Yes. Everything Is Rubbish.

Every gamer who completed Final Fantasy XIII-2 knew there was going to be a sequel due to the explicit 'To be continued...' which was slapped onto the screen in the final moments of the ending. So there being a XIII-3 is no surprise. Whether this game was / is welcomed is another thing entirely, as XIII managed to cause a divide within the Final Fantasy fandom in a way that no other game in the series had managed to since VIII . Square are hell bent on making XIII 'work', and  Lightning returns  is Square Enix's last chance to prove to us that XIII is as rich a tapestry of a tale as we are led to believe. Final Fantasy wiki entries allude to there being an amazing story and a vividly crafted lore around all of the XIII mythology, but for one reason or another Square Enix haven't done a wonderful job of telling this story in any of the games. Lightning returns genuinely features Lightning as the main character, something which irked me about XIII-2 as you o...

A VHS cassette with playback quality that good? Somebody at Umbrella be trippin' or they held onto those Betamaxes. I wasn't overly keen on the initial Resident evil 6 trailer, because most of it didn't feel like Resident evil . I saw Ghost recon . I saw Infamous . I saw what looked like 3 separate games, and according to game director Eiichiro Sasaki, this is kinda the case. Resident evil 6 features 3 narratives, is essentially 3 games and according to Sasaki you don't even have to play them all. They stand on their own but they do overlap in certain areas. You don't have to play them all, of course. That's a nice endorsement. Why even bother to play this shit at all!? Surely, you'd want players to play through all 3 scenarios - or have I got it all wrong!? You'd think this would be the only way to get the full story. I think it's kinda odd you can even choose. You should have to play through all 3 scenarios. Albeit in any order you like. But you...

After being controversially cut from the first game (much to the dismay of the fangirl and gay community), Male Shepard is able to embark on a romance with Kaidan Alenko in Mass effect 3 . You know I love me some Kaidan, so of course I pursued that n***a like a stalker from the second I saw 'PRESS START'. Visiting him in every 10 minutes, taking him bottles of wine, making him treat me to steak and Batarian wine. I wanted Kaidan in my private quarters. And I wanted him to have suicide mission sex with me. All slutiness and crassness aside, Kaidan and Shepard's relationship is very well done. It doesn't feel like an after-thought and it doesn't feel awkward or break either of the characters. It feels right. It feels genuine. It feels normal, as any functional gay relationship would feel. Shepard has a bit of a reputation for being a whore and pointing his penis at anything that moves. Having sexed half of the females in the Terminus systems between Mass effect 1 and...

Freedom. It's been so absent from the past few Final Fantasy games that I don't know what to do with it when it's offered to me a plate. XIII-2 gives you freedom and lots of it. But sometimes at the expense of leaving you confused. XIII held your hand in a vice like grip until your circulation cut off and you were unable to even play the game...or what there was to actually play . (It's up for debate whether hammering the A button in battles with the occasional LB press is playing a game). We all complained. We all hated it. So Square Enix said "Fuck it. Do what you like and make your own way through this shit" and gave us XIII-2 . This new-found freedom is a welcomed thing, which harkens back to the days when we could blimp it from location to location as we pleased. But the freedom often comes at the expense of being provided with very little direction. I've found myself at odds  on where to go and have had to just meander around and explore unti...

I do not give a shit about this game. I have the pad in my hands and I'm playing it. But I'm not caring about the experience. I just want it to end so I can say I've completed it, lay it to rest and try to break Bioware's epic by having Kaidan declare that he loves me. Giving Mass effect my undivided attention is my motivation for completing this game. If you were to ask me whether I think XIII is a better game than XIII-2 , I honestly wouldn't be able to give you an answer outright. A slight 180° from when I first started playing the game . I could talk for a solid hour on what I think about the game, but I would not be able to decide as to whether  XIII-2 is better than XIII . And I really don't care whether it is or it isn't. Because at this point it's clear that Square Enix still aren't sure where they want the story and the world of XIII to truly go and if they truly care about it any more than I don't. I stopped caring about this game w...

Sonic CD is one of my favourite Sonic games. I'd even say it's the best one. I remember playing the game for the first time back in '93 on my Uncle's Mega CD and being completely enchanted by the colour, the speed, the time travelling, the sickening over use of parallax scrolling and the soundtrack that is so good that I believe it has the ability to cure Cancer. 2 years later my father would buy me a multi mega. And 3 months after that I would acquire a copy of Sonic CD , finding it on my local market stall after weeks and weeks of searching and scouring every Woolworths store in London. But my time with the game would be short lived. Sony would release the PlayStation which had me question why Sega's CD games looked so poo when Sony's looked so good and could do "3D and dat innit" . And seeing Street Fighter Alpha 2 for sale on the shelf of my local Blockbuster would have me terminate all allegiance to the Multi mega and Sonic CD and flog it at so...

I can cuss Final Fantasy out until Square Enix actually make a decent one. But I know I will be buying every new instalment without fail. Regardless of whether it's slated, looks shit or features a ho as the lead character whom I wanted dead in the game which came before. This is a form of scepticism I've taken ever since the series hit that vertical slope into mediocrity. I could stay away, but I know I won't. And Square Enix's tenacity to have this game sell with a large scale promotional campaign which went as far as dominating the entire exit of Earl's court station and making a demo of the game available to download...I find it really admirable. Even if winds up duping me in the process. I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I booted up the demo, but I knew I liked it. Not even 2 minutes into the demo and I've managed to travel through time, get attacked by a giant hand, see a pet moogle transform into a crossbow and engage in a fight with said...

Square Enix seem to be going the X-2 route this game. Take a useless ho from the original game and then give her a proper weapon and all of these gymnastic skills which she never had before. And then have her search for the main character of the original game who is supposedly dead. Watch Serah make like Lightning at 1:29. Hope's cameo in this trailer had under-age girls' panties wet over the weekend. He's pretty much leveled up into being the gaming world equivalent of Justin Bieber. I liked Hope as a character in XIII . I may just be one of the few people in the world who did. So I'm glad to see him back. This opens the door for all of the other characters to make a return as well. Although I'm hoping the door to Vanille making a comeback gets slammed in her face. I don't want her back. I don't want her back ever. And it would be a piss-take if the original cast of XIII aside from Lightning were made to be nothing more than NPC's. I can't wait to...

The Marvel vs. Capcom series had seemingly gone down with the Dreamcast. With the Marvel comics licence having changed hands, and Capcom easing off of the development of beat 'em ups - the era of super hero and Street Fighter gangbangs had come to an end. And all we could do is caress our copies of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and dream. But it would seem that for Capcom to just make games is not enough, and they've decided to partake in the business of making beat 'em up fans' dreams come true. Not only did they deliver the sequel to Street Fighter many did not think would ever be , and get Tatsunoko vs. Capcom localized after telling us it would never happen...but they did the impossible. Dragging a sequel to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 out from 6 feet under and off the ground. Praise be to Jebus and Professor Sexavier! This is Marvel vs. Capcom 3 . Back to take you on that ride. *puts on Samuel L. Jackson voice* Hold on to your butts ... Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is much of what we...

One look at the screenshot is all it takes to see that Final Fantasy XIII 's battle system will be making a return in its sequel, which I'm happy about. Because if it ain't broke, don't paradigm shift it. And the battle system was one of the best aspects of XIII  when all else was failing. But I'm hearing things about Lightning being written out of Final Fantasy II-2 's story, which I'm not chuffed about. Lightning didn't so much evolve as a character as she did get made irrelevant. She went from a center stage, cold, awesome, rude bitch. To an center stage, awesome rude bitch with a heart. And then she just got sidelined to the point that you forgot about how awesome she was in the beginning. She got relegated! And when she started to like Snow, I lost all respect for her completely. Because frankly, Snow is not likable. He fulfills the good-looking-to-the-point-of-being-pretty-FF character role. But that man is just annoying. So I was hoping that XII...

I love me a slow paced detective style game. Shove all of your car chases, slow mo double gun wielding dives and your bullet time explosions. Just let me loose in a place with a trusty note book and let me faff around, picking shit up and observing it in my hand for 10 minutes. Needless to say I was in my element in Shenmue and Hotel Dusk . These games were like heaven for me! But games like these are an acquired taste. They come along once in a blue moon. And they tend to sell so damn badly that they rarely get sequels. I doubt Hotel Dusk  will get a third installment. And well...we all know the deal with Shenmue 3 . That shit got sent through an Omega 4 relay with no IFF the day Yu Suzuki slapped down his resignation. So to hear Rockstar would be going the detective route with their next big game, I was sold! Even as I write this, I've not read a single review of L.A Noire and have watched nothing of the game other than the official trailer. The official trailer of which was...

This looks like a squad unit to me. Which means despite being pretty much omitted save for all of 5 minutes in Mass effect 2 , Kaidan will return as part of your squad in Mass effect 3 ! Providing you didn't leave him to die in Mass effect 1 ...like I did. Not a day goes past when I do not regret leaving Kaidan to fry on Virmire. I never should have put a hoe before a bro. Especially when that hoe was a racist hoe. Looks like I'll be going back through Mass effect 1 to make shit right. And then back through Mass effect 2. I'm hoping my post completion saves will be my friend. If not, then I will kick a tramp in the gut. That shadow broker gig must have kicked Liara's arse and then her face, because she looks BEAT in that shot above! Shepard and Kaidan on the other hand are bringing sexy back to the galaxy, and look like they're ready to go f**k somebody. Or in Shepard's case: anybody. We all know that man is a whore and that he has NO standards.

Exclusive Xbox 360 owners are probably laughing right now because they can access their shit online and game it up, and PSN users...well...can't. Not all of them anyway. And this is all because of Sony's PlayStation network being hacked like a mo' f**ka. You know this shit is bad when international news is all over it. The UK national news loves nothing better than to sensationalize when shit goes wrong within the gaming world, as it gives clout to their unfounded all video games are evil tools for satanic worship, murder, social ostracizing and terrorism scheiße. The coverage is rather deserving in this instance given the severity of the situation, which goes beyond gaming feens unable to access their trophies and online game until their arses go numb, and doesn't so much teeter as it does Krogan charge into the matter of data protection being not so protected. Sony could be facing serious charges over this. They will also be losing the trust of their gamers too. But...

I've been shaking my head constantly for the past hour. I've been trying to stop, because I'm getting pains in my neck. But I just can't!! Final f**king Fantasy XIII-2. If any of you are surprised, then you should be slapped with a frozen gyshall green across your face. Final Fantasy X and XII both got direct sequels in what now seems to be a franchise trend. And with Final Fantasy XIII 's inconclusive ending which made you think "They're so gonna try and sequelize this shit now..." along with "Damn. I just completed the most boring shit ever and am having to now be serenaded by Leona Lewis" - it was also disclosed that a great deal of content was left out of the original game, enough to  make another in fact. Enter, XIII-2 . Why is Lighting now some kind of Knight? Who is the dark haired dude who looks like a cross between Laguna and Kuja. How the hell is Lightning supposed to do her back flips and shit in that armour? Damn, did Lightnin...

Capcom have been in the business of making dreams come true this generation with every single one of their beat 'em up releases. This is just another gift from the foundation. Not just an announcement, but a teaser trailer and screenshots to boot! I wish I could be excited. I love Street Fighter and I love Tekken . But at no point did I ever want the two together in a game. Thankfully not everybody is a stick in the mud like me. Trends on Twitter and the response at Comic con when Capcom first showed this game revealed that the reality of this game caused fanboys to spray more than Kazuya did in the trailer. The Street Fighter and Tekken cross over is being handled as the ultimate fan pleaser - as it will see the release of 2 games. Capcom will be developing Street Fighter x Tekken which will utilize Street Fighter IV 's engine. Whilst Namco will develop Tekken x Street Fighter which will make use of the engine which runs the Tekken games. Both games are being developed i...

Tetsuya Nomura has finally spoken out about Kingdom Hearts III . We all know full well the game will come at some point. But right now the KH team's priority is Final Fantasy Versus XIII - which will probabaly end up being Kingdom Hearts without the Disney, and act as a set of foundations for Kingdom Hearts III . Here's what the zip, buckle and jewellery obsessed SqEnix man had to say... About the next title, Kingdom Hearts III depends on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but development of the next title is already underway. There are two titles other than Kingdom Hearts III in conception, and I think I’ll release one within this year. What games could these be? Will they ever see the light of day? Are these 2 games Kingdom Hearts related spin-off's by any chance? Whatever the game, you can bet the characters will be pretty, and be decked out in all manner of zips, buckles, chains and spikey hair. That much is guaranteed. Kingdom Hearts is hot property at Square Enix. It...

Nintendo got punched, jacked, raped in the arsehole and pissed in the face by Sony. They actually went and copied the Wii remote flat out. Nunchuk and everything! I honestly would have thought that Sony would have gone the Natal route and that Microsoft would've swagger jacked Nintendo's peripheral. But tables have turned, and we have what we have now. I'm not 100% sold on PlayStation Move. Not because the product looks bad or I'm harbouring fanboy love for Nintendo or anything. But Nintendo has already pretty much done all there is to do with this kind of peripheral. We've had everything from action games, shooting games, party games, boxing games, driving games, RPG's, dressing Barbie and My little Pony with this shit. What extra ground is there for Sony to cover? The only difference with the PS3 having these same controls is that the games will look much, much better than anything could ever look on the Wii. Nintendo's saving grace (and also their own d...

Yakuza has always held a place in many gamers hearts, because it's pretty much as close to Shenmue 3 as anybody is going to get. A game which has clearly had an influence on Yakuza . But it's great that Sega have been able to spin it into a solid series of it's own, and they're wasting no time. Yakuza 4 is about to release in Japan, just as Yakuza 3 is releasing in North America and Europe! So many mini-games, down right stupid beatdowns and side quests were shown that I didn't even see a hint of a story! This game looks crazy, over-the-top, Japanesey as hell and I love it! It's making my love for Shenmue resurface all over again, and is making me want to go back to Japan like yesterday. I think I might need this game. I've not yet played through any of the Yakuza games, but I really like the look of this one.

When everybody watched the fateful cut scene in Resident evil 5 on what exactly happened Jill on that stormy day at the Spencer mansion, many wondered why the hell Capcom didn't allow you to play through the events leading up to Jill going head first through a window. The answer? Capcom wanted to sucker more money out of you to do so at a later date. I had 500 odd Microsoft points sat in my Xbox Live account for months. So I figured I'd spend some of that and cop this new Lost in nightmares scenario. It has nostalgia in spades and you get to kick it with my bitch Jill. But is it worth the money, and does it help add to the overall RE5 experience? Those hoping for Lost in nightmares to fill in any gaps will be disappointed. You'd think the lead up to the encounter with Wesker and our homie Spencer lying dead in a wheelchair would have been an interesting one. Full of revelations, epic cut scenes and iconic moments. But it's nothing more than a glorified walk through t...

So, what do you do when a franchise that you loved and created lies in the hands of a company you no longer work for? Easy! You make a game just like it. Except better. With more guns. More bloodshed. More hair. And a contender for the sexiest female character of all time in the lead role who strips naked to kill people. Enter, Bayonetta. Bayonetta is developed by the creator of Devil may cry, and this shows from the start. The button configuration is similar, the way you pull moves off is similar, the styles are similar. It really is a spiritual counter-part to Devil may cry. It's easy to turn your nose up at this, and cast it off as a re-hash, or a regurgitation of what we've had before. (Especially if you hate Devil may cry as much as I do). But Bayonetta is much more. The game seems shallow when you take it at place value and see nothing but half nakedness and open legs in the gameplay footage. But beneath the surface lies a damn good game, which trumps the franchise t...