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Final Fantasy VIII: The Re-Re-Revenge

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So its back again a special Remuxed HD version on Steam. This will be the 3rd time I have "Bought" the game: Way back in the heady days of 1999 I went into a Virgin Megastore, I walked past the new fangled DVD's, muttered under my breath, "As if these will catch on". I carried on through the Videos, the VHS's the plethora of massive series Box Sets. I made my way to the escalator and Up to the CD's, rows upon rows of CD's, determining what area was what genre by the clothing of the figures flicking through them. Again another escalator, walking through the "Specialist" music section, folk, classical and Pan Pipes. To the darkened corner of the "Games Area" The most acne ridden of all the Virgin Megastore's clerks, reside here, disgruntled yet proud, with the word Virgin aptly stamped across their chest. There I saw FFVIII for the PC. Yes PC, and I genuinely bought it for the PC. My beloved PS1 had packed in no more than a f

Spying on gamers: Alcamoth Citizen says Special

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The unreliable Eurogamer has the news . Spies from various shadowy organisations which may or may not exist, may or may not have been watching you cyber in Animal Crossing. They won't catch us though, this has been on our radar for months thanks to our in-game sources. Remember people, turn to the skies....

NOT NEWS: GAME Stores still shit

We've burned out bridges with GAME . We tried but they've been failing us as consumers for the last half decade. Probably longer if we could be bothered to dredge through the archives. However, I happened to pop in to one today just to check. One in central London, the capital city of the United States of England. Here's what I saw: The store is now divided in half. One half if PS4, the other half is Xbone. I didn't spot the Wii games and the 3DS section only had five different new games and a pre-owned section chock full of absolute shite shovelware.  This last week neither the PS4 or the Xbone demo terminals have been working. Great showcase of that expensive new exciting next generation right? No new copies of GTA V. Pre-owned only. In the ten minutes I was there two people asked for it one didn't want pre-owned and the other one begrudgingly bought one. But it is 3 months old now so it's basically a legacy game. Why would they sell it.  No Xbones in

Review: Pokémon X and Y

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Pokémon X and Y have been out for a while now and we're only just writing a review? Well we are well aware that nobody reads this, it's just we felt that the reviews that came out when the game did were just a bit lazy. We can understand why, it must be horrible for an RPG to land on your desk, especially if you're not a fan of a series like Pokémon. Plus, is there any point in a review of such a mega franchise? Unless the series curators massively messed around with the recipe, it's going to sell like hot cakes anyway. Might as well phone that review in (and many did). Job done. So we're writing this for ourselves more than anything. When the aliens are poring over the remnants of our burned out civilisation maybe a media studies student might pull this review of the charred remains of a Google server somewhere. So we're writing this for us and the alien. Evolution not revolution is the phrase that hacks might turn to when reviewing a new Pokémon game.

Can I even justify a new console?!?

Yeah so new generation has hit, there is updated graphics, physics, engines... the lot. But I'm not done with "Current Gen". I will save you the resounding cry of thirty somethings with real jobs, complaining about responsibilities, not having comparatively enough time for games. I specifically am not done with Current gen as I have a back log of around 10 games (with more hitting soon!) I need to finish them first. Hell there is even DLC I need to pick up for Skyrim and waste another 100ish hours on that! I know folks are banging on about playing an Xbox through an Xbone but something about that really does not sound economical/or indeed necessary, and frankly the machine should have some back compatibility anyways! So Fuck it, next/Current gen can wait a minute, and calm the fuck down, get some updates, and some good titles. Then I may consider it worthy of my wallet. Thank you and see you in 6 months PS4/XB1 unlesssantabringsmeoneomgomgomg Love and Grinchy

The PlayStation 2 x 2

Okay so everyone is going on about it but here's our exclusive lowdown on the PS2x2, that is two PlayStation 2s taped together. We've unboxed ours, here's the extensive feature list. Extensive Game Catalogue . What is it they say about buses? You wait a whole generation for a decent game (thanks PS3) and then hundreds come along. The PS2x2 can play some of the best games ever released straight out of the gate. Backwards compatibility . You can play all your favourite PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games and playing them couldn't be easier. Just put your old games in either of the disc slots and play away! With a PlayStation or PlayStation 2 memory card you can even continue your old games from where you left them. No rebuying games you already own. No waiting for downloads. Microsoft are going to have to really nail it to beat this. Forwards incompatibility . The PlayStation 2x2 is completely incompatible with PlayStation Move , any Resistance games or Heavy Rain

Demo Seen and the 3DS:Part 2

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Hurrah! The 3DS being so nice 'n' all has pulled us kicking out of the slump thinking about all that time we'd spent on gaming when we felt that gaming just didn't love us anymore (thanks XBONE and PS4). We've spent over 15 hours playing through demos alone. Here's Part 2 of our coverage. If you're even here reading it, congratulations, you're unique. Part 1, for the hard of clicking is embedded in the word here not that here or the last here or that here, it's here.  /Sigh Dead or Alive Dimensions We remember Dead or Alive . We still say "It is like the desert" when the situation calls for it. Dead or Alive Dimensions looks like Dead or Alive and sounds like Dead or Alive .It's probably Dead or Alive which means playing it online will be an experiment of continuously getting destroyed by the three people still playing it. We're happy to report that there was slow motion upvag in the cutscene and vibratits in the demo a

Demo Seen and the 3DS: Part 1 Downloadable Now

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Aaaaaaaaand I'm back. The messages have been pouring through our social media channels. Where is Cunzy1 1? Well maybe they have. We think maybe the filters are too high. We didn't receive a single message. But here I am anyway. This year's E3 put me in an anti-gaming malaise. Not only was I not looking forward to what next gen has to offer (what has next gen got to offer?) but it left such a bad taste in our mouth (we share all body cavities here) that I couldn't bare to even pick up a game. Let alone play a game. Let alone write about a game. I've spent my time watching Let's Plays on Youtube and crying into our wank sock (we share that too).  Backstreet(Pass)'s Back And then Pokemon Y came out. Global release. Which meant I had to get a 3DS and boy. Wow. We're back in. We love games again. Pokemon Wersion X and Pokemon Wersion Y  are fine games, more on that in a blog post for another time, what impressed us most jumping on the 3DS is virtually

Pokemon X&Y

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It has become clear to me that Pokemon X/Y is the best game ever, there will never be a game to trump it. As someone in the industry this dismays me, but that dismay is bittersweet as I can just play Pokemon X/Y. Also, I am embittered by this post, as it is eating into my Pokemon Time. Love and Pokemon Z? Richie X

From the Collection #2: Pokémon NFC Figures

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It's been a while since the last instalment of this series about all the gaming kipple we've collected over the years that fills cupboards and boxes away from the disapproving glances of partners. We started this series with some stuff that predates our video gaming 'lifestyle' choice and now we jump to the latest additions to the collection, which we frequently get out and lick, these ADOWABLE Pokémon near field communication (NFC) figures, designed to be used with the Wii-U game pad. Following on from the outlandish success of the Skylander's series Ninty are trying to cash in with this technology. Simply, you pop one of these figures on your Wii-U game pad and they pop up on the screen in the latest Pokémon Rumble game, one of the lesser Pokémon spin-off series. No doubt about it, it's a cash in (in previous Pokémon rumble games a similar feat was achieved through simple passwords alone) but we're huge fans of My Pokémon Ranch (153 hours 'playing

Next Gen, The Inside Story

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Sick of hearing about the Xboxone and the PS4 through constant RUMOUR and drip, drip of unconfirmed screenshots of a next gen game taken with a shaky cam from a brown paper bag? Bored of the Official PlayStation magazine tweeting about the number of USB ports on the PS4? Tired of the never ending whine of fanboys who miss the good old days when you had to get cheat codes from the back of a mag and you could only play the latest games at your mates house on all those illegally ripped disks?  You want to hear the facts? You've come to the right place, because we my friends have a source. ON THE INSIDE. It's Alcamoth citizen from inside Xenoblade Chronicles . Here's what she has to say about next gen.  You heard it here first. EXCLUSIVE.

In addendum:

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One thing we would like to add to this post : Is that while getting my ass handed to me by all those legendaries, I was able to experience the other side of the pokemon games. Namely what it felt like to be an NPC. All these over powered super speedy pokemon, and here was me with a fucking stunfisk. I felt the pain of those stupid fucking team rocket grunts, making their grandiose claims of world domination with a fucking level 9 Zubat. These comics know what I mean: VGCats Super Effective 63 VGCats Super Effective 64 Dorkly, the fate of all NPC Trainers Fuck 'em, now those NPC's will feel my wrath with a furious vengeance! Love and almost a Pulp Fiction quote, Richie X

Pokémon 2013 Global Showdown: Team TGAM's story

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Right now until Midnight on Monday, it's the 2013 Global Showdown International Pokémon tournament. For non-Pokémon aficionados, every now and then there are international tournaments that are run over Wi-fi. The tournament are broken into a number of categories depending upon the age information with your Pokémon game; Junior Division, Senior Division and Master Division for old farts like us.  Each tournament has an open registration period, places are normally limited to 50,000 (from a community of 3 million according to the Pokémon Global Link ) and tournament rules sometimes vary. For a short time the registered trainers can take part in as many battles as they wish winning and losing adding or taking away ranking points which everyone starts of with 1500 of. You get to register six Pokémon and then going into each battle you see the six Pokémon your opponent has, both of you choose three trying to weigh up the strategic combinations. This is the first International tour

Omastar Comics #36

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Since all this business , Omastar is too busy for comics work it seems. He's now off trying to break into the West End. He'll be doing adverts for squid rings in six months. DON'T COME CRAWLING BACK HERE BECAUSE WE'RE DONE YOU UNGRATEFUL...  So here's the new star of Omastar comics, someone who the kids might actually recognise, in a comic that all of two people will get, not that there's really much of a joke here in the first place. As ever, you gotta click to embiginate. In other gaming news, we're so so bored of the three stories going round and round at the moment. Like the XbOne and PS4 aren't going to land with a splat rather than a parade of dinosaurs with fireworks coming out of them and as if the AAA vs Indie is actually a thing. If you can't make games that will keep you in the business, don't fucking bother. Until the PS2, DS and Wii conks out we're in no rush for 'next gen'. It's unbelievable. God. We're

Outcast, re-boots all round

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So that ancient game Outcast has been marked for a remake, and some of the original Syndicate (Wars) guys have appealed to the kickstarter community to give them money to do so. I feel that this week the games industry just flicked through gog.com  and chose a couple of randoms. First of all! That Syndicate game, which is called Satellite Reign; dont get me wrong I'm excited about the appeal of a successor that is not an FPS, and it ties in nicely with my recent cries for a proper dystopian megalopolis type game. But I cant get round that video : those guys are really off-putting, just seeing them there pitching their idea on kickstarter, it really feels a bit too much like begging, sorry guys. Some other kickstarters have done well in advertising their products and appealing, mainly because they are mostly creative types, but this seems like guys out of their depth trying to learn how to do a sales pitch. Secondly why Outcast?! Outcast was a great game, for its time, it

From The Collection #1: The Crookback Packrats

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Over a month ago now, we trailed this series and then in classic TGAM style ditched it . This series is our way of getting some extra value out of all that stuff we've collected over the years, most of it travelling direct from the shop into the cupboard of shame. In surveying the collection we were in two minds about where to start. Should we mix it up and start at the end with the latest kipple we picked up in the HMV and GAME closing sales? Maybe start in the middle during 'our golden age of gaming' when we actually had the time/the inclination to play video games with every available second? Or perhaps we should go deep into the cupboard of Chinese manufactured goods and dredge out the things that started it all? Well we guessed you' expect us to choose one of those so in an elaborate twist we went waaay back. BEFORE the beginning. Perhaps this is where it all started with, sadly, all I have left of a once magnificent but also deeply shameful collection of Games W

Pokemon Team: En Memorandum

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Last month was a hard time for me. In part I was overjoyed at the exposure thatguys.co.uk was getting with that Kill Screen article. However it was also a dark time, my Pokemon Black Cartridge got put in the washing machine corrupted. This cart contained many of the pokemon who were on a par with the length of time played and connection with that Omastar , so as I am sure you can appreciate the joy of being featured was ever so slightly tainted... As you can imagine, I was more than distraught. I considered trying to salvage my save using PC adaptors, or perhaps re-starting with a new save and using editors re-create my pokemon with their original stats. I could even send some of the “event” pokemon, those pokemon I queued for, or downloaded that are no longer available. That would be legit right, its not so cheaty is it? I decided against it, to follow on from the Omastar article there is an emotional attachment to these guys, if I were to re-create them what would I create