That guy's a Maniac...

The joy of the Xbox 360

2009-07-13T12:58:00.003+01:00

Yo' this weekend just gone was an ace geekend. One of the rare times when the 20 something crew can get together and pretend that we are 16 all over again. Playing games until the eyes hurt? Check. Laughing at fart noises? Check. Laughing so hard that milk comes out of a nostril? Check. Eating junk food caning your knees up sitting on the floor playing games? Check. Only one thing marred it and that was the Xbox 360.

Consoles vs. PCs is an age old conflict but the latest generation of consoles have come leaps and bounds, caught up with PCs and carried on going. They have surpassed the PC experience altogether. Constant patch and update uploading, crashes, playing shit games just because they are free, rip off DLC and matchmaking wankybuggery can all be found on the 360 recreating the traditionally desk-based good times that can be found with a PC.

This weekend the 360 insisted on crashing every half an hour. Poor performance considering it had only been on constantly for a mere 12 hours straight beforehand. But this wasn't the worst part. The worst part was finding the game and fucking signing in with two players ever single time. That and the fact that this little ritual was being performed every half an hour for a game it is not alright to be playing.

By contrast, playing the Wii felt like progress in that I could put in a game and play it with my buds without menu madness and fucking around with signing in and out.

Blinky bill and Breathy Bob

2009-07-07T13:40:00.002+01:00

Call us turn around kings if you will but news of Shadow of Memories coming to the PSP has changed our hearts and our minds.

We loved the 2001 original. It was brilliant. Perhaps third greatest game of all time. We still finished it with a bunch of weird objects left over but travelling through time in the sleepy streets blew our minds at the time*.

*That and some special biscuits.

Ritin little stories about PC games is the new new games journalism

2009-07-06T17:03:00.005+01:00

Enjoy it before it gets: a) derivative, b) covered by a ""cutting edge"" piece in the guardian TV guide c) Copycatted to death d) wedged into your Xbox 360 a la facebook and twitter in the place of some more useful kind of functionality like, finding the fucking game you've just inserted without negotiating 14 pages of trailers, all your friends' defaultly dressed snoozing avatars, advertising and Rare videos produced using a camera obscura and an etch a sketch.

Is the PSP worth getting yet?

2009-07-01T14:24:00.002+01:00

Let's check. The last time we paid any attention to the "little handheld that could" there was nothing going on.

From field data gathered by observing people using it on the bus and on the train it seems that 98% of them use it to watch Family Guy or South Park episodes. The other 2% play GTA.

Apparently, it can connect to the PS3. Which is a shame because the PS3 is probably the least useful thing an appliance could ever connect to. In fact plugging your PSP into the ground probably offers up infinitly more exciting gaming opportunities.

And what of those "games" that Sony used to do?

Hmmmm Tekken is the best game for the PSP according to Gayspot. Looking at Metacritic there has only been one game post launch better than Lumines and Wipeout. Thems are four years old y'all.

Well I do not know about you but I certainly can't wait for PSP Go! to play those four year old games on. Can you?

The last revelation

2009-07-01T10:16:00.005+01:00

We're going to Glastonbury

2009-06-26T11:10:00.002+01:00

Cause he called our* girlfriend fat innit.

*Yeah we share one.

Dead Fantasy IV, V and VI

2009-06-18T13:35:00.002+01:00

We're fans here of the one man project which despite being an overwhelmingly fan pleasing endeavour and entirely violence oriented manages to put most modern games and the whole of Hollywood to shame including blockbuster movies featuring transforming robots with million dollar budgets and fight scenes which are made by putting a kettle, two forks and a sieve into a washing machine, setting it on spin and filming it.

This one guy, with less time, staff, money, technology and cocaine does better. By a million. I would happily pay full price for Dead Fantasy I-V on DVD than Resident Evil Shitgeneration, those awful other Resident Evil Films and Advent Children put together.

And who needs a storyline? Buy a fucking book if you want stories. Pricks.

Anyway Dead Fantasy IV, V and VI are kinda up on the net. But we're not going to post a link here until Monty Oum himself uploads the full versions any day now....

Black Wii (racist)

2009-06-17T19:52:00.007+01:00

Aw isn't that cute... They made it look like a real console, adorable.

Yeah it's some bundle with Monster Hunter Tri (3) so dont expect the EU to get it, ever.

Luv and shiny wired controllers,

Richie XXX

2009-06-16T14:59:00.003+01:00

We aren't fans of recycling shit from the internet but sometimes it's worth it.

By *sigh* RoflCopter 761 via Halolz

Heavy Rain

2009-06-15T09:52:00.003+01:00

Hot on the heels of E3, there are a couple of Heavy Rain trailers up on the PS3 network. I've seen em both.

One of them is your typical trailer packed with mysterious sound bites, action sequences and a quite impressive looking dance floor. The other is a demonstration of how the game will play.

Now, we were fans of Fahrenheit for the first hour until Monster Syndrome kicked in. Then we weren't fans. Then we were fans for the dead man sexing bit. Then we weren't fans again.

Heavy Rain does look good but the demonstration showing a rather plaid looking woman going into the bogs to sex herself up a bit did leave us feeling. Well. A bit cold.

The idea of the demo is that she has to sex herself up a bit to, I dunno, sex a dead man or something. So she enters the toilets and then looks into the mirror. At this point a bunch of arrows pop up around her hair, face, tits and cooch and the player has to help her get slutified through a bunch of analog stick movements. So selecting the bag makes her get out her lipstick. A SF fireball on the stick makes her apply it to her bottom lip. An inverse fireball on her top lip. Then with some mascara. Then more prompts to make her unbutton her top, rip her skirt a bit and mess her hair up a bit.

Sure, it looks like a good idea but is it really neccessary? If you are too heavy handed will she smear the lipstick all over her face? Or just tear her whole skirt off? How is following all these prompts any better than say, 'pressing X to sexify'? It's forced interactivity for it's own sake rather than being better gameplay or adding anything to the experience? Which kinda summed up most of E3 actually...

Omastar Comics #22

2009-06-12T10:20:00.004+01:00

Hidden beneath literally millimetres of wit, satire and irony, the joke in this latest installment of the paint created, pixellated, irregularly posted, fully clickable, popular webcomic Omastar Comics will be missed by all but the sharpest of readers.

This week Omastar is minding his own fucking business thank you very much.

In other gaming news:

We turned 3 years old a while back. The party was awesome thanks for all those who came along.
Guitar Hero 5! looks like Guitar Hero.
Dread Kong in the upcoming New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat has been officially confirmed as racist. Expect N'Gai Kroal to be on the case ASAP.

We need an ability to project the Penis in to other rooms!

2009-06-09T16:13:00.003+01:00

So yeah Project: Natal? We all know and realise it is a glorified Wiimote (but better). But it must have some use in that moral grey area dividing sex and games, here are a couple of suggestions.

1. Interactive Web chat.
Webcams all over the world are currently being used to allow wannabe pornstars work from home, and using the conduit of the internet project themseves naked into the bedrooms of curious teenagers who stole their parents credit card. So why not apply this to Natal, allowing gamer chicks to make some cash to fund their habbit. Hell I can see in the near future a website of gamer chicks avatars showing who is online and you just buy their gamertag. So where does Natal play into this? Well from those of you that saw the Natal preview you'll have seen that there were two burds discussing what outfit to wear and projecting it on them. Cue the frenchmaid, dominatrix and Jill Valentine outfits... But how will this funtion from the fappers point of view? Well ideally you need a game, something that will count your strokes per minute, maximum speed, hand switches, timing, and distance.

2. Multiplayer Ratings.
This does not need to be entirely limited to sad lonely people sitting in front of their 360 sitting next to their collector edition boxsets, painstakingly arranged to look like a "girl". Hell no! Since Natal can identify multiple persons, what's wrong with a 2 (or more) player game which can "script" the activities, changing positions, state tempo... oh man! the possibilities are endless...

Oh and the achievements!

You got her right between the eyes!

The more the merrier.

You got the Natal Cam involved.

The 'achievement blip' got you there.

Never mind online competitive multiplayer, leaderboards and perhaps you can unlock some interesting new outfits for your Avatars?

Remember you heard it here first...

Thatguys Baby!!!

Anal massages,

Richie

More on the Rotombrator

2009-06-09T13:07:00.003+01:00

Bulbabpedia have now updated their site with the new Rotom Formes.

So how long till the crazy Japanese actually create one of these...

Luv n Hugz

Richie XX

Wolverine Origins Nude Cheat

2009-06-06T18:34:00.001+01:00

Yeah so the new game is pretty fucking cool.

Essentially it is a 3rd person Hack n’ Slash, however there is a multitude of things that set this one aside from the regular crowd of movie tie-in trash games:

1. It is not a move tie-in. Yes it may have a few things in common with the movie, such as the likeness of many of the characters, but the plot seems to be its own entity. (This was because the game was in development before the movie was in production, good call from the guys at Raven)
2. The fighting is a new level of fun. We have all got a hack and slash game that we all love in our hearts, whether it is Devil May Cry or Kingdom hearts. Thankfully this game differs from the usual repetitive Hack and Slash action of other movie tie-ins or trash games, there is a great mix of skill and luck. Basically the action is not repetitive, the combos and the timing of the button pushes are really intuitive, allowing for different types of gameplay, e.g you can choose to counter or just straight up button mash.
3. Lunge. Lunge is a fucking cool game mechanic! Basically allowing you to leap at an opponent from far away and start combo-ing. Yes I know you have probably played with similar mechanics in a multitude of games but this one is better, it’s hard to explain it’s a sort of “you had to be there” mechanic.
4. Fan service. Plenty of homage’s to X-Men and Wolverine, from an elevator-music remix of the X-men theme tune to classic yellow spandex Wolverine outfits.
5. Levelling up. You can’t go wrong with some XP to level up your dudes, and they do just that in this game, there are plenty of modifiers and skill ups to make going to the character menu actually fun.
6. So much blood. You slash and kill hoards of enemies, there are achievements for dismembering, and at one point Wolverine actually breaks someone in half!

And much more, the game is quite plot driven, it spans two time lines, and during the course of these levels there are well placed laptops which give insights to the plot while you are working out where to go next. Generally each puzzle or boss fight is punctuated with a cut-scene, they are all well acted and generally good. It also play’s very much like Ravensofts other Geekout game, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The game also lasts a long time, it’s a good 12-20 hours of gameplay plus you have the hard mode after it unlocked.

So what’s bad about it? Well the enemies are a bit samey, a couple of them are just re-skins. When playing it I have encountered some bugs (a classic fall through the world one and one where I was stuck in a wall) but thankfully there is a “restart from last checkpoint” option in the menu.

Other than that, spot on, great gameplay, great fun A worthy movie tie-in game, that actually is not a tie-in

On the Moh’s hardness scale it’s a Solid Corundum (not sure where Adamantium fits on this scale)

Luv n Hugs,

Richie.

That Natal Video

2009-06-02T10:05:00.002+01:00

So, Milo, where's you Mommy Milo?

She's dead Milo. Died of the bad AIDS.

You gonna cry? Oh you can't because you haven't been scripted to.

Here's a picture of a wang Milo. Do you like it? Here's a picture of a swastika Milo. Do you like that?

We're going to play a game now Milo. But you can't tell anyone about it....

Achievement Unlocked: Do a "Peter Molyneux".

The skinny one is feeling up the fatties bewbs.

2009-05-29T16:11:00.001+01:00

Hideo Kojima updates site with cryptic message

2009-05-29T09:21:00.002+01:00

Hideo "hasn't made a decent game for quite a while and won't be continuing Metal Gear series" has been updating the Kojima productions site with all kinds of bullshit. Scenic imagery, counters that countdown to more counters and other crap that has Kotaku and nobody else even remotely excited. Until this morning that is.

At 4am this morning GMT the above image went up on the site. What does it mean?

The New Forms of Rotom

2009-05-28T14:56:00.004+01:00

As you may know we are fans of the children game Pokemon. A new remake is out ensuring yet more millions of daktarin for Nintendo. This time around though Pokemon Platinum adds nothing new to the game series and the new edition is very very stingy with the introduction of a very generous no new pokemon. Yes, that's a fat zero. It appears that 'forms' are the new thing to get adults to part with money to please their children. So it's the same pokemon except they have slightly different sprite set. And Pokemon Platinum isn't short on delivering remakes of existing pokemon inside a whole game which is essentially a remake.

Giratina and Shaymin now have two different forms (seriously does anyone even care about this. We don't and we're a semi-interested party). But Rotom get's a whopping six new forms to not care about! Originally pokemon used to be about mirroring the organisms we find in nature (as well as representing legends, myths, umm art forms and martial arts?) but now as Ninty scrape the creativity barrel Rotom gets six new forms based on of all the exciting things, household appliances.

We kid you not.

The thing is, five of them are very normal (lawnmower, fan, fridge, washing machine and oven). But the sixth form?

Umm Rotomibrator? In a kiddie game? O-o

Wii Play Tanks! has been doing my head in, I just want a gold medal but keep dying god it is so annoying I just want to beat it but can't.

2009-05-20T13:07:00.003+01:00

Shit. Did it again.

DJ Hero peripherals announced!

2009-05-20T11:55:00.002+01:00

Following in the footsteps of non-game series Guitar Hero, now on it's 16th iteration, and Rock Band (are we on 4? 5? nobody cares), the upcoming DJ Hero is also keen to milk the shit out of mainstream non gamers with these three peripherals so you can play with your mates:

DJ Hero Dex- Estimated Retail Price $140 pounds.
This killer dex will show how truly easy the job of a DJ is. Just put on a compilation CD and watch the game play itself. In the meantime you can feel up some jailbait who is on an AK trip.

DJ Hero Manbag- Estimated Retail price 54 euros.
Show off to all your friends how much of a super underground artisan you are with this mass produced man/record bag available at any shitty independent music shop that still sells vinyl. Customise it with up to four slots for anti war and graffiti inspired badges.

DJ Hero Beanie- Estimated Retail price £30.
Look like a youth knob at and away from the console! Has three slots for official DJ Hero 'ironic goth message badges' sold separately.

DJ Hero Tats- Estimated retail price £20.50 each.
Look like the twat you are with these exclusive twattish tattoos for you to show off at your fast food restaurant day job. Variants include that Celtic thing that everyone has, that stupid star design that people insist on getting on their wrists, neck and face and that other tribal thing that sluts get above their thong, which itself sits 4-5 inches above the ass crack and or trouser waistband.

We can hardly wait. We've preordered all this shit and it's all us and our wannabe DJ friends can think about. Until then we'll keep you posted with any news that comes our way about the latest plastic peripheral shit to kill gaming once and for all.

A friend in need

2009-05-11T18:47:00.004+01:00

Semi-retired Ram Raider have come back out of retirement again again to bring us this news about a game called Darkfall. The essence of the issue, for those too lazy to hit the link is that Eurogamer staffer Ed Zitron was unfairly treated by the company behind Darkfall Online, Aventurine. Including the not deleting of personal details put up on a forum. Or something.

This is unfair treatment and an issue that we are happy to bring more attention to, through the time honoured review of Darkfall Online Boxart.

Cunzy1 1: What? No boxart?

Richie: No due to the cutbacks we can't afford to google images anymore so we'll have to review the game title itself.

Cunzy1 1: Another world first from TGAM. Second greatest etc. etc.

Richie: Hmmm. Darkfall. Doesn't that game exist?

Cunzy1 1: No you are thinking of Darkwatch.

Richie: No. I was thinking of the Darkness.

Cunzy1 1: Isn't that a band? Also, I was thinking of Dark Stalkers.

Richie: Racist.

Cunzy1 1: Not racist. But by finding me racist you are a racist.

Richie:?

Cunzy1 1: Because I am so not racist I can't see colour. Everyone is colourless. There is no race. If you think there is, you are racist.

Richie: So all those people who thought Resident Evil 5 was racist?

Cunzy1 1: Yes. Racists. The racists.

Richie: So Darkfall Online. Sounds like a game where you play as a black Hitler from Downfall.

Cunzy1 1: Maybe it's a game about wells. Or big caves.

Richie: Or the onset of night.

Cunzy1 1: So the final score? This is a review after all. Shall we review it ONM styleee?

Richie: Lets. Is it a Nintendo game?

Cunzy1 1: No.

Richie: Is it a Wiimake of a gamecube game?

Cunzy1 1: No.

Richie: Is it a capcom game?

Cunzy1 1: No.

Richie: Is it De Blob?

Cunzy1 1: No.

Richie: Does it have a screenshot of a character with fire coming out of their arse or face so we can print it with a hilarious "Curry" joke?

Cunzy1 1: No.

Richie: Okay 2/10.

Cunzy1 1: Cool. I've been Ed Zitron....

Richie: And I've been Ed Zitron. Shit now we are going to get abuse on our myspace page from Darkfall Online fans.

Cunzy1 1: Do we have a Myspace page? Does Myspace even exist still?

Richie: Yeah we set it up in 2003 when Myspace launched. We also have a Twitter page which we've had since 2006. When Twitter launched.

Cunzy1 1: Wow so the Guardian might do a cutting edge report on something we wrote on there 3 years ago?

Richie: Any day now I'm expecting our thoughts from yesteryear to be front page news. Such is the cutting edge of the newspapers.

Cunzy1 1: 'Ediacaran spokesperson, "Predicted extinction of us"'

Richie: Palaeontology jokes. "Exclusive, Resident Evil for PlayStation review"

Cunzy1 1: Indeed. Actually they could just run that review every year because at anytime across the globe Capcom are remaking Resident Evil. It's a perma-review.

Richie: Not so my friend!

Cunzy1 1: Shit. We sold out? When? I wondered why the decor seemed different. So will this post attract any hits?

Richie: Only bad ones. Only bad ones.

Cunzy1 1: Damn. Always the bride, never the bridesmaid.

Richie: Ain't that the truth.

Brute Update 28/04/2009 FINAL

2009-04-28T09:14:00.002+01:00

Fuck it!

I remained patient, I thought it may be a fun thing to track the progress or out little virtual thatguys.

But I cant be fucked with it any more!

Constant error pages

Thatguys brute... R.I.P.

Cheers to all of you that supported us.
Richie

Brute Update 23/04/2009

2009-04-23T15:32:00.003+01:00

Oh FFS another 3 losses today, probably the worst Brute out there!

New Pupil...

DAVEMELLIS

Lets get some comments on the go, we'd like to know who you guys are...
Until next time,

Richie X

Brute Update 22/04/2009

2009-04-22T15:38:00.003+01:00

Another fucked day for our brute, she lost 3 matches...

She's currently struggling her way though level 3.

We do have some new recruits:

Wilfmadbloke

and

pisspants

Fingers crossed they have better luck than our brute/punching-bag

Laters,

Richie X

Brute Update 21/04/2009

2009-04-21T09:21:00.001+01:00

Well... the thatguys brute is off to a slow start. and seems to be getting used as a pixelated punching bag. She has almost made it to level 3 and through very little merit, she has only won one match so far.

On the upside though we got a couple of new brutes:

RandyMcSporran

and

brt0nfnk

Well so far so... Pish.

Laters,

Richie X