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N64 revisited.

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Well following on from my last post raving on about how great the emulator version of Ocarina of time is Graphically and entirely. I decided to dig out all the old N64 games I had and, straight up, create a collection of all my old N64 games and have them running in some oddly-polygony HD glory. Sadly none of them work. My top 5 of my favourite games for the N64 that dont work on an Emulator. (click the images for full rez versions) Mario 64. Mario actually ran quite well despite some visible games between walls, but I'm sure they were there in the fist place. However, there were many areas where things were just not visible first example being the first bonus slide: Closer you got to the slide the more it would disappear, so annoying. 4. Shadows of the Empire. This one I was really looking forward to, I remember this game quite fondly, one of the most under-rated launch titles. However, once you get past this screen, the menus are a garbled mess: 3. Super Smash Bros. Th

Turok:God FPS were crappy

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I've been exclusively playing Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and Turok Evolution on the PS2 recently. Partly because you won't be able to play PS2 games through the TV anymore, already it hurts the eyes unless you spend ten minutes of naffing through the menus everytime you switch from DVD to TV to PS2 to Wii. I've been playing Jurassic Park genesis because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST KEVIN FROM OHIO YOU'VE SEEN A Ceratosaurus hunt and eat most of a herd of Dryosaurus and you're pissy because the trees aren't authentic? Ahhh the thrills of accidentally deleting security fences. As for Turok Evolution, I've been trying to finish it for that other neglected webpage . Now, I know it isn't particular a great shooter but considering how easy it is to roll your eyes far back into your own head everytime another FPS comes out it is easy to forget the kind of crap we had to put up with. Here's a list of my personal peeves at Turok, some are specifically aimed a

Ocarina of Time Revisited

Wow! just Wow. For the past week or so I have been having cravings to play Zelda: ocarina of time. So through the wonders on the internet I dug out an emulator. I also dug out my 360 wireless adaptor. I set that bitch up! Plugged my PC into my TV, set the Graphics to all maximum settings, and set the Controller like an N64 pad. And started it up. Amazing, I never new that all those details were possible despite the backgrounds and some of the textures being a bit pixelly its flawless, and plays really well with the 360 controller! Here's to Retro Games and HD. Love and Saria's song Richie X

Why the 3DS isn't selling

The 3DS hasn't sold a bajillion bajillion copies. Which is a massive failure as everything should sell more than the last thing that sold the most. Forever. Cue cut and washed articles about it. By the family bucket load . TGAM doesn't have one. Here's why: 1) We already have, on average 3 DSes each in various shapes sizes and colours. According to our Peruvian ancestry four is an unlucky number so until one breaks we won't be getting one. If only Microsoft made DSes then we'd probably have to get a new DS every week (amirite?) b) The DSiXL only came out last week. The protective sheet is still attached. C) 3D is to gaming like the discovery of a third nipple during intercourse (yours or theirs) with someone you've paid a lot of money to. It is just a bit weird, not really what you wanted and leaves you feeling that sometimes more isn't actually better. )) The average length of a DS game is around 4000000 hours with all those RPGs (including the one with the

STEEL DIVER

Is a game about submarines. NOT Lesbian Robots OR Robot Lesbians Sadly.

Wot No Wii? Part #3

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The last panel in this week's triptych about Wiiblindness in the games industry. In the last part I already mentioned EDGE. EDGE 227 has a largely thoughtful article about online multiplayer in games raising all the interesting points around when and why online multiplayer is shoe-horned into a game (e.g Dead Space 2), whether it's devs, marketeers or the consumers who are responsible for more and more games shipping with online multiplayer and the curious mystery around the virtual non existence of crossplatform onlinemultiplayer with one not so notable exception. For no discernable reason not a single Wii game, nor the console itself is mentioned even when it may be pertinent to. Sure, the console is still widely viewed as the little engine that couldn't but it's a glaring omission not to mention Mario Kart Wii when testing 2009 titles for how active communities are. That's a three year old game that not only still has an active community but also a title that get

Wot No Wii? Part #2

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EDGE magazine isn't just the thinking gamer's read, in our opinion it's one of the few 'publications' that transcends insulting and is actually written for people above the age of nine. By comparison, half of the shit on the web and virtually every other gaming mag falls somewhere between the Beano and the National Enquirer. However, one of the problems with a cross platform publication is that each issue can only offer a limited number of pages to each platform. Increasingly this has meant that every platform but the Wii gets coverage. In this month's issue E227 only one of the 23 games reviewed and previewed is a Wii game. Last month only two of the 24 games were Wii games. Now of course, it pleases more of the demographic,more efficiently to look at the cross-platform games !PS3, PC,Xbox 360) but the truth is that there ain't that much on the horizon . It seems that when Capcom or Nintendo aren't making Wii games, nobody is. Why is that Nintendo magi

Wot No Wii? Part #1

There's been a blitz of Wii bashing and just ignorant the platform recently. It's a bit stupid really and recalls times when the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube were prematurely abandoned, the former platform killed off in it's prime and the latter sticking two fingers to Microsoft and Sony with Resident Evil 4. So it appears to begin with the Wii. The first bit of bashing comes from Frank Gibeau, head of the EA Games label describing the Wii as a legacy platform (via Industry Gamers ). "They [Nintendo] understand the dynamics and the fact that HD consoles is a booming part of business right now. Legacy platforms like PS2 and the Wii have dropped off significantly. They’re not stupid. They’re going to figure something out. They’re going to come back at it." Is the kind of moronic rhetoric that gets our goat. What he actually means is that nobody, especially EA have been able to replicate Nintendo's success on it's own console and it is language like this that m

Status Check: Is Machinima any good yet?

We're not just interested in games we're interested in the cultural products that surround games and gaming. One of which is machinima, essentially films made in game engines. The problem is 99% of it is absolute shit. There are a few gems out there; Red vs Blue , War of the Servers and Trashmaster . Machinima can also be funny (see Top FPS ) and there's even been a decent CoD kill montage video that's been more than looking at a sniper scope with the odd numbers popping up, beautifully edited and link subsequently lost. The rest though is total bullshit. Here's a top tip to would be machinima directors out there, that if taken on board will improve the average quality of all machinima by at least 5%: Having one of your characters say LMAO, ROFL or LOL isn't in any way funny. Stop doing it and instnatly make the world a better place.

Disaster Day of Crisis

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Is another brilliant and flawed but only brilliant because it is flawed wii game with more a more fresh feel than anything on release on the HD consoles. Playing it reminded me a lot of the awesome Shadow of Memories for the PS2 despite the fact they have nothing in common at all except they feature a guy. Just saying that's all. You play as Ray somebody who is an all American hero and former International Rescue Team member following a totally predictable tragedy. Ray depressed about the tragedy is now a pen pusher at the Crisis Managment Division until he gets called back in to service. The game follows a series of (not so outlandish it seems) events that start with an earthquake, then a tsunami, followed by a nuclear threat and then gets even more ridiculous with everything from firestorms, volcanic eruptions, floods, terrorist battles and even a lahar. BRING ON THE CHEESE. The game is so cheesy its hard not to smile or believe that the developers are unknowing in the cheesiness

Project Cafe: Specs

Breaking News:  Wii 2 (Codenamed Project Cafe) has had it s specs Leaked  "the console will include a custom IBM PowerPC CPU with three cores, a GPU from the ATI R700 family with a shader unit at version 4.1, and at least 512Mb of RAM. Backwards compatibility with both the Wii  and GameCube games.  The controller has a six-inch touch screen, a front-facing camera, D-Pad, two bumpers, two triggers. There you have it HD DS in  your living room. FINALLY HD! More on this as more rumours flood the internets Love and HD-Hugs, Richie X

Deadly Creatures

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I've been wanting to play Deadly Creatures since it came out way back in 2009. The premise is simple you play as a Desert hairy scorpion and a Texas brown tarantula and go about Arachnida business somewhere in the desert of the southwestern United States. The game is fucking brilliant and also flawed, totally linear but the game drives you on just because you want to see what's next. The game is also incredibly frustrating and right up to the end, death is only ever around the corner leading to occasional rage when a checkpoint is the wrong side of an unskippable cutscene in particularly tough sections. There's some odd reusing of the same level, a particular section of which you return to on four occasions and later level design tends towards laziness with invisible walls stopping you from wandering off piste. Also jarring is the end FMV sequence which is of appallingly low quality. Play alternates between the tarantula and the scorpion, the former is by far the best one

How To Make Tesco A More Credible Games Retailer

Sarah Kaye, buying manager for Tesco airs her ideas here. Our ideas although we don't get paid for them like Sarah does would be to hire someone who knows about games, I'm sure that £3 piece of shit PC games, DS shovelware and Carnival Games have a strong retail record but visiting the games section in supermarkets makes us want to bring in a pack lunch and spend the whole day fending people away from the bad games. "You don't want to buy this game it's free on the internet". "I don't give a shit if Dora is an explorer or not go and play Shadow of the Colossus". Our second tip is to try to keep the games aisle looking more like a nice sensible place to find games rather than looking like downtown Baghdad following an earthquake all the fucking time. One to four of the ' WTF Ten ' are the same game. Someone's put music CDs in the DS section and the Xbox games are stocked in reverse alphabetical order by game subtitle. The wii section

Giving up the...

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Apologies to regular readers but here is yet another angry rant about game retailers in the UK. Fortunately, most have been driven to extinction by failing to see the writing on the wall over a decade ago when online mega retailers could beat the high street specialists in choice, price and service. PLUS the only convenience that high street retailers offer is immediacy. I can pick up a game there and then and be playing it that day in theory. However, as a concerned citizen it saddens me to see the decline of the high street retailer. Last week I found myself with some extra money following my birthday and consulted 'the list'. Now, I'm an avid gamer. I've played thousands of games, own hundreds and write for three gaming blogs. However, I also have a fairly demanding job, a family, friends who I don't see half as much as I should, passions other than gaming and a hundred other little things that take up my time. Not only does this mean that those heady days and ni

Street Fighter vs Tekken vs REORC vs Frank West

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Some really awesome and intreresting games lined up, and yes they are all Capcom, because we at thatguys.co.uk are "Fapcom canboys" First up Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City! Or REORC as the online community is dubbing it . It's another outing in Raccoon during the timeline of Resident Evil 2 (yay) and 3 even Nemesis is stomping about trying to find his S.T.A.R.S. cookies. Its a 3rd person shooter with some GoW physics. Cover, blindfire etc. reserving judgement till more has been released. Next Dead Rising : Off the record It's the what if scenario, if it had been Frank West rather than Chuck Greene in Dead Rising 2, how would it have gone. Overweight middle aged Zombie wrestling it seems. Finally Street Fighter X Tekken Some more details revealed about the fighting system, the huge character roster of " as many characters as we can humanly fit in ", and a DinoCrisis Stage (another one for that other blog ). Initially it just looks li

Silent Hill, The Fighting Game

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Ok the following is some rather impressive artwork! This is Fucking BAD-ASS!!!! Make it happen people! Love and Red Pyramid things, Richie X 

BREAKING NEWS! Real journalism

Well kind of real news. Maybe. Undercover Journalism Overhead by a very loud SCEE marketing dude: THE SONY NGP! UK price will be £129.99 Maybe. Possibly, or that will be another PSP price drop. There you have it, don't say we are not good to you, we'll let you know if we get a cease and desist letter. Fingers Xed Love and Mouthy Marketing, Richie X

Dick and Shoes... 3 years later

Richie pointed me in the direction of this Wall Street Journal articl e (via a pretty piss poor editorial on the article at ripten). Now we were all geared up for writing a rebuttal but actually we did that over three years ago . Turns out that Kay Hymowitz has gone up in the world from turning trashy poorly researched diatribe on Dallasnews into a book called Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys. Sadly, she didn't really use the time for any rewrites or even to update the references. If she can't be bothered then neither can we so Kay if you are reading this here's our tops tips to you getting a clue: 1) Read Replay A History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan and you'll realise that your trendy mac which you use to google yourself on as is virtually every piece of software you use is a product of gaming. Surely the hypocrisy of you using these technologies to disseminate your moronic ideas isn't lost on you? 2) Three years ago we'd alread

Mortal Kombat: Scraping the barrel.

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Ok so, we have all most likely seen the Awesome trailer of Kratos entering the Mortal Kombat Tournament. However who is the 360 getting on their system? Well rumours are *Spoilers* its... Green Lantern? Now, ok, I get it... Green, Xbox has green lights, the Green Lantern Movie is on the horizon, he was in in the previous game Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe. But, c'mon, he doesn't really fit in with the Mortal Kombat Universe. He's not the goriest of the DCU characters and ugh... Never mind... I give up. At least I'll have Sub-Zero to rip out his spine. Love and Sexuality, Richie X

Omastar Comics #30

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The big 30. Who would have thought it? In this comic, SPOILERS Omastar uses surf. Click to embiggernate. Quicker than getting the bus I guess. That crazy fictional cephalopod. What will he think of next?

Person Will Mention a Game Somewhere Soon

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We're all hyped here about rumours that somebody will sometime soon mention a game. But don't click away because were going to be generating over 1000 posts of absolute fluff that if you're lucky will reveal one or two new features of a game. If you are unlucky we'll just spoil the game bit by bit for you over the coming months until it releases, stays in the shops for six days until that next new thing comes along! BREAKING!! Remember when we just brought you that breaking announcement about a possible game at some point in the future? Well anonymous sources have just confirmed that there will possibly be another game after that! Don't go anywhere and put up with our mid article advertisements as well as those poorly animated ones and the tit ones until we bring you the next article which pretty much says the same as this one but might have a screenshot. If we can be bothered we'll even try to crop out the IGN logo and post it within four hours of whoever publ

FINALLY!

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Finally it looks like Capcom are getting around to making the game we dreamed about waaaay back when just after our third visit to Raccoon and before that awful broken Outbreak business. Still, it's a far cry from a GTA-Raccoon City that we imagined and since Outbreak the zombie game has been taken in all kinds of directions with Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 4 and 5 and Dead Rising. From the looks of the above trailer they've gone for a PC FPS kind of vibe which we here at TGAM find thrilling for three rounds. Part of what made RE2 and 3 and even Outbreak so great was the sense of the city (before descending into underground laboratory madness). RE4 and RE5 really lost the sense of a location that used to be a living and working settlement. RE4 takes you through nonsensical shooting gallery locations after the first village and it's best if you don't think about the quite dull or ridiculous locales of RE5. Where would you head in a crisis? The hospital? The Town Hall? Th

Pokemon Black & White and the failure of imagination

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We've been putting a lot of time into Pokemon Black and White. One of the best new(ish) features of the game is that now it is easier than ever to play online. All of the online bits from before are bundled in the new games almost to the point of inundation. Not all of the online functionality is up and running yet but there's still lots to do with the Global trade service the doesn't really work GTS negotiate, random WFC battle match-ups and the Wi-Fi battle subway. Problem is that most players seem to be lacking in imagination and if you spend the slightest bit of time online you'll end up seeing a lot of the same pokemon over and over again. For example, expect to battle endless Hydregion and Volcarono. Not only does this make the game very boring but now that there's more pokemon than ever it would be nice to see some teams that were mixing it up a bit. Yeah sure, picking the pokemon with better than average base stats lets you win easier but we could all be p

OMG! With Peaches Geldof and Gaming

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For reasons not entirely clear to me I was in the unfortunate position of watching OMG! With Peaches Geldof, Peaches Geldof's foray into the world of chat show TV which was not only destined to be canned as it rightly has been rumoured but is as awful as any sane person would imagine it to be. Amongst other vapid non-issues which the do-nothing, Fergie(the former Royal not that woman from Third Rock From The Sun who now sings with the Black Eyed Peas)'s-offspring-look-alike tackled in the latest show was gaming addiction. Tackled, show and fuck it every word in that sentence should have " " around it. Refreshingly, and part of the reason why I fought off the urge to smash the remote into my face until either the TV went off or I went blind and deaf, a lady gamer was invited onto the show to talk about her gaming addiction. The gamer whose name I forget was pitted against a guy, who represents the stereotype for internet gamers, in a couple of rounds of Left for Dead

3DS features nobody will be using in six months time

The predictions are in. Remember the GBA-GC controller and the four games that used it? Remember the proto street-pass thing in Nintendogs and Dragon Quest and pretty much only in those two games? Wasn't playing your own music in Endless Ocean great? Shame that didn't take off. Here's the tech that will probably be dropped almost instantaneously by gamers and developers on the new 3DS: Street Pass - Fine for Japan where gamers actually congregate. Virtually useless here. Backwards compatibility - Expect this to be dropped with the 3DSlite or the equivalent. Augmented reality Fun the first four or five times and for showing non-gamers how fun the 3DS is. Doubt there will be a sixth time. 3D messaging Remember those three messages you sent via the wii message board? Expect more of the same here. Video content Ever played music through the wii or even visited the photo channel? Nah thought not. Call us bitter but c'mon face it. This gimmickery is fine for filling up the

At Last Someone Speaks The Truth

'You can't blame people for buying pre-owned' yoinked from MCV. The CEO of Saber Interactive (?) comes out saying that games are quite expensive so you can't expect gamers to not trade in older titles. Meh, I don't really see that as the main problem behind the pre-owned market. After all, games of any worth are normally kept hold of but you can't blame people from trading in when format turnover makes older games so obsolete so quickly. Also, our personal little bugbear is that there's literally no other way to buy games pushing a year old because they're out of print and off of shelves. Digital distribution is one answer to this but I see the problem as easily solvable by actually supporting your products beyond launch week. Cunts.

I didn't cry until the Streets of Rage 2 End Theme Played

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The rise of casual and social 'games' had us feeling a bit chipper. The brownanising, teenarisation and grittisation of all console games only caused a waver in our shit eating grin. Hell, it only took us a cup of tea to get over this new fad for making games shit to play with 3D but the camels back is broken. Sad days indeed UK Resistance has finally closed its doors. Genuinely funny and in a knowing way UK resistance even in these latter years remained a benchmark for both enjoying gaming and acknowledging the sad sorry state of affairs that gaming is in. Properly funny too, not "Monkey Island" funny (funnier than everything else doesn't necessarily mean funny at all) or Zero Punctuation funny. But it's over now. That's it. Gaming as we know it is dead. We've known it for a while. Modern games try to compensate by giving out achievements for walking down corridors or by showing us tits and gore that twelve year old us would have found fascinating bu

If I'm Gonna Stare At Something For Hours On End It Might As Well Be A Woman's Ass

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Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllshit . I call bullshit on this oft quoted excuse for men playing as female characters. Because in most games you rarely look at your character, you're focused on the environment, stuff and things. Also, depending on how you associate with your various avatars it's kinda creepy to perve on the character that you are playing. SO here's the reasons why, given a choice I'll probably play as a female character. ITS ALL ABOUT ME HOLMES. Male Characters Are Boring. Dull, dull, dull. Chinned stubbly affairs driven by revenge or sometimes sheer gruffness. The mind numbing you-aren't-kidding-anyone shit that leaves their mouth, normally with a voice like a 40 a day batman with an acute throat infection, is nothing any man has ever knowingly uttered apart from actors in exciting action films with awful plots. More often than not they are the default character too. The guy will have the standard punch and the standard gun.

Resident Evil Revival Selection HD Remastered Version

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"Resident Evil Revival Selection HD Remastered Version" Yep that is the name of it! It is going to be released on 360 and PS3. It contains Resident evil 4 (and the parting ways Ada side missions) and Resident Evil Code Veronica! Well Isn't that nice? I have played Resi4 on Gamecube, Wii, PS2, PC, and now I can play it on my 360! AND on top of that get some classic "Code: Veronica" on the go! In saying that though... I kinna which we would get RE1/RE2/RE3 resurrected... Might happen! Lickers and Bandersnatches Richie X

Quick! Provide Content. Anything Will Do.

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This statement made us LOL over at Penny Arcade in a post in response to bum-slap-gate or whatever it will be called until something else comes up: "I shot Gabriel once with a shrink ray, and he used his jetpack to fly out the window like an insect. Fifteen years ago. Still talking about it, about scenarios that to this day no game has managed to top." It's stuff like this that is gaming gold. I know how that's funny and I wasn't even there, nor do I know either of them that well and I probably played one of the Dukes once. I remember shooting pigs and being worried if anyone saw me watching a 6 x 6 pink pixel with red pixel underwear gyrating around a pole. That is what used to pass for titillation. I can't say that recent gaming has come up with any of those emergent bits that have you giggling so hard your ribs hurt. This maybe because I don't spend half as much time playing games so statistically I can't expect it to happen. It's possibly beca

Vikings

Clint Hocking writes an inspired column comparing the games industry to Viking raiders in this month's EDGE. I suggest you read it. In other gaming news that I've got anything to say about: Pokedex 67.

We Dare Pulled at the 11th hour.

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We dare, is a risqué party game akin to "Truth or Dare" but without the truth part, essentially a collection of suggestive minigames: (I actually find this pic quite hypnotic) (She puts the wii mote in her *ahem* waistband, then he spanks her) Despite the ad campaign which is a bunch of attractive bored swingers this game has been slated by the Tabloids the Sun states:  A RAUNCHY Nintendo Wii game for kids as young as 12 Well, firstly , its also available for the PS3, and frankly the Move controller has much nicer rounder edges for insertion and whatnot and secondly the rating on it is 12+ it does not mean that it is the target demographic. Lastly, why pull the game? why not up the rating? or last why not deal wit hit, its a bit bawdy but, we all know you'd just end up sitting on the sofa flicking your wrist to get through all the mini-games. And frankly any 12 year old interested in this game, is probably already up to much worse than ta

Pokemon Black and White: Initial thoughts

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Pokemon Black and White are out and will undoubtedly top various sales charts. A common complaint about the game is that throughout all the various different versions since 1996 the game hasn't really changed that much. This is largely true, the 400 games since then have only added to and refined the original ideas. So how does the fifth generation fare? Well here's a list. 1) Not broken but fixed anyway. The last three generations and their various sister and companion games have been very fickle when it comes to features. The love/hate competitions, where you pit your pokemon in dancing and dressing up competitions appeared in ruby/sapphire, disappeared for fire red/leaf green came back in Pearl/Diamond and then vanished from Soul Silver/Heart Gold for example. Other features that were good but were cut were the vs. seeker, the pokewalker, the poke radar and most recently your lead pokemon no longer follows you around. Which is a shame. Not only was it nice to have your c

Post-emon?

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The Norwegian Postal service logo looks like a pokeball. That is all. Logos and balls, Richie X

Lost to Pokemon.

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So all of our readers we complaining about the lack of updates... Well its inexcusable I know. BUT in our defence there is Marvel vs Capcom to play through. And frankly dear readers, we have bad news, Pokemon Black & White is out, and we are already playing our little hearts out. So just be aware there will be updates, but more than likely it will be along the lines of: OMG, JUST GOT DESTROYED BT THE 1ST GYM LEADER CHEATY POKEMON! JUST CAUGHT A BIDOOF FML ZOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGG SHINY!!!! etc etc. (Not really, we have just had some pish IRL stuff, we'll be back on track, using the word "cunt" soon) Black and White, Richie X