US version, as yet I have found no issues with the US/UK compatibility, wireless works, transferring from my UK Leaf green and Ruby has been fine, the UK version of Ranger even gives the Manaphy egg over no problems. The only thing that can possibly go wrong (and it seems a very small possibility) is that the Wii Battle revolution game may not be compatible. So since the US release I have clocked up over 150 hours, I took down the elite 4 after about 50 hours as, well I did some mincing about trying to get the right team for the job. The team I first took the elite 4 down with was: Bronzong Steel / Psychic lvl 56, a defence-y pokemon, the first time I actually tried training one of these guys up, he’s really good can take loads of hits and has a bunch of annoying moves like Confuse ray, as well as Extrasensory (a really powerful Psychic

Right well, Finally back from E3 where the thatguys were in full effect, we exposed the game we discussed rumours on the movie based on the game, based on the blog. We traded pokemon with some of the top high ranking execs of Capcom, Eidos, ID Games and Blizzard. We held con-calls with our thatguys branded iPhones. We got drunk with a few of the Konami booth babes, who couldn’t speak English. We discussed the Transformers Movie and its sequels, including the possibility of thatguys sponsorship. Omastar Comics is huge over there, personally I thought most American were ”stupid”, but as it torns out they really dig the moral and social commentary that omastar represents, as such we have another non-canon E3 Omastar comic: This week Omastar (and Magmar) Discuss the growing market of anal sex toys and whether the vagina is receiving enough/too much attention. Wnak

When laziness kicks in! Today Omastar goes to Japan to buy cool games and merchandise. Oh boy! Japan is so great all gamers should live there! Click for a bigger version. Coming soon: Something that takes more than five minutes to think about and do! Possible posts: 1) A book review of the Command & Conquer Tiberium Sun paperback I bought the other day 2) Nothing else. Life is very depressing at the moment 3) A story about the time we met the guy who made paperboy 4) Something copied and pasted from kotaku with two lines of text about what we think about it 5) The death of EDGE. How EDGE has got increasingly unreadable in recent months

One more before bedtime. Today Omastar discusses (angrily) the english on holiday in Spain Next week on TGAM: We do a really boring review of an old game to make ourselves sound better in the oh-so-intellectual field of writing about videogames. Richie, the supposed co-author of the world's second greatest videogames blog in the world, That guy's a maniac thinks about doing a post. CO-AUTHOR UNCONVINCED Nintendo make an original Wii game, exclusive right here. Apparently it is controllable. We explore the 'PS3 online' rumour sweeping the internet. Click here for a sneak preview of the result Counter Strike Priapism Syndrome: We get all the details on this disturbing medical condition affecting America's youth. Until then, take care and I'll expect to see you 'all*' next week. * Well I'm guaranteed to be here so Richie, I'm expecting to see you here is what I'm saying

Remember this? Well it is still on for release on the Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Gamecube, GBA, PSP and DS. There is even a version for the Wii which is like the other versions but with retarded controls so that everyone from the hardcore to the nubians is on a level playing field. Well we've been playing our cards close to our chest on this one but if you were at E3 you may have seen a trailer of it at the Nintendo stand. Anyway here are a few more details: Levels As well as the ice, fire, warehouse and sky levels we've been working with the developers on a train level, an Orc level, a space level and a level set in a post apocalyptic warehouse. One of these levels will be available on release but the others will be released as downlodable content but it'll be worth spending your Wii points and MSpoints because we will bundle the levels with a bunch of other crap you don't want or need! Controls Players can now dual wield weapons and customise their characters

Omastar is at E3 reporting on all the exciting games things. How did he get a pass I wonder?

What happens when a bunch of lazy academics who don't do any real research but want to play Second Life, MUDs and WoW all get together and try to think of something to do? This Dear Terra Nova et al. Nobody cares until we've seen you beat Emerald and Ruby weapon. Until then stop trying to outdo each other by trying to find the first innovation by trawling through MUDs and other crappy subject material to find the first time Chicken Sandwiches were featured in games, sorry platforms or virtual worlds. And in response: A Declaratio n of Virt u al World s Policy made by the writers of That Guy's A Maniac, the Second Greatest Videogame Blog of All Time In the World , assembled in full and free convention with a temporary no cybering cease fire in Gaylando in Animal Crossing: Wild World as the first true Synthetic Worlds Congress. Whereas virtual worlds are places with mostly furries or paedos or unhappy middle aged America, unless we are talking about interesting virtual

Oh man so I'm all "at E3" even though there is no E3 and oh man here's a list of the top ten most anticipated games at E3 and whatever and then I went to a Sony thing at E3 man they've got things and then I'm like all over at Nintendo E3 and we should have a poll about who is better at E3 and it's like totally Nintendo or something and then there's Halo 3 at E3 and Tony Hawk oh man and I'm all over E3 at E3. Here I am with E3 and like a new sonic game. WHATEVER VIDEOGAMES BLOGS SHUT UP NO ONE CARES ABOUT E3. If you take one thing from E3 this year take this and shove it down your japs eye like you used to with the paperclips. Fucking E3.

Dear Capcom, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance I ain't mad - I just think it's FUCKED UP you don't answer fans If you didn't wanna talk to me when I finally finished Devil May Cry you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Dr Wo That's my little brother man, he's only six years old We waited in the blistering cold for you,four hours and you just said, "No." That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fuckin idol He wants to be just like you man, he even bought Monster Hunter 1 and 2 I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to Remember when we met in Super Street Fighter 2 I've bought all your games and I'm worried about zombies - see I'm just like you in a way I never liked platform exclusives neither; I used to always cheat on RE2 on the Gamecube I can relate to what you're saying in your games so when I have a shitty day, I drift away and put 'em on cause I

I will keep posting these as a form of protest until Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil Outbreak are released on the DS with proper co-op play over Wi-Fi or wireless. This week Omastar discusses global warming from an extinct marine invertebrate perspective.

Click for the full version. This week, Omastar is anxious about terrorism.

Right, so it has been reported that some company somewhere has bought to the rights to CryENGINE 2. CryENGINE 2 is some kind of HD games engine being used for crysis, we have all seen the photo of the guys head which is so detailed you can see the pock-marks on his cheeks. Anyways in today’s headlines it seems that the CryENGINE 2 has been licensed to another company, and this is the great thing, the company is called: Apparently all of their titles have a distinct Neanderthal them throughout. Ok, ok… I know they have the retarded American way of spelling “Palaeo” but I think they can be forgiven for the cool theme and idea for a company, getting the CryENGINE 2 Licence (whatever that is) and also finally for selling branded Palaeo entertainment rocks in their online shop. So cool. Laters, Richie

Every time you take you pokemon to be healed from too much battling, or they are poisoned, or paralyzed, or generally KO’d, Nurse Joy will happily take your pokemon, without any lectures on animal cruelty. Not only will she heal them up to perfect form but she will then say “We hope to see you again!”. Translated, “Go abuse those pokemon and I’ll heal them up nice and proper so you can do it again”. This service is also free of charge, you know why? ‘cause Nurse Joy get her kicks from it, she sends little kids out in to the world to abuse pokemon and then she fixes them up good and proper, it’s like and underground pokemon abuse ring. Sick. Enjoy Pokemon Pearl/Diamond (sickos)

You have probably all seen this by now, the thing about the burnout ads. By probably I mean I know because I have spoken to Richie and the other reader of the blog and you've both seen it. Also, the blackhole of all gaming news kotaku has also had a post about it so all the stupid people have seen it too. Basially 37 people complained about the posters for the new burnout claiming that it might inspire people to vandalise or crash cars or somesuch. My initial reaction is to flinch into a rage because it's something negative about gaming and I'm a gamer and it makes an easy post to write and everyone else is writing about it. However, I've had a think about it and the thing that really irks me is the 37 London commuters who think that they are some kind of moral guardians for society. What kind of person, whilst waiting for their no doubt late or packed tube train, glances up from their London Lite and sees the ad and thinks "Jesus Christ! No. Not again. Don'

They Stole My Word!!!

So controversy week last week what with the Jamie Bulger thing in the new Law and Order game and Manhunt 2 being banned etc. etc. So why do video games attract so much controversy? Books, works of art and films are allowed to portray almost whatever they want. 9/11, racism, people who have their mouths full of cockroaches: many of which are dead but those that aren't are throwing up on themselves and each other and so on. But as soon as games do these things they are labelled as disgusting, evil, exploitative, cashing in on tragedy or just simply wrong. This very quickly gets backed up with all other lazy arguments condemning video games to create a nasty impression in the public media. The reason that this is allowed to happen in books but not games because stupid people don't read books but they do play games. Sorry stupid people. But it's true. Stupid people watch films too but films are 'high art' so for every mother on a crusade there are 40 LA film

Guess who's back. Back again..............

Ah well, doesnt matter what BBFC, Ther daily Mail or JT say... Sony spokesperson said: “It's currently our policy not to allow the playback of AO-rated content on our systems.” A Nintendo rep said: “As stated on Nintendo.com, Nintendo does not allow any AO-rated content on its systems.” From Gizmodo

We have another update from resident thatgirler Kaiser.Tia : Yeah, there's a confusion of the different issues with the three big game stories recently - the Law and Order case was just stupid - the developers should have known better then to use real-life stuff like that (it wasn't even a funny easter egg - just a dim-witted, under-researched example of a stupid development team). The whole Manchester Cathedral story is actually quite interesting - with games technology becoming able to render real-world locations in realistic detail, are games that showcase real locations going to have to ask permission first, like the film industry? I have a lot of sympathy for the CoE in this case, because I can't imagine they'd ever give permission to a Hollywood movie to film on location, especially a movie involving soldiers, aliens and shooting. I wouldn't be surprised if the games industry has to jump through similar hoops that Hollywood does when it comes to 

Yeah I’m sure we have all heard it, “Manhunt 2 – Banned in the UK”, for its Casual Sadism blah blah blah. Yeah the game uses a pretty nasty format, stalking and killing but hey I would like people to remember that it is a game. I would like to draw comparisons to Deerhunter: sneak up on the poor defenceless animal, blow its brains out… “Rejecting a work is a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly,” BBFC director David Cooke stated. “Where possible we try to consider cuts or, in the case of games, modifications which remove the material which contravenes the Board’s published Guidelines." Where do the differences lie then? Rather than a VIRTUAL generic forest, the game is set in VIRTUAL, dark, sordid, rust world. And rather than kill VIRTUAL mighty stags, the player can kill VIRTUAL human beings in VIRTUAL brutal ways. But yeah, we all know the generic formulae of Manhunt, stalk, sneak, kill. Seen a million times before, since the first stalk-em-ups on the or

The 20 Best "That Guys" of All Time. Not one mention of Cunzy, not one mention of Richie, not one mention of that guy that bit me... though he was a maniac.

Well, Seeing that Cunzy aint here at the moment… I though I’d give you a “Dinosaurs in Video Games” update. Today’s game is Guitar hero 2. Yeah that’s right Guitar hero 2! I’m sure you are all asking yourselves, “Dinosaurs in guitar hero? How? Where ? As if!” Well they are and they are not… there are 2 separate references to Dinosaurs. First up we have the two player select screen: As you can see from the above picture it depicts: - A Mammoth - Sabre-toothed Tiger - Some crazy extinct Ungulate. (antelope looking thing) - An ancestor of the foxes - An emu-esque big-bird - Smaller mammals, cats etc. - A Fighter jet dropping a bomb on them all. When I first saw this I was admittedly shocked to see some obscure extinct animals just on a 2 player co-operative sceen. But then I realised that this may be a graphical representation of one of the songs, which brings me nicely onto the next instance of “Dinosaurs” in Guitar hero 2: One of the bonus tracks: Fall of Pangaea

Position - Guest Writer We at thatguys.co.uk are currently recruiting new and original talent to "Audition" for the post of thatguys.co.uk contributer. Job Description The role is vaired but mostly involves ranting in written form. Where possible, throw in Video game, Resident evil, anime, Final Fantasy, and sexual references. Skills Required - Semi-literate in English. Recomended - Strong background in Resident Evil. - Hatred for gamer blogs. - No concept of teamwork. Starting June 6th 2007 onwards Position Based In Front of your PC Pay Rate non-existant Please mail an article with subject of your choosing to richie@thatguys.co.uk. Articles can range from 1 - 5,000 words, pictures are optional. The favoured articles will be printed and will go down in Thayguys history for all to remeber. Note: Dependant on quality. Certain candidates may be requested to join thatguys.co.uk as a Contributor

Well this is a different post to any other that I have written here. You may have noticed that since our one year birthday we haven't made any posts. That is because Richie doesn't make posts and well because I... I don't know how to say this.... but I. I'm going to leave the blog. My reasons? Well for the last time. It's time for a list: 1) As one of the only women writing on the interwebs about games I have faced nothing but persecution from people. One commentor said "You make me feel sterile". As a women and I blogger I could clearly translate this L337 as "You are sterile". Now I can take jiggery-pokery like the next person but when people make assumptions about my reproductive system and it's functionality then I say No! You can't tell me that. It's my ovaries and uterus and nothing but a spot of untimely blood or a doctor is going to tell me about them. 2) I'm happy in "real life" so I don't need a bl