That guy's a Maniac...

Is a great little (well, big actually) book compiled by the usual suspects (I wonder if the guys from ONM ever wonder why they never ever get asked to contribute to anything like this?). Put simply, this book lists 1001 video games you must play before you die. It is of course obligatory to now go through and list the shocking omissions and where they chose the wrong games but it is a very well balanced selection. Normally lists like this tend to neglect recent games but there's a good spread of games throughout time and space. There are 1001 of them though. How many have we played? Well I've played 155 of them. There's some odd choices but I don't envy making the selection. For example, which Street Fighter games make the list and which don't? Also, if you were to take the premise of this book very seriously and only had months to live must you really play both Advance Wars and Advance Wars Dual Strike? The book isn't without its errors don'tcha know? After

This excellent little piece is up on Inside Voice about what we mean by the average gamer. It's worth a read. We're constantly worried on behalf of the nation of gamers in that the term gamer doesn't mean anything anymore. "I play WoW exclusively" is not the same person as "I only play Fifa and CoD on Friday nights after the pub". But what we love about the post is the following list quoted word for word: * Facebook has become the platform of choice for the average gamer. * The iPhone has taken over as the most popular platform for the average gamer. * The console continues to be the primary gaming platform for the average gamer. * Due to the massive popularity of free-to-play, the average gamer won’t pay for anything anymore. * The average gamer has a subscription to Live. * The average gamer loves microtransactions and cannot wait to buy absolutely anything offered for sale. * The average gamer doesn’t have any online friends, is unfamiliar with chat

This kind of thing ( IF we notice it, that's a big IF) is game breaking for us. It seems more and more to use that hardcore games are anything but and casual games seem to be good for the kind of challenge that made games so compelling in the first place. Doesn't matter anyway BECAUSE YOU ALL BOUGHT IT IN THE MILLIONS. P.S Multiplayer is for Phags before you even go there. UPDATE WHEN I WAS FIXING THE VIDEO. It turns out I know quite a lot of the Spanish from Resident Evil 4. I don't know what they are saying but I imagine it is the equivalent to Achtung! Schnell Schnell and ACHTUNG GRENADES! in German.

Dated for 4th March 2011. The count down begins... Love and another 200+ hours of my life given to Gamefreak, Richie X

1. Play Marvel vs Capcom 2 on XBLA. 2. Play Super Street fighter 4. 3. Buy Kleenex: Love and last minute gay jokes, Richie X

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.....

I was on the continent for Christmas and when I wasn't dying I was pining for some gaming action. It was Christmas after all and for me Christmas just isn't Christmas without the family gathering around the yearly multiplayer game or gaming long into the night, freed from the constraints of early starts the next morning. Just after Christmas, the wife and I went into town. She spent shit loads of money on books ("they're for work") which normally gives me free reign to spunk some dough on a new game. The problem was nothing that I wanted was reasonably priced, what I did want and was probably reasonably priced wasn't stocked and even games that were just over reasonably priced and that I kind of wanted I was put off by the couloured triangle on the spine of the box ruining the gaming shelf ( Dead Space Extraction's yellow triangle already taunts me every time). I then spotted a copy of 1000 video games to play before you die but it was more expensive in

In a future retrospective article.  We have decided to pose ourselves some questions to answer for 2012 Dear Cunzy11,  Did you... Finish Monster Hunter tri? Buy Pokemon White? Beat Richie with some cheaty pokemon in great pokemon clash 2011? Buy an HD console? Buy a 3DS like a gormless new tech adopting twat? Get past that bit on Alien Resurrection yet? Play a single XBLA, Virtual Console, Wiiware or PSN game? Dear Richie, Did you... Thousand any games this year? Play any games in the top 10 Metacritic scores this year? Buy Pokemon black? Resist WoW all year? Gold star every song on Rock Band 3 with every instrument? Play a single XBLA, Virtual Console, Wiiware or PSN game? Dear Games  Industry, Did you... Release the 3DS? Release No More Heroes for the 360? Announce the Next Blizzard MMO? release yet another in the Guitar Hero/RockBand Franchise? Announce a Kingdom Hears game that isn't on a mobile platform? Think that GTAV looks like badly drawn testicles? Announce another Conso

544 trophies! 700 Stickers! I am still lacking an amount of trophies and 30 stickers. Really? Where are they all? Stupid cheaty Tabuu cheaty wing blast cheats boss battles dick.

Well,  2011 is upon us and by now we should be clearing up the last few achievements on the games we got over the festive period. And with them out of the way, what do we have to look forward to? Cue Music It's...  That Guy's guide to gaming in 2011! In no particular order: Dragon Age 2 (Multiple platforms) 11/03/11 Sequel to one of my Favourite RPG's, some snazzy new improvements to the combat, a much needed Graphic overhaul, and a brand new plot involving Morrigan's child someone called Hawke. And above all, some more money to spend on EA DLC! Lego Star Wars 3: Clone Wars (Multiple Platforms) 18/02/11 Well, not sure I care that much about this one, as much as the Lego games are consistent fun. The formula is a tad tired,  The last one I played was Lego Indiana Jones 2, which was thrashed pretty quickly.  I didn't really bother with Lego Harry Potter, and well... As much as I like Star Wars I never bothered with the clone wars cart

Is bloody brilliant. We were fans of the original Silent Hill, most of the sequels and even the film didn't suck too bad although it wasn't a patch on the games in terms of shit-your-pantiness. Then there were those reboots on obscure formats (Origins anyone?). So it was with some trepidation that we played Silent Hill Slatted Marmosets. However, it turns out to be great. So great that only a bulleted list will do it any justice. The game opens with a Cheryl section that almost puts the Jason section from Heavy Rain to shame. Our favourite game was waggle the wiimote whilst shouting Cheryl whilst looking at saucy pictures AS IF WE WERE WANKING. It works best when he says 'Sweedie' whilst you do it. Dicking around with the mobile is awesome. It's like real life! But with better reception. And fewer Indian call centres. I think Harry kept it from the shrink but I bet obsessively phoning every single phone number you find is pretty diagnostic of mental issues. Brillian

Pokemon Soul Silver brought precisely zero new pokemon to the table. I have 490 pokemon on pokemon diamond. Pokemon diamond has 400 hours of playtime. I am worried about the cartridge dying. Pokemon can be very tediously and slowly traded from Diamond to Soulsilver. This is project Exodus. STAGE ONE COMPLETE>

As I mentioned previously, I was dead over Christmas and confined to games I could play without moving too much, specifically, I could only play games whilst only moving my index finger and thumb right hand. Aside from Final Fantasy III this also meant that it was time for me to face up to the Battle Tower in Pokemon SoulSilver. For those of you who ain't in the know, the Battle Tower is a very challenging tower of battles. Who'd have guessed? Basically you take some of your best dudes and try to beat as many CPU dudes in a row as possible. Challenges can be done with 3 pokemon in mano a mano type affair or with four pokemon in 2 mano a mano affairs or if you have a willing friend you can try and do the tower with a mate over wifi. If you beat 20 trainers in a row you get to fight the tower tycoon. If you beat the tower tycoon you get a schmancy ribbon for all the pokemon in your team. If you beat 48 trainers in a row you get to face off against the tycoon slightly pimped and i

I got ill for Christmas. Cold sweats, runny nose, the lot and because I was in lands-a-foreign, the only thing I had to see me through moments when I wasn't delirious was a DS and a random selection of games. I needed to play a game that wouldn't mind me running away to snot every few seconds and also one that I could play in all three positions (laying on my front, reverse cowboy and neck propped up). Turns out Final Fantasy III was the only game that I had on me that fits the bill, annoyingly. I say annoyingly for three good reasons. Firstly, in something that might be called RPGitis I've been stuck on the same bit for years now. If you ever played an RPG, particularly a Squeenix one, you'll have no doubt experienced something similar. When I load up my game I find that I'm outside a city. I go into the city but from the way everyone is welcoming my guys like heroes, it's clear I've just finished what I needed to do for these city dwellers. I have no godl

Dear Cretins. We've received just under 15k* emails regarding why our 'best of' link leads to an under construction page and has done for the last couple of years. Well, now it is fixed. Ish. Here it be . A year by year break down of the highs and lows of TGAM over the last four years (up to 2009). We laughed. We cried. We even did a couple of good posts. You can also find our lists of lists to date (up until 2009). I think you'll find we've been consistently excellent these last four years justifying our position as 50% of the living gaming celebrities on Earth. *Well 15k worth of emails were shipped. Ha topical joke that we be incomprehensible in 5, 4, 3, 2.... what the hell does it mean?

In Games, snow: 1) Makes nice footprints that disappear after a while 2) Makes everything a bit slidey. 3) Is always accompanied by music with bells in it. 4) Makes penguins and snowmen appear. In real life, snow: 1) Makes women stand indoors no matter where they are/ where they were going to. 2) Blocks all forms of transport. 3) Causes horrific traffic accidents. 4) Kills old people. So there we have it. Snow in games is much nicer than in real life. SUCK THAT SNOW IN GAMES NAYSAYERS.

Do we go: Pretentious Wanker and choose the most obscure flash game, that essentially recreates one alrightish mini-game from an Amiga game once? Nearer the truth but Crass and choose CoD? Back to our roots and choose a Wii game that we might be able to play with another normal human being and not get embarrassed because tits/violence-that-adolescents-find-amusing comes up and undermines all that envangelising about how games are worthy or wider appreciation? Democratic and just say WoW? Completely wrong and say Alan Wake? Like a proper fucking man and say Gran Turismo 5? Full retard and say some iOS game? Or with our heart and say Monster Hunter Tri? Decisions decisions.

We're quite disappointed with the current generation of consoles, particularly the HD ones. What they gained in processing power they mostly squandered on pretty graphics but gameplay by and large still riffing on what we'd been introduced to in the PS2 days. We're being harsh. There were some leaps forward, mostly in terms of online connectivity but here's four features we believe should just be standard. In all games. From now on. 1) Screenshots. LET THE PEOPLE TAKE SCREENSHOTS. For the love of christ. Not only does it mean that we can share such lovely in game memories as the one above but it makes writing, blogging and social networking about games sooooo much easier. Especially RPGs. You want to cherish those precious memories long after the internal memory has perished so just let us take a screenshot wherever and whenever we want. Whilst we are at it also, why every single game doesn't rip off Halo 3's Theatre mode we don't know. Our ratio of playing

You've all seen these: The standard retail display for UK game sellers. There's a bunch of games, maybe organised alphabetically and then in pride of place a selection of 10 or 20 games next to some big numbers. This particular display was snapped at Currys/PC World/Tech Guys type store. You see them everywhere though, GAME, Gamestation, Toys'R'Us. This is the frontline of game retailing. The burning question is what the fuck is the reasoning behind the numbers? Is one better or worse than ten? Let's take a closer look at this particular display, snapped on the 13 December in detail. At number 1 is Wii Party. Could it be top seller? Or maybe a new release? At number 2 we have Just Dance and the Prince of Persia Wiimakes. Possibly top sellers still? Although I didn't think PoP did half as well as Just Dance. Nor was it half as fun. In at number three we have the Force Unleashed 2? Number 4 is both Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics and that classic game, Big

Yes. Good. We heard rumours that Capcom was ditching the gratuitous tits shots in upcoming games. PUT THAT RUMOUR TO BED.

I shit you not! this is the box art for a Nintendo DS game in Japan.  The Game is called "Fly Mr.Science - Great Expedition of the Earth! Challenge the Mysterious and Strange Creatures." Mr Science is the man with no skin on the right. :( Love and visible sinews. Richie X

You know I used to play a lot of PC games. And one thing that bothered me was PC input of Joypads. You dont get it so much nowadays, as most are cross compatible with the 360 Joypad. ut for those games that still demand a Keyboard mouse combination. I always wanted a "Multiple input" translation. I wanted things like do the Hadouken input to relate to a function or even the Mortal Kombat controls like Up, Up+B top to be translated to a keypress. Admittedly this harked back to the days when I played WoW and I wanted D, DR, R+HK/MK/LK to relate to the different types of fire spells I could cast as my mage. Just... Why hasnt something like this happened? It may not be entirely useful, but c'mon, we're all gamers here. Surely some technophile out there wanted to run a browser or something using Street Fighter moves? :/ Well anyway. Love and Shoryuken!, Richie X

You know I used to play a lot of PC games. And one thing that bothered me was PC input of Joypads. You dont get it so much nowadays, as most are cross compatible with the 360 Joypad. ut for those games that still demand a Keyboard mouse combination. I always wanted a "Multiple input" translation. I wanted things like do the Hadouken input to relate to a function or even the Mortal Kombat controls like Up, Up+B top to be translated to a keypress. Admittedly this harked back to the days when I played WoW and I wanted D, DR, R+HK/MK/LK to relate to the different types of fire spells I could cast as my mage. Just... Why hasnt something like this happened? It may not be entirely useful, but c'mon, we're all gamers here. Surely some technophile out there wanted to run a browser or something using Street Fighter moves? :/ Well anyway. Love and Shoryuken!, Richie X

A common counter argument for those trying to interpret games, either with an agenda or without, is that they haven't played enough games to warrant their opinion being worth even contemplating. In a post which has just vanished from Kotaku (who knows it may or may not be here ) Salman Rushdie has something to say but, you know what, he hasn't played as many games as us so let us just discount everything he says. But exactly how many games does one need to play so that the gamers will listen. Here's our handy guide for when you want to say something about games but may be worried you aren't qualified enough. 0 Games- Rogert Ebgert or whoever, resides here. You ain't got nothing. You got no stock. Anything you say will cause knee flinching reactions and anywhere up to six months worth of everyone chipping in, ironically, about how you have nothing to say on the matter. 1-10 Games Alright Johnny casual? We hate to tell you but Farmville, Snake, Angry Birds, Wii Spor

So Pokemon Black and White are now out in some parts of the world and there's now a whole bunch of new Pokemon to go after for the impossible task of catching them all . As ever when there's something new of different people will fear, hate and even write essays on their own wiki discussion pages. Team TGAM is split on the new critters. Richie is excited about some of the new type match ups and I just look at this page and slowly shake my head until my neck aches. However, love them or hate them this new generation has finally given us that last Pokemon with the specific characteristics needed for us to create this image which we've been dreaming of making for years. Click for its splendor to fill your screen. Okay. Time for a new dream!

Like all aspiring middle class people the only paper we buy is the Graudian and the Observer and every week we get a little bit angry that games are never covered in The Review supplement. That Travel and Sport get their whole own separate supplements is a bog post for another day. Like a lot of other gamers we're still waiting for an audible 'ding' to alert us to the fact that yes, games are now socially acceptable. If you so wished you too could hijack a dinner party/pub lunch with a boring lecture about games in the same way that it is acceptable for wine bores, travel bores and I've just popped a child bores to do. Even though games probably already are socially acceptable we're still waiting for the ding. The batman signal in the sky, the ironic t-shirt that becomes an unofficial trendy uniform, the endless historical documentaries on BBC4 or even our own OBE. Even more frustrating is that the Guardian do have a fairly decent crop of games writers who don't

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are happy to announce that the Barioth from Monster Hunter Tri is the latest video game character to enter the 'Jumpy Twat Hall of Fame'. Barioth is the latest video game character to have solicited over 1 million frustrated calls of 'Jumpy Twat!' and thus eligible to enter the JTHoF joining such luminary jumpy twats as all of Bowser's children, Half Life headcrabs, Alien facehuggers and eliminators from Resident Evil. Jumpy Twats all. Why can't you just stand still for a second? I'm just trying to do something.

CLICK THIS SHIT.

...another whinge about the problem with pre-owned games. Our stance is very clear and we've bored each other (and hence 100% of the readership) silly with it but until news posts about it desist we won't desist looking on in amazement. Our problem with retailers is that they, in no way, really try to offer up the best of gaming. Older platforms vanish from shelves within weeks and new games enjoy the spotlight for a couple of weeks. We for example are keen discerning gamers at the time of life with a little bit of disposable income yet time and time again we have to head online or buy second hand games to get the kinds of games we want to play. At all. There isn't a brand new copy sitting on a shelf with convenient distance that I'm ignoring. I prefer to buy games brand new (although not on launch day and certainly not at the ridiculous prices some games are). In most cases, these games aren't obscure or limited run games. They're fairly big releases (recent ex

NOT BEN10 that hideous cartoon that isn't as good as all those cartoons we grew up on M.A.S.K etc. but a charming little Belgian film. When we're used to getting excited about, analyzing and dismissing media before it has even been released it was nice to be taken by surprise by this little film. I hadn't heard of it and in fact wasn't really aware of it being at all video game themed and a quick Google seems to suggest it wasn't picked up by the monolith of websites calling themselves video game blogs. It's a touching tale 'based on real life events' that quite heavily features video games but not in a brainless sense a la Gamer or a massive advert a la Wizard but featuring a video game ( ArchLord , missed that on the wikipedia page didn't ya, wiki cunts ) as part of a normal life. Dare-we-say-it even in a positive light? For gamers out there I'd recommend giving it a watch. Not only is it the best video game related film out there at the moment

The unreliable eurogamer has an interesting piece just up about some guy who made the blogeadlines back in 2007 by ranting against the Wii at GDC. That's fine, each to their own but what Hecker does go on to say is the kind of idiotic rhetoric that gets our goat here at TGAM. From the linked article: "Game design and gameplay is not separable from CPU power," he told Eurogamer. "You can do more interesting games with a faster CPU. Nintendo made an underpowered platform, relative to what you could have made at the time. This in itself is theoretically uncontroversial but is moot in reality. Where are all these 'more interesting games?' on other platforms? We've said it time and time again but the reason why at least one of us isn't writing off the Wii as an acceptable console is because now, perhaps more than ever there is a real dearth of diversity of good games across all the current generation of games. Furthermore, the quality of graphics with Xbo

Three working days is up bitches so I'm posting my letter to Konami here. Then maybe we'll put it on twitter and start a facebook group and maybe make page 416 of the Guardian Guide this weekend until Konami reply to us. Dear Konami, We here at the blog That Guy's A Maniac have been debating buying the new Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Game. It has received excellent reviews all around and we are a fan of other Konami games. Silent Hill is excellent. Not so much Metal Gear Solid but each to their own. Anyway, despite being just over a month old it is already retailing for less than £20 in some places. LESS THAN £20! How is this sustainable? I'm a discerning gamer and the above game price is not even for a second hand copy but I bet the game cost a fair million to make and is already discounted to a half/third of the price. Perhaps a bit longer pride of place in the spotlight would be better for the game? I couldn't see a copy on the shelves of the largest GAME store

So editor of Gamespot UK, and owner of a name that still makes me giggle, has come out and stated that the 360 should be gadget of the 21st Century: As a gadget fan with an iPad, an Android phone and many of the other gadgets on this list, there's still only one thing I'd take to a desert island -- my Xbox 360 S. With a flat screen TV, an Internet connection and a copy of Halo: Reach, obviously. Surely the flat screen and "teh internets" is cheating? but yeah, ok 360 as Contender for Gadget of the 21st Century? It's a big claim! I mean we are only 10 years in (I assume this must be some sort of rolling competition?) anyways. I love the 360, i prefer it to the PS3 and the Wii. So yeah if a console is gonna get the Gadget of the 21st Century, I would vote for the 360. Honestly though, I don't see a console winning. The contenders consist of the usual Apple products, a selection of Phones (some as outdated as the Motorola Razr), some Cameras/Camco