That guy's a Maniac...

On August 27  Blizzard is launching their WoW re-boot: WoW Classic.  15 years ago, as our steadfast and loyal readership will remember, I just wouldn’t shut up about WoW, offering almost daily updates on the most mundane aspects of my (crappy) fire mage. And I shall be re-joining the masses this August, this time as a Human Paladin.  I have dipped my toe in and out of WoW, over the course of its evolution, to it’s current iteration. Though I have not partook in the past 3-ish expansions. WoW has changed a lot it's so fast paced and it’s almost impossible to die, but I will lay out my grumbles on what it has become at another point . One of my favourite things in WoW was “Transmog”, which initially was collecting pieces of armour or weapons and by taking it to a dude in-game, he could make one look like the other. Previously this worked by having to own the armour you wanted to Transmog with, resulting in bags and banks full of low level armour. Nowadays, however you “colle

The community is up in arms, pitchforks have been raised, picket boards have been lovingly crafted with catchy slogans for social media. The mob is revolting. What's This Noise Then? There is no National Dex (terms in bold appear in the glossary at the end) in the upcoming  Pokémon game, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield , it's not #brexit, its #dexit. There is a grumbling controversy fluttering in the forums and the social medias as people are furious that a thing has been 'taken' away from them because not all of the currently available Pokémon will be catchable or transferable in the upcoming games for the first time in the mainline series of the games since last year's Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Pokémon Let's Go Eevee  2002's Pokémon Sapphire and Pokémon Ruby . And as semi-professional contrarians, we straddle that high horse and RP a bit of devils advocate. Is taking the  National Dex away a bad thing? As of the end of Generation

Every now and then a conversation sparks up round the water cooler at TGAM Towers that goes along the lines of someone asking "So is gaming mainstream yet?". Hours, insults, fisticuffs and a reminder on policy on worker in the work place later, inevitably the conclusion is a firm not yet .  We're not expecting an overnight transformation. But what would it take?  We have game inspired video games at the Box Office (okay so they're rarely great), Final Fantasy menus in restaurants, Splatoon and Pokemon collaboration ranges with Uniqlo, LEGO collaborations with Blizzard, Midway and SEGA. Museum exhibitions on video games, design and art. Gaming content seemingly dominates large swathes of the Internet from Youtube through to Youporn. Yet admitting that you choose to spend your time playing video games every now and then still feels, in the UK at least, akin to admitting that you strictly only eat the faces of babies because that's where the softest meat is.

With the, how shall we say, 'fan backlash' to the recent confirmation and reiteration that some Pokémon would not be compatible with the upcoming  Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield for Nintendo Switch it's perhaps timely to check in with Dactylocer, the Omastar that, alongside a few others, we've transferred from game to game, region to region and hardware generation to generation since 2004's  Pokémon Fire Red for the Game Boy Advance*. The Story So Far We last checked in with Dactylocer back in 2013 in blogpost  An Omastar is for life  charting one spiral pokémon's journey from Game Boy Advance to Game Cube to Nintendo DS to Wii to a pedometer and even exploration of the Dream World on PC. Unova had been conquered and we were waiting to hear about compatibility with Pokémon X and Y and the chance to take on the Kalos region. Generation Six Fortunately, after a little longer wait that anticipated , thanks to the delay in  Pokémon Bank and a quick st

Acid rounds  is a semiregular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Cunzy1 1: So, this one's a blast from the arse . Back in the heady days of 2013 when you still saw white dog turds in the street, earwigs were still a thing laying eggs in peoples ears and casual everythingisms was the norm, developer Level 5 released seven games in the Guild Series for the Nintendo 3DS (R.I.P. In Peace, you died before your time). Cheap and cheerful games often twists on a fun theme. Between us we played a number of them and this one has a special place in Richie's heart. So, Attack of the Friday Monsters , what's the skinny? Richie:  I genuinely have no idea what made me pick this one up! I usually hate this type of game, throwaway indie title. I have absolutely no idea what even drew me to it 5-6 years ago. My guess is there was some sort of EV training burnout , and I caught this game on a sale... As I mentioned in my previous post the beauty o

Taking a break from posting to the three people who actually read this blog! We will return in the Summer, with more observations, content, ridiculous features, themed weeks, another game(?), edgy interviews, and analogies about games being so good they flood basements, #nocontextscreenshots and most importantly uninformed opinions on breaking games news. Love and If we took a holiday, Took some time to celebrate, Just one day out of life, It would be, it would be so nice, Richie and Cunzy1_1 X

Soul II Soul aside, and hereby referencing my age, making the following post just that touch more creepy... After a solid few weeks of following the Capcom hype-train and completing RE2:Remake and DMCV, I am maintaining a transport metaphor and like a midwestern early 20th century hobo I'm grabbing my belongings in a handkerchief suspended in a stick over my shoulder and jumpin’ carts, scuttling back over to the Nep-train with a jug of moonshine. I needed a change of pace, too much panicking, getting bitten and quick action Super Sexy Stylin’ button mashing. I found myself pining for turn-based JRPG,  where not exactly the most thrill chasing of genres, ultimately just some menus which make flashy wooshes and sound effects interspersed with some plot advancing text. I miss the grandeur of Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and um… More recently… um? I dunno, I guess that Miitopia one? And maybe Pokemon?  Most turn-based JRPGs nowadays are linked to  massi

No Acid Rounds this week. To busy beastin' games

Thatguys.co.uk is old, we have been doing this shit, and "getting too old for this shit" for an excessive amount of time. Our site has gone through a plethora of iterations all wonderfully designed in by our expert in-house team. Half of our old links don't work/exist any more, our SEO is duct-taped together in separate timelines, but on the upside we did close down our Myspace account... right? We rewind time to see how painfully cringe we once were. We go through our archives to find out how right or wrong we were, and wince at the non-woke-ness of the of our past selves. In today's RETROspect we look back at a classic Richie Post: Soul Calibur Wankery In this post I get all excited about SoulCalibur IV, mainly I get all fanboy geeky about the addition of Darth Vader and Yoda. And on top of that in a predictable Richie response, conscript Cunzy1_1 and we made a list out all of our favourite fantasy additions to the roster: Zoro (One Piece)  Anyone from

Flame rounds  lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame roundsded?). Cunzy1 1: What're you selling? Richie:  Fucking ice levels, most specifically that annoying inertia slide which get applied to your main character. Annoying, get some crampons. Cunzy1 1: Are we just going to cycle through 90's gaming tropes is that it? We had five original ideas and are now just rehashing our old forum posts? Richie:  Looking back at our archive we are subconsciously rehashing ourselves over and over again. Ironically we are probably the only blog in existence with the label "bored of the same arguments" however time for us to take a long hard look in the mirror, sunshine. Doesn't make slipping on ice a game that is

*shudder* The scene opens in a seedy backstreet, a valve hisses with steam, a jittery dropout approaches a shifty looking man in a trench coat. The twitching skinny looks like a university student, wearing jeans and a half life 3 t-shirt and is fervently clutching a Devil May Cry 5 "V" card. He utters, "Please sir, I'm collecting for a badge on a devil may cry game a really like... I bought it from you." The man in the trenchcoat is unflinching, the light in the alley is dim and shadows flicker across his face, only his eyes are really visible, piercing yet soulless. "I have two of these 'V' cards, I was hoping to trade it in for one of the cards that I don't have. Can you help me Mister Marketplace" pleaded this geeky student-looking man, stretching out the card before him. Mr. Marketplace, reaches down and plucks the the card from his hands, in his gruffest poor-people east London accent he replies, "I might know someone, who

Acid rounds is a semi-regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Sunday is the day of God, apparently it was made his day cuz he had just churned out a 6 day week, and decided he was gonna rest on his laurels. Every week we do the same, except instead of resting on our laurels we brag about games we have beasted from start to finish, Last week I went off on one about Oblivion this week Cunzers tells us about yet another spaceship game ! So What's this one about? Cunzy1 1: Starlink: Battle for Atlas is an interesting mix, it's part space game, part planetary exploration and part RTS with a more-complex-than-it-needs-to-be toys to life element. Pilots, ships, wings and weapons can either be changed on the fly by plugging and swapping around physical parts or used to unlock parts and pilots for time limited use in digital/handheld mode. The story in Starlink won't be threatening narrative titans of Sci-Fi, Starlink is a b

Having historically shown but a half-arsed interest in video game development and support to date it's interesting to see that both Google and Apple have recently announced half-arsed plans to continue. In the Red Corner we have Google Stadia. A website which...YouTubers...terraflops at 60 fps which is technically very impressive. In the Blue Corner Apple have announced Apple Arcade which will...games...apps... so expect to see that in coffee shops all over the world! The pixellated elephant in the room however is WHAT VIDEO GAMES ARE WE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT? The administrators and system designers have spent so long on the beanbags in the flexible working open plan offices, they forgot to tell us the key part of these boring projects. Fortunately, dear readers, we have the ultimate inside source, it's Alcamoth Citizen reporting from inside Xenoblade Chronicles and she has EXCLUSIVE news on the games to share. This, her first report from the stream cloud piss: