That guy's a Maniac...

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'

Recently, we were commissioned to review the impossibly cute Wiiware, My Pokemon Ranch. Needless to say, we jumped at the opportunity but we ended up with a couple of gigs worth of extra images that we sadly couldn't use so here's the b-roll. This is the official longest serving Pokemon, my starter on Sapphire. That was [Checks wikipedia and sighs] 'a number' of years ago now. This guy saw service in Sapphire, Fire Red, Colosseum and extensive duties in Diamond. Also saw action and one of the few mon not to perform abysmally in the Epic Clash . Needless to say he's earned the break on the farm. Yes, it is actually he of comic fame . Let's not pay too much attention it goes to his head. A shiny Crobat. I wonder why this image wasn't used? I played ten hours of Pokemon Channel and I all I got was this lousy Jirachi. Also, an early contender for the gayest screenshot of the year? I played 30 hours of Pokemon Colosseum and all I got was this lousy Ho-oh? The Ar

When it comes to Call of Duty, there are two types of people: People who've stuck with the series through all of the newer games, and people who haven't played a game since the original Windows version. The former have seen the series' gameplay tweaked to near-perfection since its original, less-than-balanced state (but have seen some truly odd new weapon designs), whereas the latter dig their heels in and steadfastly refuse to recognize that any Call of Duty exist beyond the original (or, in some cases, Call of Duty 3 before the Modern Warfares). Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2- a sequel to Call of Duty 4- is a game designed to bring these two people together. As far as this goal is concerned, they're a remarkable success. It feels odd to really review a Call of Duty game these days, because the core of the series remains essentially unchanged from the days of the original. As an army man in a world filled with foreigners from Eastern parts, you're given a new weapo

Its the countdown now! only a few more days till Heart Gold and Soul Silver get released. We are all sitting twiddling or thumbs in anticipation of the next addition to the series. Well, some of us, personally at Thatguys, we are frantically EVing a set of 4 pokemon to take us though the game (the other 2 slots will be filled with HM whores). Of course we cant actually tell each other the pokemon we are EVing, as well there is a good chance the ones we are leveling may be for our NEXT POKEMON TOURNAMENT! After last year's event (where I thrashed Cunzy!) we decided for our next tournament we would choose from one of the 17 types (though we vetoed Dragon, as I already had all of them). Harnessing the power of a random number generator, we were both assigned a type. We have to train and level 6 pokemon of the same type (though dual types are allowed i.e. a fire team would also be allowed fire/rock pokemon) and the same rules from before still count, no ubers, evasion clause etc.

Finally. Finally, we got the Wii online this weekend. Why the long wait? Well it's a combination of one part refusing to give in to having the internet in the house, two parts getting the internet requires phoning people and organising things and twenty parts I have problems with other people in online spaces . This last one is fairly debilitating much like my Valvitis but I get the shakes and some serious anxiety when I game online with other people. It is super exhilarating but also very nerve wracking. Anyway these issues were conquered. The internet was switched on and here's what I did next: Downloaded all the Wii channels from't Nintendo Shop. Having done this laborious task at least four times for friends who had no idea the Wii could even be "online" I was happy to do it for someone who might actually use the channels more than once in a lifetime. I appreciate that the news and weather channels might not be up everyone's street but there is nothing fi

Ok, I'm a bit of an Oblivion nut. It was the first real game on the 360 that i got lost in (and still do to this day) Richie then moved me on to Fallout 3 "It's oblivion with guns!!" and Ive gotta say I'm enjoying that universe and the seemingly endless, yet rich DLC (no horse armour here!) However I've always been a sucker for a more traditional fantasy setting, so when we heard from GDC about a new Dungeon Crawler from Bethesda with a 2 player Co-op focus i think i soiled myself slightly. So what is it? Well it's called Hunted: The Demon's Forge (Anyone else picturing the Chaos Sanctuary in Diablo 2?) and it's a third person, 2 player Co-op game based around 2 hero's, E'lara (think Amazon Bow and Arrowey type person) and Caddoc (Barbarian Tank type person with insanely big swords and grunts)  The co-op is restricted to online co-op (Richie you in?) as they wanted to 'maintain a level of detail'  There is also a Matc

Windows Phone 7 series Xbox Live integration Is this the future of handheld gaming? I hope not. I might be being shortsighted here but I really think there needs to be separate real estate for controls for any meaningful gaming. ( Tap Tap Revenge isn't meaningful) With Web browsing and scrolling through contacts, touch makes sense, you touch it once then view, with a game (short of a Guitarhero style rhythm game) you need to be able to view the screen and react quickly without smudging it up with your fat fingers. Bring back snake I say! However given the Xbox Live integration with achievements, there will no doubt be endless subpar titles purchased and played solely for boosting their penis compensating GamerScore. However, with that said if they make Diablo 2 on this sucker, with cheevos, I'm in!! Đ

At various points over the weekend this image from that Neogaf thread had us inappropriately laughing whilst just going along, or on the bus, or at two o clock in the morning in bed. Oh god, uploading it got me going again.

So here's 2130 words on the PS3. Merely a small slice of the moronic bleating everyone has had to put up with from PlayStation fanboys and hacks looking to make easy copy. Hopefully now blinkered addlepates will concede that there is no Sony wild card. This is their trump. They all played out. Goodnight! Shit Just Got Casual. The future is the PlayStation 3. This is not a video game machine, this is not a games game machine . The console is more into what I would call the toy market, because most of the Wii games I've enjoyed felt more like toys than like games. The PS3 is doing the same for games as the PS3: pushing the graphical envelope, but it’s also added a multimedia element to proceedings by coming with a Blu-ray player. We're not tailoring it to the hardcore or the casual, this is just a strictly better interface for the kind of games that we want to make At a recent interactive entertainment conference, Tal Kerret, Oberon Media chairman, pushed the issue that t

And we're done. We would have thought it was going to be a stiff competition but we've got a clear future-proof winner in early March. Outstanding. This is a screenshot/promotional material for a title called Sports Champions for the PlayStation Move. If the rest of the game is like this we can hardly wait. Before the confirmed announcement of PS Move there was a harmonious balance amongst factions of the gaming community. What the Wii lacked in pure power it more than made up for in gameplay and what the Xbox 360 and PS3 had in pure shininess made up for the lack in diversity of genres on offer, the lack of any decent software on the PS3, that whole Sixaxis sham, the constant slimlining and different versions nonsense, the incessant patching, the non starter of face capturing and the one by one release of launch titles which were tired and passe before they even launched four years too late. However, now that Wii Sports and Wii Fit have come to the PlayStation have the scales

So is this living? Is that what they meant by the Third place? The power of the PlayStation can cure cancer but can't deal with more than three kinds of cowboys? Even Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop had more types of zombies. Oh Jesus Christ. AND it's appear to be either an on-rails shooter or a static shooter? Aren't they supposed to be bad? Holy shit. This game has to be free for it not to be widely condemned.

I am Jack's Complete Lack Of Surprise.

Yes! The Uk's third fourth favourite tolerated awards-ceremony-organiser people also do awards for video games. Badly . Let's take a butchers shall we? Initial impressions are, what are the criteria for being chosen? Like when is the cut-off point? How come Halo Wars and Flower is on there as well As Cod 2? Were they all released in a twelve month period of each other? Because where's Resident Evil 5 then? Who knows? Also, as RPS's Alec Meer points out Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-o-rama. Actual most boring list of games ever. So vanilla. And also really? Best story Dragon Age: Origins really? Best strategy Halo Wars really? Why is left for Dead 2 all over that list? Why is Street Fighter IV the only Capcom game on there? In fact where are all the Wiiware, Indie and PC games? Even the Film BAFTAs have those boring foreign film awards. Where are all the good games? Since when was driving a sport? Oh and Dara O'Briain is the host. The TV guy who couldn't beat the Berser

Spring is almost upon us! But new seasons do not always bring good tidings. Ruminate us up like a Mofo Omastar. Not wanting to put too fine a point upon it but you were a bit of a dick Kabutops .

Diablo 3 wizard. Apparently looks like Russel Brand. I'm fed-up with dribs and drabs of Diablo 3 news! Early on last year there was a playable version of the game and evry few months they bring out concept art (Not actual in-game gfx) of characters. At this rate its gonna take years to release. Ok fair enough they are working on Starcraft 2, and WoW:  Cataclysm  Milking the cash cow. But all these little teases are not good for my health. And plus, at the back of the gaming communities head, we all know they might just pull a Starcraft: Ghost on us. And before we know it, it's just not been released.  Dear Blizzard, Do us a favour, please stop dangling the preverbial carrot, in the form of hypothetical character art, precious time is being wasted while you do this. We will all buy your game, just make sure it is out quickly! Think about it, there are people dying every day, and the chances that Diablo/Diablo 2 fans are dying getting higher and higher, given th

Ok. So you are thinking you want buy Game X, but you are not sure if it's going to be a game you'll like, how do you get a decent overview of whether or not its going to be the game for you? Do you go to Gamespot, IGN, Metacritic? Do you wait for your EDGE subscription? Do you wait for the Demo? Or do you take a chance, because the name is cool and the box art is pretty? I doubt many folks do the latter, either due to common sense or due to a previous fit of ill-advised spontinaity. I think at this point there are few people who will trust the "journalism" sites. After the great Gamespot walkout, I'm surprised it has any followers. And the same goes for most of the other sites, I find it hard to have faith in a site which has a full screen/page Ad of the latest flavour-of-the-week 3rd person romp. Understandably publishers are going to want advertise on games related sites; anyone who's on a "games" site is going to be interested in some for

First can we say how sad it will be for all those who lose their jobs in the closure of 43 shops across the UK. Now that is out of the way can we now say good. Good riddance GAME. We tried to support you in the credit crunch crisis thingy but you didn't have the games we wanted a mere six days after launch . Also, I'm not entirely surprised at the closures either when your stores look and feel like a teenager's bedroom. We remember the days when GAME was merely an awesome mail order site and you'd order stuff from the back of a mag. We got Legacy of Kain, Resident Evil, Broken Helix and Tomb Raider from GAME before it became a shop*. Any and every title including the more obscure ones were available back then when gaming shops on the high street were basically for PC games and printers. To see it's horrid generic commercial horribleness now makes us sad :( *Just checked wikipedia. Our memories seem to be totally apocryphal. Maybe we meant Gameplay ? W/ever. OH MAN

Many of you may have taken a stroll around Amity square with one of your 'cute' pokemon friends. Can I ask that as of today everyone boycotts Amity Square as it is nothing more than RACISM AT IT'S WORST. Yesterday I attempted to take a Kabuto for a walk around the square only to be told that it wouldn't be allowed in because it wasn't 'cute' enough. Not only is cuteness subjective but the Nazis at Amity Square define cuteness as pink normal types (with a couple of exceptions). Quite how this barefaced racism is tolerated in Hearthrome City comes as no surprise- the religious rednecks there have even built a church opposite the entrance.

The last Ubisoft game we bought was Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs. Until this DRM thing came up I didn't even know people played games on their PC. PCs are for making graphs and writing reports on. Jeez already. AMENDMENT 1: So is like Rayman on PC then? AMENDMENT 2: What happened to Rayman?

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