That guy's a Maniac...

Last weekend, once again we went through the humiliating ritual of busting down to the nearest GAME with our DSi and copies of Pokémon White and Pokémon Black Version 2 to download Legendary 'mon Meloetta. That takes us up to a sweet 648/649 (Deoxys aaargh) in our eternal mission to Catch 'em all , this generation of Pokémon is the closest we've come. In all our years of playing these ridiculous games, Nintendo seem to have finally realised that yes, Europe is a viable region and that some people do play their multi million selling game series. For previous generations we'd get shafted over special events and event only Pokémon meaning that unless you turned to an Action Replay you were destined to have to live with empty spaces dotting the pokedex. That's not to say that all regions are treated equally. Oh no. With Pokémon Black and White Version 2 there's now a multitude of ways to receive special gift pokémon and items from Mother Ninty. gifts

So, Pokemon X and Y announced and we at thatguys have kleenex on standby. And this latest Valentines video shows us the newest evolution for Eevee! But no-one knows what type it is! In the Previous Generations it looks like this: Gen I Flareon: Fire Jolteon: Electric Vaporeon: Water Gen II Espeon: Psychic Umbreon: Dark Gen IV Leafeon: Grass Glaceon: Ice Which leaves Steel, Bug, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Rock, Ghost or Dragon. This Eevee evolution has been named Sylveon. Which rather annoyingly does not divulge the typing the prefix "Sylv" could refer to may things: Silver , indicating it is a steel type, however it does not look very steel-like. Sylvan, meaning foresty or arboreal, but we already have a grass type. Sylph,  which is a mythological air elemental, this could indicate a Flying or Ghost type, but nothing about it really screams either typing, except maybe a scarf that flaps in the wind. Or maybe a connection to Silph Co. the manufactur

So Warcraft decided to put Pokemon in their latest expansion but is it any good? Well sort answer is no, but there are some plus points to it. Mainly it shows Pokemon could be an MMO of sorts, but it also uses some nice graphics to do it. It actually puts the old Pokemon stadiums to shame because the pets actually interact with each other during attacks, as opposed to the shoddy cutscene of an attack being done, then cut to attacked Pokemon flinching in pain. But there are many, many issues with the "Pet battles" within the WoW interface. The biggest and most annoying one, it is buggy as hell: There was several times when playing through my character would be facing the wrong way, sure its just an aesthetic thing but, cmon... Its cheaty! now I read this may have been fixed now, but apparently there was something wrong with the RNG with pet battles, I found that the AI was able to dodge attacks way more than I did, making it frustrating to beat the gym leaders.  Some

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. WE'VE ABUSED ALL CAPS TOO MUCH IN THE PAST, THIS TIME WE MEAN IT. The Official pokemon website is running a vote for a pokemon that will be featured as a download via the Pokemon Global Link. It is clear that TGAM are poke addicts but it ain't all rosy . This could change everything. Here are the current rankings of pokemon people have been voting for: For the love of god Pokemon players. VOTE FOR DEOXYS! Deoxys has never been available in the UK. The empty spot in my almost living pokedex drives me crazy. It is a constant source of dismay to me and the people around me. Whoever the fuck is voting for ditto and pikachu needs euthanising straight away. Not metaphorical euthanising, deliberate hunting down, slaying dissecting and grotesquely displayed in public areas as a warning to others. As for the people voting for Arceus, sure, it is a nice third choice but there was an event for it a while ago. You missed out. Sorry guys. VOTE DEOXYS. For all that is

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

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

Our whole world is crumbling around us, we have been playing Pokemon for 12 years. Ugh... We just spotted this today... Caterpie and Venonat evolve in the following way: But upon further perusal this should clearly be: Ok so the distinction in the Caterpie - Metapod - Venomoth evolution line is not overly obvious. But the Venonat to Butterfree similarities are astounding!Observe the Antennae, eyes, mouth, hands, and colouration. Without giving into the horrible realisation that Nintendo fucked up, and have been lying to us; to stop ourselves swapping their positions in the pokedex, turning off the DS and never returning to pokemon again. There may be a way to explain this, from an Evolutionary stance: 1. Theory One: Venonat is a derived form of Butterfree. If we can assume that Butterfree has remained Morphologically similar, there is a possibility that the species branched off at an earlier point in which may have found a flightless niche exising as a

See here for what this nonsense is about. Basically, I've successfully transferred 490 bits of code from one DS cart to another! Erm, yay me? Can't wait to do it all over again when Pokemon Black and White come out.....

Books innit? In between writing about games, listening almost exclusively to gaming soundtracks and reading about games on the Internet we occasionally find the time to actually play some games. Rarer still, we find time to pick up a game related book and give it a bloody good read and now is a good a time as any to be reading about games. This time five years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find any gaming based literature in your local book shop. Now, for the discerning reader, it is hard not get buried by it. First up, we've been reading The Second Life Herald: the virtual tabloid that witnessed the dawn of the metaverse by Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace. This book is 3 years old now but charts the early days of the growth of things like The Sims Online and Second Life and where interesting stuff happens with emergent behaviours in games. If you completely missed this chunk of gaming history but want to know more about why people bother with second life, what the Upskirt Museum

We got a DSi XL from our favourite person in the world. It is a thing of beauty, an object d'art. The screens are huge and I can now check the internet from the toilet which, is pretty much living the dream. In addition, because the old DS touch screen was broken it now means that we can unlock those extra outfits on Project Rub, Spin that record in Resident Evil Deadly Silence and most importantly MATCH THE FACES! MATCH THE FACES, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, MATCH THE FACES, MATCH THE FACES, MATCH THE FACES, match the faces, match the faces, MATCH THE FACES! Match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces, match the faces

Play a Guitar hero or Rock band game from start to finish (or endless setlist etc) with the pokewalker strapped to your strumming wrist. (I got 12,000 for Guitar hero: Greatest hits). Love and Hey! I wonder how many steps your average wank would produce with this set-up? Richie X

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

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.

Zorua Zoroark Apparently a dark type, if it was 3 stage I'd like to think it could have been a starter. I'm fond of the idea that the starters could be something other than Fire, Grass and Water again. Dark, Fighting and Psychic seem the most viable. But I digress... It's been announced much in the same way as Lucario of Generation IV as he'll be in the TWELFTH movie!  Love and still waiting on HeartGold/SoulSilver, Richie X 

See here the lovely Lisa Courtney officially has the World's Largest Collection of Pokemon Memorabilia and we are seething with jealousy so bad right now. We thought we were contenders for it but Lisa's collection dwarfs the TGAM meagre collection of: Copies of Pokemon Red, 2 x Blue, Yellow, SIlver, Gold, Ruby Sapphire, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, TCG, Ranger, Link, Stadium, Stadium 2, Colosseum, Ruby & Sapphire Box, Channel, XD, Snap and Mystery Dungeon Time. A Psyduck Plushie. Seven or so key rings of Pikachu. An Eevee that senses motion and says Veeeeeeeeeee (batteries not working). A copy of Pikachu's Global Adventure. Legal copies of the first film on DVD and VHS, two copies of the second film and one of the fourth film. A bunch of rubbish stuff from that awful day Loads more other stuff that we are way too embarrassed to go into. Very little of it is official Nintendo merchandise mind. Some of it is totally home made too. So, in resurrecting a feature we did four

Richie is totally away at the moment which means that the thin veil of quality control we pretend we have here at TGAM is now completely gone. However, problems with quality control and staying 'on message' have been with us for months. Despite being called That Guy's A Maniac we haven't posted anything about Resident Evil ever since that Sheva Nude cheat . We should rename ourselves in order to better reflect the content. An obscure eleven year old game quote just won't cut it anymore. In fact I copied all the text from the last month of TGAM and auto-summarized it in word over and over until it pared down to something that looks like a blog title. This is the result : Time Crisis (GunCon)Time Crisis 3 How much gaming does he do? posted by Cunzy11 at 3:00 PM 3 comments TGAM top 50 ultimate TGAM top games best list of best games of all time ever: Number 41 Unlike all the other Resident Evil games on this list, this game is new. 42: Wii Play Tanks! In other gam

Yeah ok, So their list is: Unown - Cuz it is Gimmicky Beautifly - Cuz its a copy of Butterfree Luvdisc - Cuz it looks silly and has rubbish stats Probopass - Cuz it looks really stupid. Mr Mime - Cuz yeah he is the shittiest pokemon ever. Now if we were angsty, under-sexed bloggers , we would dispute this claim saying things like, "Luvdisc can be EV trained to be IMBA". But that is not us, we are better than that. In fact, despite this coming from 1up we whole-heartedly agree! So we are going to gracefully tip our caps to 1up, and expand on the list a wee bit. Top 5 Shit pokemon that are shit, but not quite as shit as the top 5 lamest pokemon that 1up posted: 5. CastForm: Shitty weather dependent Pokemon that changes it form based on whatever weather effect is in play, meaning you waste your moveset on weather changing moves. And of course by the time you have actually changed the weather you are dead anyway. 4. Ditto: Pfft, everyone has at least a

Seriously how effin cool are these T-shirts! Hypno, Mewtwo, Articuno, Cubone... all done in a tasteful* way. If only there were some other gamer T-Shirts that were tasteful... The hunt begins. * i.e. you could wear them in public, without people shaking there heads or pointing an laughing at the disgrace that comes with wearing a Pokemon Tshirt.

Let's milk the cash cow till only blood comes out. Milk it like a Polaroid picture. Milk it, milk, milk, milk, milk it. Milk it, milk, milk, milk, milk it. *We're still gonna buy it like a bunch of kidulthood fags.

Yes they are. Remember when everyone was all about the "yes games are art, yes they make you cry". Who ever cried at a game? The nearest I came to crying was when Richie and I were two-TV, no save, speed running Resident Evil 2 and I died at the end boss. Damn, now I'm welling up again just thinking about it. However, there is a new platform of media that makes people cry. I give you: Pokemon the first movie. Watch it and cry* like a girl unless you are so heartless. Cold and heartless heathen . *Not gay crying you understand. Fake allergy crying. We've all got them right? Right?