That guy's a Maniac...

With the gaming community tearing itself asunder, the developers, gamers and gamers who get paid to write about games turning on each other like cornered animals (online of course, nothing is happening in real life) this conflict between brother and sister is spilling over into game worlds too. Our in-game correspondent,Alcamoth Citizen reporting from Xenoblade Chronicles has this to say about the burning issue: 'Why isn't anyone excited about Jigglypuff being potentially leaked for Super Smash Brothers?'. So there we have it. If only other game journalists took this news quite as seriously.

This last couple of weeks there's been a storm in a teacup that seems to have culminated in the gaming community doing a sea cucumber and eviscerating itself, turning itself inside out and ejecting all it's internal organs as a defense mechanism. You can follow the 'story' on the social media under the hashtag GamerGate. We won't go into the specifics of how this kicked off because the spark that lit the part of the fire we're interested in is sort of irrelevant. The short version is that some pretty strong evidence has come to light reminding us once again of the rampant cronyism and amateurism within games journalism. The funny thing is that what may or may not have happened to kick this off is almost completely by the by. In between the feminists, the white knights, the trolls, the griefers, the journalists and the developers all rallying to four or five different calls and fighting with each other, some are using the #GamerGate  to call for clearer transpar

Recently I was gifted a PlayStation 3 and a fairly comprehensive catalogue of games which is great for two reasons. Firstly, free games! Secondly by being gifted one it allows me to maintain that the PlayStation 3 never reached a critical mass of games for my tastes that warranted a purchase of the (still) overpriced console. One of the games that was on the shortlist that never reached critical mass was Valkyria Chronicles.  Released in 2008 to generally positive reviews, Valkyria Chronicles is a mix of all the best bits from Advance Wars , Battalion Wars and quirky PlayStation 2 game Ring of Red . It's a 3D turn based strategy game which is a lot of fun with a beautiful art style. Playing games slightly time shifted from the climate in which they were released is interesting. Although I can see the appeal of VC when it came out, having played and loved Fire Emblem: Awakening last year, VC is probably lower in my estimations as there are some great mechanics which shou

This week, Omastar gets his tentacles in a twist about that OTHER Omastar, in particular the lucrative merchandise deals and TV spots.  Fucking religion.

You know what,  I dislike the Dead or Alive Series: Way back in the heady days of 2010 back when we cared about the Chilean Miners and Wikileaks . I wrote a blogpost about a game I played back in the heady days of 2006 when we make crass Steve Irwin jokes and the danish drew some cartoons. And frankly I have not played a Dead or Alive game since then, the combat is clunky, random and just plain frustrating! UNTIL NOW!! They have bath and bedtime DLC!!! A fighting game in PJs and Towels. I'd pay money for that. Love and Remember when phones didn't have touchscreen? Richie X

On this day, July 24th 1998 The S.T.A.R.S. team first investigated the mansion... You gotta fucking love that opening. Real people... Not mo-capped. Got i miss those heady days of the PS1. Sniffle. Love and dont open THAT door, Richie X

Earlier this year, life-sim lite, Tomodachi Life came out for the Nintendo 3DS. Unfortunately 90% of the coverage from the red top gaming sites exclusively focused on Nintendo's controversial decision to exclude same-sex relationships in the game. In itself that decision rightly deserves highlighting but as ever, the proper journalism parodying gaming press reported nothing but this, resulting in a lot of coverage that failed to explain what a ' Tomodachi Life ' was in the first place. I don't know if Nintendo were happier to receive any coverage at all or unhappier that it was all negative. Interesting, especially given how the press fall over themselves to create content every time a GTA or Saint's Row comes out, with only a handful of the more thoughtful hacks sparing a sentence or two for the inherent misogyny, sexism and racism that those games portray (hastily followed by hand waivey 'but it's alright cos it's GTA isn't it?'). Anyway, tur