That guy's a Maniac...

Flame rounds lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame roundsded?). Cunzy1_1: What're you flaming? Richie: So you have completed the story of this sandbox game. Congratulations! Now go to all these places on the map and find 100 of this thing. I hate this! So many games, specifically around the advent of achievements and trophies, would have this additional achievement to walk round the map finding glowing orbs or such.  They dub it in the name of exploration, but is just often descends into a nightmare of keeping track of an online item location guide. This is also usually coupled with a lack of any reward short of perhaps a 10GP blip. Tacked on and just annoying. Cunzy1_1: But Richie, people spent a long time meticulou

Now just quickly I would like to emphasise that I ain't no geek, I don't know anything about vampires or shit like that, certainly nothing about rolling D20's for initiative, or the white wolf series, that sort of stuff is for nerds. So Paradox have recently teased us with some tweets and images of some new project they are working on. This has lead to an out cry of journos everywhere going, "Oh my god that is that bit from the original Vampire: The Masquerade game!" Which is in part right, they are locations from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, however Bloodlines was not the Original game, it was Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption. People tend to forget the original Vampire: The Masquerade game overshadowed by its sequel, Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines ( ed: so many colons! ), yet VTMR ( ed: phew ) really caused a stir for being an obscure PC game from 2000. VTMR was released at peak Nihilistic Antihero trenchcoat time. Post-Matrix, when e

Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Oh a Pokémon Game! that's different does this game have new types, how do you transfer Pokémon across? Cunzy1 1: Well, I'm a sucker for the Pokemon series and that's somehow translated into almost all of the spinoffs from pinball to a feudal era Japan isometric tactics and typing game to whatever a trozei is. Detective Pikachu is not quite the weirdest of the lot but it's certainly up there. Its a perfectly playable and extremely pretty point and click detective story that came out as a downloadable game for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan and then two years later got an expanded physical version of the game worldwide. You play as Pinocchio nosed Mary-Sue Tim who meets a talking Pikachu who likes coffee, has amnesia and is a detective. You can tell it is a detective because he has a deerstalker hat. Tim's Dad is also a detective but is currently missing.

Scoop! The next set of Season Pass from Koei/Temkc/Team Ninja's Buxom Bosom Bouncing Brawler: Dead or Alive 6 Also definitely no way this was mocked up! no way, no sir, nuh-uh... ...Jokingly when dicking about with these images, I put that section on "Glasses for Everyone", but any variations on the glasses would have to be purchased extra. However it ended up being accidentally metaphorical and ringing a little too close to the truth, it does not sound implausible, especially based on the recent trends of DOA6 DLC Just to be clear, our stance on DoA6 is that this latest batch of outrageously expensive DLC is, more pornographic and offensive than any fucking video of DOA players pausing and moving the camera to make it look like they are sexing! But ultimately not that different as someone is getting shafted/screwed! Allowing this game to happen, when the base game is not even complete and the DLC is more costly outright is wrong, there cannot really be a

Flame rounds lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame roundsded?). Richie: Last time on Flame rounds we found a verdict was suspended, due to a creepy revelation .  Yo Cunzy, what do you got for us this time? Cunzy1 1: Right, we had a bit of a discussion already about what the collective name for these things are. This week, I want to consider those publisher 'Social Club' type websites that are annoyingly advertised on menu screens (even after you sign up) with the incentive being that your data will be harvested, sold or just leaked   logging into this side app (link your Facebook, Twitter, Google and Insta accounts for no reason!) rewards you with 'icons', 'epic loot' and probably a smattering of o

In what was a rather typical week in gaming for some reason journos gave a lot of air time to that rape game, crap opinions about  Anthem evolved and game journos all had the same opinion about Nintendo Labo VR Kit. It continues to be disheartening to us that games journalism just isn't very good still. The broader games industry has a wealth of issues from understanding employment law to widespread amoral attitudes foster on the forums and in spite of this rather than because of it, it produces those games we love to lose ourselves in. Having a respected and professional industry of critics around it would also help a little bit to raise the perception and cultural standing of gaming instead, with rare exception, it's a race to the bottom for coverage of the hot topics and well, why read a hungry hack's regurgitated press release when you can watch your favourite streamer play the thing for four days straight instead. Considered critical opinion is very rare and many of

As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible. Addendum, so is love to the lovable . And I FUCKING LOVE the new Devil May Cry and It's Super Sexy Style! I'm sure is you are even half interested you already have googled/youtubed the hell out of this one, and quite rightly so! So I shan't rant on about Nero Exceed or V's fluid combat. What was a little surprise to me was the setting being London! the Game opens up on Tower bridge with Nico doing some jumps and stuff in her Mystery Machine. But later on what really hit home was V's opening section which is the streets around Burrow Borough amazingly recreated in game! I mean I cannot wait for more Surprises like this! Love and just fucking play it! Richie X