Hot Or Not 2007

So, what's in and what's out for the new year? How we will be differing our behaviour between this year and last year?

2006: Muttering pompously about 360 being evil.

2007: Muttering sheepishly about 360 being a necessary evil.


2006: Nintendo Wii - the light at the end of the tunnel.


2007: Carpal's Tunnel.


2006: Crying because new Sonic games are coming out.


2007: Just crying.


2006: Acting cool because we knew who Tigger and Rita Repulsa's actors were when they died.


2007: Acting cool by pretending to never have heard of Ken Kuturagi when his Sony handlers "Find" him at the bottom of a flight of stairs.


2006: Tits not out.


2007: Tits still not out, but a definite camel's toe if you zoom enough.

Ironic Gaming Network's 2006: A Retrospective

Well, it's been a heady mix of trials, tribulations, and accolades for the IGNetwork team over the last year! Don't worry, we haven't let success go to our heads! Our pledge to bring to you, the discerning gaming public, the very best and most reliable gaming news and previews, remains our motto and driving force.

Let's indulge ourselves in a self-congratulatory appraisal of our Mission Statement!

- Secure FREE gaming stuff.
- Include BOUNCING TITTY gifs wherever possible.
- Take over ign.com.
- Achieve ultimate HAPPINESS.

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One out of four isn't bad :(

Exclusive footage of Tekken 7 on PS3!

The popular fighting series seems to have gone back to its roots, but will undoubtedly still be a hit with fans!

And the winnar is...

No-one, you're all stupid.

The answer was: "No it's AC Ma. Er, Dreamcast Ion!?!?"

Which really is obvious now you've seen it, isn't it? On the tip of your tongue, wasn't it?


Losers.

SEGA Palindrome No.3

Ok, I'm back again. It took me a while to think of this palindrome, and it will probably be the last as I'm having trouble thinking up any more. I'll reveal the answer tomorrow but I'm pretty sure no one will get this one. Even I don't really understand what it means. You can imagine it's some kind of Shenmue 3 prophecy brought on by heavy meditation and strong drugs if you like.


The answer to the last palindrome was: "NiGHTS pops th' gin".

Well done to clever Batou who guessed the right answer. A big box of respect is in the post.

Meanwhile... "Tips to no Devil".

Princess Rinko's Steady Descent Into Porn, Day 13

Swallow it ALL, bitch. I don't care if you don't like the taste. Paying ten quid for Congo Bongo didn't leave a nice taste in my mouth, either. I see ONE FUCKING DROP on your chin and I'm putting the clips back on.

Granny's Garden - A rant.

Today I am going to have a rant.
No, not any comedy news about the game gear's porn playing capabilities or anything like that. Just some good old fashioned "letting-off-steam"

Following on from Batou's great post about the fantastic Granny's Garden, I longed to play the original again, just to see if it still turned my pants the same colour as a brown man's bottom. After endlessly searching for a rom of it without any luck I decided I'd send the original makers of the game, 4mation an email.

"Hi there,

I just wondered if you were selling the original version of Granny's Garden?
I loved playing this game as a kid and it would be great to give it another spin.
I know I definitely have a copy in the attic but it means fixing my broken BBC-B!

Even a rom would be great and I'd happily pay even a fiver just to play this game again.

Kind Regards..."

I offered them a fiver for a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD game that should really be freeware by now. I thought I was being generous but OH NO NO...

"DEAR MR BORDERS
WE CAN SUPPLY YOU WITH AN ORIGINAL COPY OF GRANNY'S GARDEN ON CD-ROM
WHICH DOES NOT REQUIRE AN EMULATOR AT A COST OF £14.98 THAT INCLUDES P&P AND
VAT.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS WE JUST NEED TO TAKE PAYMENT EITHER BY
CREDIT CARD OR YOU CAN SEND A CHEQUE TO US AT THE ADDRESS BELOW.
WE LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU SOON
REGARDS BARBARA"

FOURTEEN NINETY-EIGHT!?!?!! Well, first she typed ALL IN CAPITALS which put our relationship in a 'dangerous area' even at that early stage but THEN.. THEN FOURTEEN NINETY-EIGHT for a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD game!?!?!?!?! As Catherine Tate might say "What a fucking liberty."* I could buy the great Psychonauts on Steam for less than that!

Anyway. I got annoyed and sent them a reply bullshitting about being some journalist on a student magazine with no budget, doing a retro gaming section and it'd be good publicity for the newer version if they sent me a copy of the old version.

Unsurprisingly they never got back to me. Can anyone else think of any GREAT REPLIES to send to Barbara that could maybe ease the grasp that her money grabbing hands have around this wonderful game?

*This is a blatant attempt to appeal to the MASSES. Catherine Tate is a bit shit really. I know you think so too because the type of people that read footnotes are the type of people that would hate the Catherine Tate show. Good on you.

SEGA Palindrome No.2

So, did you have fun with yesterday's palindrome? Did you work it out? Well if you didn't (I don't think you got it did you?) I can now reveal the answer.

It was: "SEGA is selfless, I ages".

Ok I admit it's not a great palindrome, but don't worry, today's is even worse.

There is some Shakespearean-style word usage in this one, so it may help to pretend you're in the Sixteenth Century (I don't know, don't wash, pretend God is real and that porn hasn't been invented yet: repression fuels the palindrome centres of the mind).Now wrap your brains around that and tremble at my palindromic power.

And while you're waiting for the exciting answer: Emily's Sassy Lime.

SEGA Palindrome No.1

Hello and welcome to the exciting world of palindromes.

Every day for the next week* I will be posting a picture representing a SEGA palindrome, the following day I will post the solution. If you guess the palindrome before I post it then you will win a signed and hand-drawn version of the palindrome picture.

The first one is not too hard. Have a go.


While your puzzling that out why not check out some more palindromes:

"Peanuts' Legs" is Gel's Tuna EP.

*Every day that I can be bothered.

Princess Rinko's Steady Descent Into Porn, Day 5

It's no good. I can't keep up. I've done the maths on how many orgasms this whore owes us for persuading us to spend money on the Sega Ages series, and it's hopeless. The entire population of Cardiff would have to do an armbreaker over this picture for a whole fifty seven minutes just to make up for Sega System 16 Collection ALONE. If you have a heart, PLEASE SEXUALLY DEFILE THIS GIRL'S IMAGE NOW or I'm going to end up with a right arm comedically huger than the other that can punch through walls like Mean Angel out of Judge Dredd.


Which, now I've given it some thought, would actually be really cool.

ACTUAL cross platform gamers reflect on their PS3s.

Here is an excellent blog post by someone who clearly knows what's what. Not only does he seem to know about technology, but it appears he's more interested in the facts, not the hype and fanboyism.

He slates the PS3, also noting issues ive not heard before. Clearly he's one of very few people to set down $600 yet still have the balls to be critical. His brother also offers some thoughts.

Then we have the NY Times being openly critical of the PS3 and Sony.

This shit is set to continue, but it is quite clear that $ONY fanboys who have not, or refuse to, play with the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 will never realize just how mediocre Sony's offering is. That means they wont complain, it means that Sony will never fix their issues, and it means the gaming world might be in for a Playstation4 after all.

Conclusion: The PS3 is shit compared to the competition, but most young, male Sony fanboys will never know this. Just as the pretentious pricks shopping in Sony style will never stop to realize that their new TV has a Samsung display inside it.

*shudder*

Girl queues for PS3. Doesn't know why (First obligatory YouTube post)

I don't know why I haven't seen this already, but here's a video of an interview done with some woman who queued for a PS3 without knowing anything about it. Her reasoning being... other people were.

Also watch for when the female interviewer says "us girls don't really fit out here, what with all the gaming...". Nice to see a woman who knows her place...

Track sales of consoles like a dull, boring fanboy

Nexgenwars.com is a site that tracks the sales of the three next-gen consoles (Xbox360, PS3 and Wii, if you were wondering...) and presents them in constantly updated little banners for your achingly lifestyle MySpace pages.




Ultimate fanboy fodder? Probably.

Gaming non-news: Nintendo rep says something good about Wii launch

Some useless gaming sites have posted this as actually being newsworthy. I thought I'd post it to point out how NOT newsworty it.. is, or isn't. Or something.

Nintendo UK marketing director: “The success… was phenomenal and is very encouraging. Hundreds of people queued up to purchase a Wii and fans weren't disappointed by the atmosphere at New York’s Time Square Toys ‘R’ Us and Los Angeles' Universal City Walk’s Gamestop.”

You can see why she's marketing director.

Gaming non-news: Dead or Alive 5 announced

If you didn't think a fifth Dead or Alive game would be made, go away. Really. If you DID, then you don't need to read this article. But I'm going to post the quote anyway. Bloke from Team Ninja:

"I've already started writing the basics for DOA5." Itagaki commented. "I cannot talk about it but the opening scene has already be determined in my head."

Watch this space for inevitable first wank material/screenshots.

Nintendo is WINNING!!!?

Nintendo's WORLD DOMINATION plans are succeeding and we have cold, hard PROOF.

Those slit eyed gaming masters have been going on for a while now about 'expanding the audience' and 'breaking down the walls' and other such marketing speak. Today, I witnessed this first-hand and got a shitty-camera-phone-STEALTH-SHOT to prove it.


Yes! Even Gingers are now playing games as this copper-topped freak demonstrates. He's even playing Animal Crossing DS, a perfectly respectable game, none of your "Alex Rider: Stormbreaker" here. For years, Gingers haven't been allowed to buy anything games related for fear of tainting public opinion on our precious hobby. The ban has now been lifted due to Nintendo's "EXPANDING THE MARKET" strategy and everybody loving gaming again.

Although this may seem good news for all the Chris Evans' in the world, where will it end? Is Nintendo's strategy a 'good' thing? Who knows what we'll see next, maybe next year even Muslims will be playing games!!!*


*Just kidding, of course they'll never allow Muslims to play games!

Stupid Man Breaks Own Telly

In what can only be assumed to be a revenge attack for this weeks earlier outburst, a man has hit back at Nintendo by buying a Wii, playing on the Wii's obviously fantastic games and obviously having much more fun than if he were playing, say, a Playstation 3, by cutting the cord of his Wiimote and smashing up his telly with a hammer to make it look like Nintendo are somehow at fault for manufacturing an assumedly inferior product. We assume. Which is funny because everyone knows everything made by Sony always breaks after six months.

Well, it's either that or he's an incredibly stupid, ham fisted, neandertal of a man who went into a rage about not winning at a video game. Lets all just point and laugh.

Welcome To Next Generation Gaming

"I saw a video of the new Tony Hawks on the PS3 and it looked well good. 'Cause the controller's motion sensitive and stuff, all you have to do is *makes upward flicking motion with hands* to ollie and shit."

Survival Horror Classic Gets Rubbish Remake

No, we don't mean you'll be wandering around YET ANOTHER incrementally different Resident Evil 1 mansion.

Alone In The Dark? Load of crap. (Well, never played, but it looks shit)

We're talking about the daddy of the survival horror here. A game where the unexpecting player was plunged into a nightmare world where reality and fear incarnate became one. A game where paranoia was tangible, and a quick death was preferable to enduring the excrutiating madness. A game that GENUINELY triggered incontinence in some of its players, thus providing lazy game journalists with a throwaway line with which to pad out every preview of every horror game since. Yes, we're talking about...

AAAAAAAAAGH!!! DON'T LOOK IN THE FUCKING CAULDRON! NO!!!

Brace yourselves, here are the screenshots of the remake of the seminal Granny's Garden. It's newer, so by definition it's pish.

Oh GOD. Nice fancy-pants CG, you sell-outs. Guess where the budget went for THIS game.

It started off deceptively easy. I mean, who lives in a house with "FIG" written across it? A complete frothing psycho, that's who.

And then, if you went up the stairs, a fucking SNAKE would rip you to shreds. Well, they actually left that bit to the imagination, but it was scarier that way.

In fact, the only thing more terrifying than Granny's Garden was the horrible, unearthly banshee shriek of the BBC Micro's dot-matrix printer. Brrr.

Summary

On balance, it seems the Granny's Garden remake contains enough fire, vicious animals, and diabolic old women to mentally scar another generation of 6-year olds - success! Best survival horror game ever! 9/10

Link - http://www.4mation.co.uk/cat/granny.html (rated 18+, NSFW)

Gamers love terrorists

Now even Republican Party mouthpiece Bill O'Reilly (who hosts a show on the completely impartial Fox News called 'No Spin Zone', which sounds like it should be a Sonic level) is having a crack at videogames. In a recent radio broadcast he had some rather unkind words to say about games and the pathetic loners that play them.

"Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don’t deal with reality - ever. So they don’t know what day it is; they don’t know temperature it is; they don’t know what their neighbor looks like. They don’t know anything… because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they’ve created their own reality…"

You are so wrong, Bill. The day is two days after the launch of the PS3, my neighbours are cunts and I don't need to know what the temperature is, just whether it's hot, cold or pissing with rain. If you don't stop saying nasty things about games I'm going to fly my airship to your house, hide in your plumbing, then leap out and jump on your head until I level up.

Bill also has his own unique twist on the subject of videogame violence:

I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.

So if I play games, I'm not only being trained to kill but I'm actually helping terrorists by...um...not joining the army where they'll train me to kill brown people?

Further insights into the twisted brain-wrongs of an ultra right-wing conservative technophobe can be found on GamePolitics.com, including his rants against the PS3 and iPod. Or you can pay to download a "podcast" from his "web site" using your computer machine then listen to it on your musical playing device, you terrorist-loving, America-hating scumfuck. While you're there don't forget to take the test on his site to determine whether you're a 'culture warrior' (flag-waving red-blooded American) or a secular-progressive (liberal commie faggot).