That guy's a Maniac...

No sooner than I throw a wobbly about the underused Nintendo Channel then they go and upload some half decent videos. This week is a video about Mario Kart 7, confirming that Metal Mario and Lakitu will be two new playable characters to the series. Also, unlike most tracks the WuHu Island course won't be a three lap course, instead the race will take place as one long lap across the island. Now, we're all for change but we can't help but be disappointed by the announcement of these two new characters. Firstly, in between Mario, Luigi, Waluigi, Wario, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, we would have expected a bit more originality in character choice than yet another Mario. Secondly, if the characters from MKWii are returning too Lakitu adds to the already koopalicious choices of koopa trooper, dry bones, Bowser and Dry Bowser. With Mario Kart hopefully boosting sales of the 3DS we were secretely hoping that Nintendo would shake up the series. Perhaps by including characters from

Chuff_72 is an occasional correspondent who has been even more (or is that less) occasional in recent years because, well, here's his story. Chuff_72 used to be a proper gamer. He used to run a clan . He has an impressive collection of games, particularly an amazing collection from the PlayStation era. Then, as happens to us all, life happened. A job, a girlfriend (who does not tolerate gaming on the family TV) and a mortgage meant that game time just disappeared. Gaming was reserved for rare geekends, two filthy days holed up with other men, geeking out on video games, CCG and movies. Then one of the geeks died. And one moved to America. And now we meet maybe three times a year. A sorry existence for Chuff with but a fingernail hold into the world of gaming. Then the Xbox 360 broke. Now his only window into gaming is finding games to play on the iphone on the daily commute. We're informed that mobile games are the future, well here's a perspective from someone who

A great advert.

This is part of an occasional series. Normally we catch up with the Nintendo Channel every fortnight and give the low down on what's happening. In August we got pretty fucked off because the only new content on the channel since August was a weekly downloads trailer that included 1950s Lawnmower Kids as its only download. I wish we were lying. YEAH THANKS BECAUSE I WASN'T SOLD ON THE CONCEPT UNTIL THIS STUPID ANNOYING VIDEO CAME ALONG. EGG ON MY FACE. I TAKE IT BACK. 1950s LAWNMOWER KIDS IS AN UNDER APPRECIATED CLASSIC. I IMAGINE. This months output has us grinding our teeth into dentine dust. It drives us nuts. Nintendo has a channel that sits on every single Wii . That's about 87 million owners right there. Okay so probably not all of them have ever used the channel but the channel has been watched for over one million hours by approximately 500,000 users. This number could be more but that's the minimum amount of players who have allowed their data to be com

Yes they be. SEE OUR PICTURES. See them. That is all we ask. Super Smash Brothers is a game that just keeps giving. We've been hard at work taking snapshots to remake the Bible as a webcomic only using Nintendo characters. Suffice to say it is a lot of work. In the meantime here's a bunch of stuff that may or may not make the final cut. Angel Land or something. Coming soon to a 3DS near you. INSERT CAPTION HERE. She's giving birth to a zero suit Samus. Which makes sense. I wonder how many bells Tom Nook will pay for this? Despite the hundreds of Zero Suit Samus photos on our Wii, we don't play her that much. TELLING. (:( ) HA HA HA JUST LIKE REAL HEDGEHOGS. This is for my illustrated fan fiction set in a Universe where Slippy isn't a massive prick. It's just like the film I imagine because it has never been released in Europe. IN OTHER GAMING NEWS: Nothing. Nothing of note is happening in gaming.

We love shit like this. The "way too much time on their hands" ness of it, the elaborate set up, hundreds of opportunities for cock ups and a seven year wait. THIS is hardcore. And thank god (punctuation aside) someone has the sense to make a video that's understandable.

Wow a proper review. Makes for a change huh? We were huge fans of the first game and although it didn't set the world on fire sales-wise it has a dedicated following. The second game is an improvement on the first in every way. The first game was a very relaxed adventure, leaving the player with relative freedom to explore the fictional region of Manauri, discovering various oceanic animals, photographing them and guiding visitors around the ocean. There was a very loose story driving the game but fittingly, the game was endless. You could (and we did) just keep playing forever with the goal of collecting all the species information and salvaging treasure. Each species has three bits of information, unlocked by finding an animal and then tickling, feeding or drawing for it. However, some of the creatures were a bit too crytpic and very hard to find once let alone three times (our playtime is up to well over 100 hours and there are still four species we've yet to see). Salvagin

The genius of Animal Crossing is that in the early days, you find new furniture, clothes, insects, fish and all the other items at such a rate you quite quickly become adept at organising your inventory and running back and forth to Tom Nook's shop a la Diablo. As time goes on, new items get rarer and rarer. Finding and catching those last elusive fish and insects become all night hunts, camping rivers and beaches to catch that damn tarantula or coelacanth. Weekly shopping trips to Crazy Redd get so disappointing as you look for that last painting or obscure bit of furniture. The good days get rarer. UNTIL TONIGHTS BUMPER HARVEST THAT IS! Perhaps the lucky clover had something to do with it? FINALLY Crazy Redd gave up the Triforce. By comparison, Link's various quests for the Triforce are a cake walk. One of the elusive squid visitors moved to town! I'd begun to believe they didn't exist. Like Animal Crossing's own Nessy or Jesus. We were resigned to the fact that t

Nintendo fans will know that if you buy new Nintendo games you get a little voucher which you can redeem online to earn Nintendo stars. In order to get the stars you have to fill out a quick survey about where you saw the game advertised, where you bought it from, who plays it etc. In return you earn nintendo stars- normally 250 per game and more for a console or handheld. You can then redeem these for exclusive nintendo gifts. Back in the gamecube days these would be pretty sad affairs, ringtones or desktop wallpapers. More recently though there have been some really nifty bits and pieces and seeing as the stars you earn are "free", why not splash out. In the past I've got a stuffed pikmin, a wiiwheel keyring and a metal pokemon DS game case (albeit in Spanish, however, as much as I begrudge it within two weeks of receiving it a bookcase fell on it and the metal case saved my DS games). It had been a while since I'd redeemed any stars and so I browsed through the cat

We've been playing a bit of Pokemon White recently (well, a third of us has at least). It tends to be how we play pokemon games, Weeks of intense activity, followed by months of abstinence. Then we're back in again and in again big. I've still got quite a lot to do, players will know how it is. Pokemon to catch, Ghetsis Goons to find, trainer card stars to acquire. I thought I'd try some online battling. My god. Frustrating. We already complained about the lack of imagination that players have back in April . Well it turns out that since then, the nuances of the meta game, tested through millions of online battles have trimmed down the options for a competitive team to what seems like a handful of team combinations. Not only does this make for very boring games but the easiest counter-strategy is for players to join in with a me-too team. Currently, you can expect to see Hydregion, Amoongus, Reuniclus and Chandelure in 90% of double battle teams. SNOOZE.

Yet another Pre-owned hurt my games sales. This time it's Q uantic Dream . I actually remember looking for a copy of it a month after it launched. For sale. In a games retailer. In London. Couldn't find one. But yeah, hey. I'm sure it the secondhand sales thing.

Hey kids, remember Omastar Comics , TGAM's hit webcomic featuring everyone's favourite fictional ammonite parody? Well there's a reason there hasn't been a new comic since April and that's because we've been in discussions with a major film studio to turn it into a film! Because films based on comics are always awesome right? There might be a game of the film too but that is still under discussion. Imagine being able to play as Omastar in a video game? Amazing. Here's a sneak peek at the current draft of the script for Omastar: The Movie. OMASTAR: THE MOVIE AN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY Cunzy1 1, Richie!, Đoþþelgänger September 10, 2011 Directors' Revisions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ OMASTAR: THE MOVIE TITLE: OMASTAR: THE MOVIE -- ON BLACK, DISSOLVING TO COBALT BLUE EXT. OCEAN/UNDERWATER Blue, deep and featureless, the twilight of fi

Remember Syndicate? that classy retro sci-fi shooter the isometric backgrounds? An extremely original style and way of playing, still unique to this day? Well it's being rebooted!!!! Awesome, finally a chance to play this corker again... Oh... Wait... No... Turns out it's just being rebooted as an FPS: Bugger it Love and Persuadertrons, Richie X

Ninja Theory "the big retail model is creaking" and "the digital revolution can't come soon enough" Via EDGE Yeah sure it can't. Especially when you can't be bothered to do any market research before you spend three years and millions of pounds on making a game, do any proper marketing, don't do product support beyond launch day, you don't even sell your own game through your website*, new or pre-owned copies aren't available on the high street after week 1 and you don't do much localisation beyond English. Yeah. Gee. I wonder why your products haven't been selling like hot cakes. Boo hoo. * In fact on their official website they haven't even bothered to list their game Enslaved. You know the one that came out almost a year ago.** ** In fact... to: webmaster@ninjatheory.com subject: Your website kinda sucks To "The Webmaster" You haven't even listed Enslaved yet, you don't tell people where they can buy your ga

You play as a host of characters including; a legendary troll who cheats on his pregnant wife, a millionaire author, and a gang of deviants who have a reputation of rape, drug abuse and violence. They are controlled by an organisation rife with corruption, money laundering and various shady operations in impoverished countries. Answers on a postcard!

*/___ _ //[[ \/ || | * *|¬ / ~ === | \/__________/ * * |_ |/ * *\ \_| Fuck it. Imagine "Gears of War 3" written here in ASCII. =========== CONTENTS=============== [01] CONTROLS [02] Walkthrough [03] Tips [04] ============CONTROLS==============[02] Same as all the other games. =========== Walkthrough==============[03] Watch the cutscene at the beginning of the game. Then walk along the obvious path until the end of the game. Occasionally, the path might be interrupted by a cutscene or a shooting gallery section. Watch the cutscene or shoot all of the baddies from the fixed position and then go back to the beginning of this section, repeat until the game ends. ============Tips==================== [04] Sometimes you might find yourself exploring familiar scenes that have been mirrored. This means you have turned around and are walking the wrong way down the pa

We're not even going to do a proper Now Showing this week because it is so dire but jump on the Wii and check out the latest weekly download video. For those nintendinly challenged the only download this week is this .

Sexy-charged game Catherine has been hyped over the pond and beyond, but the EU have yet to get an actual confirmation on its release. Provisionally a few distributors have tagged this as December 2011, which is not unreasonable, with only its sub-risqué subject matter delaying (or perhaps even cancelling) its release. Catherine is set around a dude and his obsession with a girl surprisingly called Catherine and Katherine. Much of the sexyness of the game can be peeled back to a platform puzzler set in the protagonists guilty dreams. You know what? I'm just going to stop there, that is fucking cool. I know you can call it sleazy but c'mon my previous sentence... That's an original concept I'm playing it, Fuck all you nay-sayers saying it's for pervs. FUCK YOU. This game is worthy of my time, deal-with-it! Love and Guilty dreams about a game. Richie X

As summer begins to close its legs to the sporadic penetration from the suns rays, and winters chill creeps its icy fingers up those luscious thighs, we get stuck in the limbo that is Autumn, leaves turn brown and fall, but most importantly the nights get longer and darker. And thus we are justified in sitting in front of the box rather than constantly saying to ourselves that we need to get outside and soak up that hokum "Vitamin D". Rather than catching up on that latest drama series, or episodes of Family Guy, don't you thing you should give your console some love? This Autumn, Xmas comes early with a plethora of KILLER games, we kicked off the season a week ago with the much awaited and highly regarded sequel to Deus Ex! Booya some Sci-fi Action RPG with some beautiful and haunting sci-fi goodness. A long awaiting sequel that is a swing and a "hit" that hardly ever happens! but we also has some mishaps XBLA and PSN got the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollect

If you believe the moronic notions of some of the bigger internet games """"journalists""" and seasoned developers then the Nintendo Wii , aside from having the dust continuously wiped from it is now a legacy platform. You know, now that the Wii -U hasn't even been released yet. Anyway, judging from the output on the Nintendo Channel the hype might be true. This is what we find odd about the Nintendo Channel. It is essentially a marketing tool for Nintendo products that comes with every Wii and according to the software data there's at least 500,000 players that watch it. That being said, the coverage is inconsistent at best. A number of promotional series have started and then abruptly been discontinued (the Warioware and Monster Hunter ones spring to mind) and since ONM have been in charge of the 'regular' Nintendo News episodes the quality has been very hit and miss. The recent E3 round ups were pants and there hasn't b