That guy's a Maniac...

Readers of this here blog will notice that aside from posts about pokemon, vibrating attachments for various mp3 players and a love hate relationship with achievements is that we occasionally begrudge getting told what's next. Already there's stifled hype for the next generation leaking out all over the place. Iwata has started the Wii 2 hype train with typical no news statements and as usual the shit eaters are eating it up. There's no discerning or questioning here. Something new? Give it to me. Give me something new they say. SO this current generation has had longer than most but that's a pretty arbitrary measurement of how 'good we've had it'. Richie and I often theoretically talk about educating a complete non gamer in the way of games. We compile a big old list of all the games that really add something new or show off the best of video games. Our hypothetical non gamer has to play through them all chronologically and at the end is given a certificat

We strive against gender inequality in games and at the same time for more freedom of choice and to be treated with respect as adults who heathily enjoy video games. But then as soon as a game gives us the freedom to take screenshots anywhere we take images like this. Part of us wishes that we were uploading this with irony. Another part of us is instantly going to bookmark this page under 'email support'. On second thoughts our partners might need email support one day. Is it worse to try and hide this from our loved ones? If I'm going to do it anyway would you preffer to find it under "Crystal Chronicles Selkie sexy look"? Answers in the comments. Who's worse, the people who code and animate this stuff? Or the people who take these screenshots and upload them to a blog? because frankly, there's no innocently discovering that you could do this. At some point we made the concious decision to take these shots. Of course now that I'm writing this post I

Ready-Up are hiring so we sent them a job application. Well, I say a job application, it was exactly this one . We're quietly confident. However, because we had to go and visit Ready-Up to find the details about applying for the job we noticed a few things on the application form. A rare opportunity is available to work on the UK’s fastest growing gaming community website. Ah, fastest growing. That immeasurable indefinable measure of success. And it is a pure lie. We just visited www.thatguys.co.uk for the first time this morning which takes our growth from 0 visitors at 9am to 1 visitor at noon. That's growth of MORE THAN INFINITY. We're the fastest growing gaming community more like. Applicants must have solid spelling and grammar. Shit. We missed this on the application form. Abort. Abort. Here are our future work colleagues and a free bonus game! There are five 'woulds' and three 'wouldn'ts' can you work out which are which? Don't worry TGAM read

Following on from Doppelgangers post . I have my own set of achievement wish lists. #1 Final Fantasy VII (PS1): 1000GP Fucking RIGHT I got 1000 points: I spent so long on this game, getting some of the harder "achievements" - 'Everyone' at lvl 99 - Obtained Yuffie and Vincent - All Ultimate Weapons - Omni-slash obtained. - Aeris's final limit break. - Bred a Gold Chocobo - Master Summon, Magic and Support Materia's - Ruby Weapon Defeated - Emerald Weapon Defeated #2 Super Mario World (SNES): 1000 GP Yeah entirely completed, 96 exits located. I know this is isn't the hardest of "achievements" but this one in ingrained in me. I guarantee you I could straight up complete all the way up to 96, with all the tricks timing and secrets safely stored away in that mess of useless grey matter I call a brain. In fact to confirm this myself and Doppelganger went through this again a couple of years back. We straight up

Remember this from last year? Out of the blue Iran chose to single out the speedy normal type Pokemon. Banning all broadcasts featuring the slinky Pokemon, pokedex #53. The " BBC Persian, which will go on air next week, will be used by British intelligence for "espionage and psychological warfare", according to Iranian officials. " Were Team Rocket involved? Bizarrely, Meowth were fine. Original story here and super-mad-props to Rob is Gay who has given us enough of these to run with forever.

Exposed armpits confirmed in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Nintendo are pushing DQIX so hard and via the various channels that we consume all things video games we run the risk of getting Dragon Quest indigestion. Both EDGE magazine and ONM have run DQ retrospectives and articles in addition to those horrid PROMOTIONAL FEATURES that look like NON-PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVE FEATURES. There have also been a couple of DQIX videos on the Nintendo Channel and a number of prime-time TV spots. Even the bloody real-life newspapers were carrying reviews and previews on Sunday. There was no escaping it. And yes, we know how they all go. "DQ sold a bagillion copies in Japan". "Nobody is interested here". Except for the PS2 version. That was quite good. Yet, for all this rhetoric and the unanimous glowing reviews we aren't even going to bother buying it, here's why. Firstly, and least importantly, there just isn't the culture of ad-hoc multiplayer play here that there is in Japan. I lose count of the games that have these 'n