That guy's a Maniac...

We're all about being open and transparent with YOU, the homeless transsexual checking the Internet when you should be working and this post, friend((ette)?) is going to be a short one. London indie game store GAME FOCUS has closed its doors ( EDGE has the scoop ). This is a fucking tragedy and much more sad face for us than the whatever-the-fuck-is-happening-with-GAME.  Game focus was a lovely little store that we'd frequently go to just browse. Not only did they have OLD FORMATS, pretty much every GBA and GC game I bought was from here but they used to have amazing displays of limited edition games, consoles and peripherals. Also they sold PlayStation promo copies for like a pound each. They did not give a fuck even though they were emblazoned with "PROMOTIONAL COPY NOT FOR RESALE".  The shop took a bit of a dive when they moved all the DVDs upstairs and the games to the basement and for some reason their amazing display cases got culled and the

We check in with the Wii's Nintendo Channel because, well you won't bother to do it on your own. Here's some of the new content that is up since last time . Finally! It seems like someone out there has been reading our weekly-ish gripes about Nintendo's poorly used Nintendo Channel and they've only gone and posted the entirety of Satoru Iwata's Japanese Nintendo Direct presentation. This is what we want. No gimmicks. No bullshit round the bush hype just straight up Nintendo news from Nintendo itself. Sure, there's a whole bunch of "Details not confirmed for Europe" disclaimers but I'd rather that than having to wait for the video game blogosphere to give us the news once they've added their sneery commentary or worse have to sit through the NoA Nintendo Direct presentations. More of this please Ninty and if you don't have a Wii you can watch the presentation here ! The Last Story continues to receive some love from the Nintendo

Where did Peter Molyneux come from? Recently, it feels like every other video game article is about him, something he said, where he moved to and what he thought of game X. He is on a mission to get as much coverage as possible (presumably as two Fable games are due to come out soon). Well his reach extends far, even into the world of Xenoblade Chronicles where Alcamoth Citizen has this breaking news to report: Should Peter be worried?

We were lucky enough to reach the grand old age of 30 again last week and among the presents presented us for surviving the 90s was a copy of Trivial Pursuit: Master Edition. Now, if you're like us then Trivial Pursuit progresses by quickly hoovering up the green, yellow, blue, pink and brown (now purple, presumably to avoid endless entertaining 'pink or brown' choices) wedges/cheeses/pizzas and then spending the rest of the game passing back and forth over the orange Pizzedge spot waiting for the odd chess question in between endless fucking cricket and soccerball questions. Well. NO LONGER! The recent master edition now has a bunch of video game based questions meaning that a) It doesn't take quite so long to get that orange chedge slice b) Finally, all that video game knowledge is justified in the eyes of your immediate family as you beat Uncle "Knows it All" to the win all because of a Halo question. Somewhat paradoxically it takes inclusion in

A new Steel Battalion we can actually play AMAZING! Oh requires Kinect BALLS. Still it means we don't have to buy a new piece of plastic for the ever growing pile of peripherals AMAZING. Fist bumping? BALLS. Seriously, fucking fist bumping? BALLS. Is this what it takes for the 'hardcore' to accept the Kinect? BALLS Fist-Bumping? BALLS. FistbumpingBALLS. Fistbumpballs. Fistballs. Fialls. FIALS.

Fuck all y'all bitches, be sitting up on yo azerothes, I be in Pallet all up in you mommas ass singin that I be a master... catchin' em all Details released for WoWs Pet battles. And on first perusal, its really fucking pokemony, similar stats and all, though rather than 4 moves it's 3 moves, hell even some of the moves are English pokemon move names. It seems just enough similarities to dodge a law suit. Most of the details are over here Also, do they have the EV system ? DO THEY? if not imma flip this shit upside! There doesn't seem to be a levelling system, or indeed mechanics much beyond the fighting system , I'm sure there will be rewards for winning, like cheevos, cosmetic armours and such. Meh, Love and Omastar used Blizzard, Richie X

With, it seems, the whole games industry writing off the Wii in preparation for the Wii-U, now is a great time to snap up some of the quirkier releases on the platform which are currently selling for ridiculously cheap prices. Recently we've picked up Cursed Mountain, Deadly Creatures, Metroid: Other M, Disaster Day of Crisis and Madworld for less than £16 (for all of them). Individually they are a bit quirky but they represent a time and a platform with more interesting ideas than current HD console gaming which seems stuck in a bit of a rut with a a severe case of sequelitis. Trauma Center: Second Opinion is one we snapped up for a fiver a while ago and we've only just got around to playing it. We played Trauma Center/re: Under The Knife, the one and only popular medical 'em up on the DS. It was fun, if not a bit tough and also challenging. The Wii version, Trauma Center/re: Second Opinion is pretty much exactly the same game albeit with a name change and with the a

Occasionally we stub out our crack pipe (hard but do-able), log off the forums and give up our angry Internet man jig to don a smocking jacket , pour ourselves a Malibu and read a book like in the olden times. This weekend we donned three smoking jackets, poured ourselves three Malibus and finished reading three books. Our English teacher will be so happy with us.  First up is Jacked The Unauthorised Behind-The-Scenes Story of Grand Theft Auto which makes us feel ignorant about the history of video games in the same way that Replay A History of Video Games highlights how ignorant many games 'journalists' are . Yeah we loved Lemmings and knew that DMA made GTA but we didn't know that they were Scottish. Shame on us. The book is a good read. The first thing it made us do is want to play GTA again. Five hours later we picked the book up again and cringed over how gushy Kushner can be sometimes. But I guess that's the deal when you are writing an unofficial biograp

Waaay back in 2007 we interviewed the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3 . Well, we've kept in touch since and although he now spends most of his time caring for sick marine iguanas at a the Nemesis Iguana Sanctuary we've managed to catch an interview with him about the reprisal of his, perhaps best known role, in the Nemesis Mode DLC for the astonishingly awful cover based shooter based Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City . TGAM lazy fictional cephalopod, Omastar is finally back from a tour of the Unova region and so attempts to earn his keep by catching up with everybody's favourite biological weapon.  OMASTAR: Star oma, omastar. Star oma? Oma oma? Nemesis: S.T.A.R.S! O: Oma oma star omastar oma omastar, star oma star oma star oma omastar? N: S.T.A.R.S! O: Oma, oma? N: S.T.A.R.S O: Oma? N: S.T.A.R.S! O: Star? N: S.T.A.R.S! O:Oma? N: S.T.A.R.S! O: Star? N: Is this guy for real? All he says is the same three words over and over again? I'm a seriou

Although obviously we'd be callous to not empathise with friends and strangers whose lives will be disrupted by whatever ends up happening with GAME group's stores, the company only has itself to blame. Of course, only now is everyone jumping on the GAME bandwagon. It isn't a charity. It is supposed to be a commercial business. It hasn't been serving PC gamers (a massive chunk of the market) for quite a long time and it hasn't been serving us for almost as long. Our gaming tastes aren't niche but we don't tend to go for the BIG AAA releases and as such GAME hasn't been catering for us. Here's a summary of our whinging over the years about GAME. Hopefully, with whatever succeeds it we won't have call to type up our frustrations and send them into the ether to be ignored by all. In June 2009, GAME performed poorly on our store survey when we used to write for that other site occasionally. In February 2010, we wrote to Konami abou

This time from should-know-better David Braben. EDGE 'have' the story Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from Gamasutra. Every now and then someone from the games industry will raise their head above the parapet and blame pre-owned games for their own poor sales without a shred of evidence to back it up. Here's choice quote from Braben on why pre-owned is killing single player games: I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it. And of course, marketeers not marketing games after launch week really helps too right? Oh and the so called gaming press asymmetrically hyping a game up to launch then dropping coverage as if the game never existed once it is actually out has nothing to do with it? Perhaps devs should make a game that last longer than a day or even games that people might want to keep? Presumably, Braben has data for how pre-owned has adversely affected Frontier Developments

So we love video game music. Not all of it, but when it is good we'll take it over millionaires crooning about getting their arse out or falling in love any day. It gets into our mind. So (bear with me) there's an advert on TV for the perfume Opium which has been on the idiot box quite a lot recently. I keep seeing it and it reminded me of a game. In particular this ad at 20 seconds.   Eventually, it came to me! It's from the Notre Dame theme from Timesplitters 2, composed of course by Graemem Norgate, one of the few men we'd happily marry without even meeting (we swooned when he wrote to us ). The relevant bit is in the vid DOWN HERE at 1:31:   And of course, both of these were 'inspired by' a certain Mr Mozart, this vid at 2:35.   Here's the handy URLs to skip the rest and straight to the bit I'm on about should you wish you music cretin Opium , Splitters , Mozart . That's it. Just saying. Jeez. End of the music lesson. Now. Fuck o

So that's that busted then. Not wishing for the 11 or so hours we spent on the game to be completely wasted we thought we'd fire our thoughts about the game into the ether because, you know, there are millions of people out there wanting to read a two year late review of Metroid: Other M . Its those millions that keep us going. Well for those of you who made it to this bit, we've got some exclusive behind the scenes stuff right here where we talk about our feelings and stuff. We're letting you see our soft squishy innards rather than the darksteel exterior of our shared internet persona. We find ourselves as the unlikeliest of Nintendo fans. If you could turn, turn back the hands of time to the PS2 days we'd happily bet money on the fact that we wouldn't (well I wouldn't) be playing a Nintendo home console pretty much exclusively. See there's nothing wrong with Mario, with perhaps the exception that almost everything has a smiley face and eyes, bu

So around the start of February there was as a bunch of releases I was getting hyped* up about but now... a few weeks later... I couldn't care less. Game sites seem to have ignored their release even happened. No news except meta-reviews with the odd smattering of DLC rumours. I mean I know that games are considered nothing more than interactive entertainment mediums, akin to movies, but with more button presses (dependant on DVD extras). But I'm a little sad that for the first time, I have not given into hype, and I seem nonchalant about the whole thing. Maybe I didn't want FFXIII-2 or Soul Calibur V? Maybe, games are not worth the hype. Maybe the whole system is wrong! rant... should have continuous promotion... ramble... accessibility to all games ever made... rant... But that won't change, this is the machine we all made, hyped up media bombs, based on demographics and trends. Defining people by terms and desirability to play a game. Love and di

We've been playing through Metroid: Other M and although initially we weren't grabbed by it it has grown on us although it isn't without it's flaws. We're quite near the end now we can feel it! BONUS! Little Navis (Pows) almost like Navi from the Legend of Zelda. They don't have two wings like the proper Navi and they're yellow. Easter egg? Homogenous design? Who knows/cares?

I mean. What were we expecting? Finally a games award ceremony that did games proud? An awards ceremony without cringey moments? We should know by now to temper our expectations. Highlights: Notch gave an excellent speech that at least gave the impression somebody at the ceremony actually knew about games. The début games category was strong. Modern Warfare 3 not picking up any awards.  Also, at some points there were some attractive ladies on stage (and the Saturdays). Lowlights: Little Big Planet 2 not only getting nominated but winning three awards! Dara 'O' Breen or whatever his name is misgauging quite a few jokes by either being too in-the-know or too off-the-peg-stereotypes. About six games getting nominated for most of the awards. Poor categories as ever. Proper Z-list celebrities presenting awards, at least poorly known games industry folk look liked they knew why they were there and what was going on. Rare people for being too a) American b) Arrogant c)

Remember the Nintendo Wii? It has a channel called the Mii Contest Channel where every now and then Wii owners, should they choose of their own free will, can create Miis to match a theme and vote on the submitted Miis. Many of you may have resigned the Wii to gathering dust but there are still a fair few people who obviously spend a lot of time just creating new Miis. We've been astonished at the diversity of creations from a fairly accurate Lady Gaga through to Wookies, Simpsons characters, Aliens, Robots and even the Mona Lisa a Mona Lisa faced woman. Back to the contests, once a new competition is announced either due to stark homology or a severe lack of creativity, creations tend to all look alike and fit within certain cultural tropes. Any competitions about science or intelligent ends up with hundreds of Einstein Miis (white shirts obligatory) being submitted. Competitions about righteousness or grace, expect Princesses (white or pink shirts). Anything to do wit

We've only been playing Xenoblade Chronicles pretty much exclusively recently. Life gets in the way and the game that is perhaps best served in a long glass and supped over the course of a long evening is instead consumed like downing a can of red bull on the tube in the morning whilst tyring to read a newspaper with some sweaty office twat with his elbow in your balls. We also happen to be completionists so instead of skipping most of the optional quests that realistically wouldn't impact our game bar the loss of some EXP and the odd bit off gear, we literally can't skip a single one. WE PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS GAME WE'LL EXPERIENCE ALL OF IT. So with this background to consumption, we're finding playing Xenoblade Chronicles slipping from a fun game to a bit of a grind. Desperate to progress the story we keep spotting new NPC quests. You see the game has a day night cycle and the NPCs don't stand around like WoW pricks just giving you out quests. This

...or should I rephrase that... Yet another shallow capcom e-sports game, with little to no extra conten,t bar choosing a fighter and fighting. Yes I know the previous 2D incarnations were nothing more than that. But they will gay it up with no secret characters or at least no challenge to unlock them, of course with big announcements of all of them so there is no surprise. But for the love of god add some extra modes in, a Story mode at the very least! Though on the upside, Morrigans 3D bouncing boobs and cameltoe, woop! Love and why not Killer instinct vs Darkstalkers, Richie X

We played Ghost Trick on the DS! For so long we've gotten used to the DS being the machine that plays Pokemon we almost completely forgot it plays other excellent games. Remember how we used to be a blog about Resident Evil (hence the name That guy's a maniac)? Last week we looked at a game with zombies in it. Today we're looking at a Capcom game so that pretty much means we're back on track as per our strategic vision . It totally counts.  So what about this game then? Well it is over a year old so we're probably the last people on Earth to play it. Others reviewed it and better than we will. Read those reviews. We enjoyed it. It was fun and aaargh. We can't write this long without a numbered list. Here's a numbered list of things we liked about Ghost Trick: Unusually, for Capcom the save system isn't totally fucked. So far there's no checkpoints just before a long unskippable cutscene or a ridiculously difficult difficulty spike(y).  B

See those trophies up there? They are the latest three I've managed to hunt down in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. That takes my total up to 538 out of 544, with three more to unlock from challenges (Boss Battles Intense, Boss Battles Very Hard and Collect All Stickers), two more to get from the Subspace Emissary  which is no easy task (you have a stupidly short time to get Meta Ridley) and one (Capsule) which just hasn't turned up randomly yet. By far the one we're most proud of grabbing is Tabuu's normal trophy (above on the left) which we found a particularly onerous task and one our right thumb will need a few days to recover from.  The Subspace Emissary mode in Super Smash Brothers Brawl (essentially the game's story mode) got mixed write-ups in reviews but we're already up to 42 hours just playing through the story a number of times. Not too shabby considering it is somewhat an optional mode.  We've also got 22 stickers left to collect as well.

The Ironman Challenge I'm not keen on following WoW nowadays, but this challenge is interesting. Its essentially a community of WoW players who have created a personal challenge to make the game, well... Challenging. WoW nowadays is very easy. There is far too many quests, there are items to increase how fast you can level, you can instantly transport to dungeons with randoms etc etc.  For a while now I always wanted a Diablo like Hardcore version of WoW, you die... you are Dead. and it seems so do others a proper Solo challenge! So should I, make: That Guy's an Ironmaniac? If you care suggest Class/Race combos for me. Love and bits of metal in your heart, Richie X

If you are a game-o-phile and allergic to metaphorical feathers you will have no doubt got some snuffles last week as everyone and their dog (on our feedreader) got their tits in a twizzle about Jennifer Helper and comments taken out of context about some game called Mass Effect. An inoffensive summary is here . It is the kind of news that bloggers love to write about. It gives them a chance to play the White Knight, pass-off a comment about how horrible Xbox Live is and then fire off some unhelpful suggestions about how the gaming community at large should combat the par for the course racist, misogynist, etcist environment in games and on the internet at large (we should confront them for it and report them to Microsoft is a strategy that hasn't worked up until now).  So what is this all about then? Jennifer Helper who didn't write Mass Effect may or may not have said words to the effect that combat should be skippable in games. Cue- the "it is a vocal minority

It's been a couple of weeks since we tuned into the Nintendo Channel to see what's up on ninty's very own TV channel. That's deliberate because the channel has a relatively low turn over and the videos seem to be programmed by a mental who doesn't really understand how marketing works. So we've matchsticked our eyes open long enough to suffer through the latest crop of hit-and-miss offering. What's new? There's a couple of Resident Evil Revelations videos up. They are as dull as the previous ones sadly whilst at the same time giving us the feeling like we've played the game already. More nonsense Mario Kart " Player challenge " vids. Yet another 'series' on the channel that just baffles. Initially these videos introduced challenges in a range of games and we're all for lengthening the long tail of interest on titles older than two weeks. Now, however, they're just Mario Kart 7 time trial videos. If you really are des

How long has the Metro been doing games coverage properly? It is even in the Life section of the magazine! For so long we've been used to newspapers coverage of games being a single game review bundled in the bit-that-nobody-reads or in 'gadgets' or next to the radio listings. Not only is the (weekly) metro coverage a double page spread, they review the latest games rather than games that came out four months ago and the writing ain't that bad either.  Of course, it is entirely moot as anybody interested in games gets all the information they need online. It seems quaint to have to "read a newspaper" for reviews but it warms the cockles of our little hearts that games are finally getting the mainstream recognition that gamers seem to crave to justify their 'hobby/lifestyle'. Even if it is moot coverage and even if the gaming community does its level best to remain toxic, inane and offensive to anybody they suspect of not being a hardcore gamer.

This month goes to... Bug Village. This mobile pile of buttrape is designed purely to part you with your money. Sure on the outside its all cutsey insects and big cartoon eyes, but underneath lies the soul sucking villainous heart of a corporate moneygrabber concept. Just to clarify I played this on the Windows Phone. Windows phone has quite a few games on it and has the added bonus of being able to contribute to your gamerscore. Microsoft have released quite a few free games that do this too, simple crap like Minesweeper, Sudoku, but also some fun ones like Breeze . They are not all bad, but still suffer from just being mobile games. Then about a Month ago another free one hit the marketplace; Bug Village by Glu. Glu have been around for years making shitty mobile games since the days of the nokia brick phones. But this new "free" addition to the Windows Phone games is just fucking terrible. At every turn it tries to get you to pay money, there is an in game currenc

It's always nice to find yourself in the household of a fellow gamer. By far the best bit is perusing their game collection and is also why we hide Shadow the Hedgehog from public display, at the back, in a box re-sleeved with a CoD insert. It is also is a prime time to play those game you wouldn't have bought yourself but are mildly curious about. Hence how we ended up playing House of the Dead 2, 3 and Overkill . Way back when, our family had a Mega Drive and so I grew up on all things SEGA. Sega at home is fine. Arcade SEGA though? Ugh. Unlike rigid and structured games for the home consoles Arcade games are noisy, flashy and 'loose' a bit like your mother. Arcade games are a Waquila suicide* to home games single malt whiskey. Created to rinse your wallet they lack the structure I need to not go foetal and I still shudder when I have to choose 'arcade mode' from a game menu. It's why I'd been avoiding HoTD. I got over it though and HoTD is fu

NEW FEATURE ALERT! NEW FEATURE ALERT! Not content on bringing you the hottest content on video games on the internet we're launching yet another feature setting us aside from those 'other' internet 'sites' bringing you the 'news'. Each month we'll be picking our favourite NPCs from the amazing and magical world of video games. This month is..... It's Only Our Own Bloody Correspondant Alcamoth Citizen! Any thoughts on being our very first NPC of the month bird lady? It is literally, metaphorically and stereotypically no wonder why we picked her to be our new correspondent  from inside video games with a wit like that, inside sources at the Ministry of Records and such a fine pair of head wings too. Interesting fact you might not know about Alcamoth Citizen is that she can be found standing rooted to the spot in Alcamoth City in the Day-Time. Every. Single. Day. Check it out, she's always got something to say about the latest video game

ANNOUNCING In October last year the TGAM board of directors met to discuss how Second Greatest Video Game Blog On The Internet, That Guy's a Maniac (TGAM) was performing. We've listened to our consumers and things are going to change around here. First off, there's going to be no more features that we startand don't finish (like TGAM top 50 ultimate TGAM top games best list of best games of all time ever , Unit of the Month  or That guy's Interviews ) also we've listened to you and what you want is more Resident Evil coverage. We are called That Guy's A Maniac and should honour that legacy. So we'll be seeing some changes around here. Changes we think you will both like. Also, stakeholders have been complaining that TGAM is a it of a sausage fest when we aren't pretending to be women and we need to be covering video games from the female perspective a bit more Which brings me neatly onto OUR BRAND NEW FEATURE: INTRODUCING.... Yes, we know we do

This landed in our feedreader from the normally OK EDGE magazine. Self-styled "game director and alleged psychopath" David Jaffe has kicked off Twisted Metal's marketing campaign in typical style, inviting players to fire an automatic weapon from the comfort of their desks. "I'm here to tell you about the epic return of gaming's most sick, depraved franchise," he says. "It's Twisted Fucking Metal on PlayStation 3, and it's back, bitch." Self-styled "game director and alleged psychopath" David Jaffe has kicked off Twisted Metal's marketing campaign in typical style, inviting players to fire an automatic weapon from the comfort of their desks. "I'm here to tell you about the epic return of gaming's most sick, depraved franchise," he says. "It's Twisted Fucking Metal on PlayStation 3, and it's back, bitch.

Remember the GMAs? You know the Games Media Awards? Well it is a UK awards thing for people who write about games. one of last year's nominees was Chris Scullion who writes for the Official Nintendo magazine in the category SPECIALIST WRITER PRINT. Sadly he didn't win and presumably he was having an off day in OPM 79 when he writes the following about Dragon Quest X: Also making the decision tricky [about whether to get the Wii or Wii U version] is the fact that, as it's the first RPG [on the Wii] to focus more on online adventuring (much like Monster Hunter Tri)... Is it the first or is it not? Snark snark snark.

Aaaaaargh. I hate it. Stupid records like 'World's Most Successful Pokemon Playing Family'. That isn't a proper record. 'World's largest controller' IT WAS PURPOSEFULLY BUILT FOR THE BOOK. How does that count? What an utter nonsense. Combining the world's most pointless record keeping organisation with one of the world's most pointless leisure-time endeavours surely deserves a record for the world's most pointless collaboration? Also 90% of these records are absolutely contested, instantly out of date and very poorly monitored and some come from the INTERNET of all places. We all saw King of Kong are those guys to be trusted? Woooooah. Amazing. Did you know that: The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall has 750,000 NPCs? And that the fastest speed run of Tomb Raider is 2hrs and 39 minutes by a woman! Did you know that Resident Evil 2 is the most popular RE on the PS2 ( change the record dudes )? Did you know that Darkstalkers umm mash up/spin off 

The other character is supposed to be Lightning from FFXIII but is pretty poor The Dragonborn looks the part though! And I love the arrow in the knee! Love and There should be a word to describe being bored and trawling though YouTube, Richie X

You know saying things are "like Marmite", is like Marmite you either love it or hate it. That's right there's no middle ground its black or white no shades of gray, no 6 out of 10's, its either 0 out of 10, or 10 out of 10! They are opposite ends of the spectrum, Violet and Red. missing out all the greens, blues, oranges and yellows in between. And Squaresoft are apparently the same, their games are either "teh SuXXorZ" or "Epic wins". After a slew of Epic wins: VII, VIII, IX, X, everything just seemed to go wrong for them, they made a very girly sequel to FFX, an expensive niche MMO (for PC AND consoles), a single player MMO at the end of a consoles lifecycle, and then XIII finally! After nearly 10 years since FFX, Square made an actual RPG where you level up your dudes and you know chocobos and stuff. But something was wrong... there was grumblings in the internet there was horrible talk of a 30 hour training section, but still we