And we're not ones to turn down fully-formed, VERY BITTER updates that only require the pressing of CONTROL+A, CONTROL+V then PUBLISH BLOG* to get on the internet.

How to get ahead in games development...
By "Ensign Huey"

Here are some tips on how to succeed in the games industry (after all you're special).

1. Ignore any advice given by gamers, despite their intuitive insight built upon several decades of actually playing games, your coke addled mind is "thinking outside the box" and doesn't need any extra help.

2. Have lengthy discussions about games review scores but always make sure that you score lower than your peers to get that critical edge (you also need to pout as you deliver your "definitive" score).

3. Dismiss frame rate problems out of hand because you've read in Heat that "nobody notices anyway".

4. When you invariably lose on your game during a huge press event, don't admit that you did testing on it. As rule, don't acknowledge games testing exists at all.

5. If you're a girl you can sleep your way to the top. Gaming needs more people that look pretty and there's nothing worse than having to work with someone who does their job properly.
NB: Be selective on your conquests; the last thing you want is one of the muppets blabbing about what a lousy shag you were to a reporter.

6. As shit hits the fan about a bug or a series of bugs that the testers that don't exist found but you ignored and then swathes of the gaming public encountered anyway, hide in the toilet and fill your nose with charlie. If it's an online bug; shrug and carry on nonchalantly thumbing through whatever (anybody who's important doesn't plays online anyway).

7. Don't hire anyone that knows more about games and/or has more talent than you, if you did it would only take people's attention away from your spiky and badly dyed blonde hair.

8. Treat artists and programmers like shit. They only make the games and are thus utterly expendable.

9. Belittle new game ideas put forward by your team. The public don't want fresh new games with a tangible sense of fun; they want the same banal and mediocre gaming fecal matter already available everywhere.

Remember, as long as you're alright that's all that matters. People will forget about GoldenEye Rogue Agent and the Eye Powers and the fact that you said it would be better than Halo 2. After all, if you weren't in the games industry you'd be the failure that everyone said you'd be. You showed them, oh yes.

*Actually we had to save it as raw text so the apostrophes came out OK, insert some "blockquotes" and spellcheck it. Which took about five minutes.

It's like FIFA 05 but with slightly better graphics. It's not as good as Pro Evolution Soccer 5.

Graphics 5/10
Sound 6/10
Playability 4/10
Overall 2/10

When people say something "made them want to cry" on the internet it's usually an exaggeration. Usually an exaggeration so the other people who read their livediaryblognal think they're all emotional and sensitive and reply with messages like "AAaaaWwwwww :((((" then possibly meet up for sex.

But this is not an exaggeration. There's a bit in Sonic Rush where Cream asks Blaze if they can be friends. It made us want to cry.



Yes, Cream. We would like that. We would like that very much. We would like it more than anything else in the world. More than you can possibly imagine. We wouldn't be any bother, we'd stay with you and sleep on your sofa and play with you all day, than tidy up after ourselves and go to bed at night. Every day. Forever. Oh god, if only it was possible.




It would never work out though. The last woman we got close to only ended up getting hurt (with a coat-hanger, then some scissors, then a saw but she lost consciousness halfway through that bit so then it would've stopped hurting). We know we will never be friends with Cream, which is the really painful part.




So we'll just fuck her mum, and leave her alone to dream her sweet innocent dreams.

By which we mean this is our last wankable picture of Sega's retrogame poster girl. We hope it keeps you going till Sega Ages: Gunstar Heroes comes out in February (click for larger image).



THIS is why Paris Hilton isn't selling any video games to us -- she's NOT A SPACE PRINCESS. She has clearly never been interviewed by Ulala, and we doubt she's even heard of the "Sega Joy Planet."

We're a bit sick of the 360 now that everyone is suddenly an expert about it, so we found some old game that came up when we searched for 'good and wholesome' and tried to figure out what it was about by looking at the screenshots and guessing, just like a real gaming site!

If this was a launch title for the 360 it would cost twice as much and get 9/10 from every games magazine in the universe.


Answer questions about stuff!


Do other stuff that we can't figure out!

We know we said we wanted to live in a pretend land, but the bible is a bit too pretend for us. It doesn't even have any blue skies. 3/10

Just to prove that there's nothing to it, we had a "MAN ON THE GROUND" for yesterday's launch of Animal Crossing for DS.



Akihabara at launch, yesterday. Note the keen lack of people lined up fifty deep outside the game stores, owing to the fact that they ALL HAVE PREORDER SLIPS AND ARE STILL ASLEEP IN BED.

Anyway, on to our ZERO HOUR (give or take a day of pissing about) REVIEW!



We take it all back! It was all a clever trick by Shigs to lull us into a false sense of security! The new Animal Crossing only allows one house, and all four characters on the same cart are forced to cohabit. We quake in fear at the kind of gaming nightmare that this will inevitably lead to.

GIRL: What's that you're playing?
YOU: It's Animal Crossing.
GIRL: SQUEAL! Oh my god! It's adorable! What's that?
YOU: He runs the store. He's a tanuki.
GIRL: A what?
YOU: Never mind.
GIRL: Can I have a go?

What are you going to say? "No, piss off?" So you start hanging out and playing the game together. Then what? We give it a day and a half before you pick up the save file and find all your clothes gone and your ironic retro gaming items replaced with an aromatherapy lamp. She'll claim not to know anything about it, but later on you'll find your Starfox diorama buried behind the shops and the other animals suspiciously wearing all the shirts and hats that you drew willies and breasts on.

Animal Crossing thus joins the pantheon of games that teach children messages that we can relate to:

ANIMAL CROSSING: Fear comittment! Flee! Flee for your life!
DEAD OR ALIVE BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Women spend all the time pretending to feed each other strawberries and languish about in a quasi-bisexual way, then throw away all the expensive stuff you gave them on a spiteful whim
PROJECT RUB: Women are incapable of everything from swatting a bee to not dropping the car keys, and will blame you for it
GTA: Women will have sex with you in return for money

Please note that the online aspect of Animal Crossing DS can only be accessed if you already have someone's Friend Code and permission, making it completely useless as a grooming tool.

We know a man who went! "Doctor Vangtros" sent us this gonzo photo report from Xbox 360's launch event in the Mojave desert. It's quite good.



We loved it, because we could sit down with all the Sega games and Dead or Alive 4 and actually play them properly. It's not like at E3, where fat beardy men or short, dumpy, spotty, ugly, ginger women with hunchbacks and buck-teeth are soiling the controllers and headphones, rendering them undesirable for use.




Refreshingly, the event had some VERY NORMAL PEOPLE in attendance.




It was also great, because there was SO MUCH SPACE to relax and stretch our legs in.




Probably a bit too much space, really.




Definitely too much space. A whole desert was probably too big a location for it, to be honest. Maybe a trendy nightclub might be a better idea for the next one.




Organised fun! We hate organised fun. Being told to have fun and being given something to have fun with IS NOT FUN. It's like school or prison or an office training day where you have to be nice to all the people you hate.




Now THIS is fun! They had SLUTS on hand to entertain, though being as this was set in the arse-end of nowhere, they couldn't find high quality sluts (they can't get their sugar daddies to drive them further than a half hour out of town). So this is what we got.




Not that impressive. Oh well. Better luck next time.




There were some attractive girls thankfully. We met some of the PMS girls that were actually rather nice and pretty, though whereas the PMS girls were mostly 7/10s at best, the fact they really actually do play games made them 8-and-a-halves. We saw the ginger frag doll (US) walking around, but she's ugly so we ignored her.




There were also random hot girls who weren't PMS girls or sluts. They were friendly and gave us a faceplate that we'll probably Ebay later for heroin, or more beer for dad, because dad gets very very upset when he doesn't have beer.




We even spotted a scene of on-set lovemaking between two large people. It was such a sight that a man riding a child's bike just had to stop and stare.




It truly was an exciting event.




It was like Woodstock only about games. People will be talking about this event for minutes to come. It might possibly even be mentioned tomorrow before being forgotten forever.




Come back next week when we'll open up each page of the DOA4 calendar we won and have a pictorial on each pointlessly safe-for-work image (before selling it on Ebay).




Thanks to Microsoft for a thrilling event!

AND THANK YOU ANONYMOUS REPORTER DOCTOR VANGTROS!
You did a great job of taking photos of women from up close and with their consent, instead of from far away and secretly which is the best we've ever managed. More anonymous gonzo photography, please!

1) Dying alone

2) Dying in the presence of someone else

Or, this week's UK game chart. Sorry to do a chart update as they're always really dull, but this one's a bit interesting as it's about last week's two new Sega games -- Sonic Rush and Shadow The Motherfucking Fuckhog.



The CHART OF SHAME doesn't feature Sonic Rush, which came out on Nintendo DS last week and is the best 2D Sonic game since Sonic 2 (or even Sonic CD!). It's the perfect Sonic game -- 2D control with "3D elements" just like everyone said they wanted for Saturn, then like everyone said they wanted for Dreamcast. So Sega finally makes it, then no one bloody buys it! Ungrateful SCUM.

Look, the chart is huge and goes all the way down to number 40, but there's no Sonic Rush in it, even at the bottom. We checked lots of times, getting increasingly angry and upset with each reading -- BUT IT ISN'T THERE, just like daddy :(



That's a DISGRACE. Not many people bought Shadow The Hedgehog either as it only made it in at number 25, which is a shame because it's (a) by Sega and (b) not as bad as you think it is underneath. This is a dark day, even more darker than the normal days which are always dark anyway these days.



At least Sonic is taking it on the chin and not letting it spoil his fun. Incidentally, Sonic Rush really is extremely great. It's like a cross between Sonic 2 and SSX Tricky, with Sonic having to "trick to boost" by doing tricks on rails and in the air to power up his turbo gauge so he can GO EVEN FASTER! This really does make Sonic Rush the fastest Sonic game yet! Our Nintendogs are probably dead by now, but we don't care about them any more now Sonic's back.

As part of our whining that games don't have enough space princesses in any more (and to prove that we're not biased and that gangstas, "hood"ing up your games, pointless grit and lazy racial/sexual stereotyping aren't an exclusively western problem), let's take the UK:R time machine* back to 1986. Kunio / Renegade, the first time a game company looked at a project and deemed it to not have enough prostitutes or black muggers in to appeal to its target audience, and in the kind of crippling irony worthy of such a moment, it was actually a gang warfare game (practically unheard of in those days).



The first level. Completely normal looking station changed to piss-stained, grafitti-covered station. Schoolboy gangsters changed to black people in loud Hawaiian shirts.



The midway level. Schoolgirl gangsters changed to prostitutes and, er, black prostitutes.



The final level. White people with knives changed to........

So there you have it. Before you invest in a family pack of tissues ready for New Rainbow Islands, just keep in mind that this is ALL TAITO'S FAULT.

*nb: If there were really a UK:R time machine we wouldn't really use it to write rubbish about games not having space princesses in any more. We'd go back and play Time Traveller, which was by Sega and had a space princess in it.

And it is bad! A soft rock song about powerful women plays as some powerful women "dis" men and fight on strings while wisecracking. Women's issues seem to be mentioned. It's going to be awful. Probably even a capital AWFUL like the House of the Dead film.

But it starts off well:



Christie! Played by Holly Vallance. This is a good start.




Kasumi! Played by Devon Aoki. This is a good start.




Tina! Played by Jamie Pressley, who's well worth Googling for ten minutes before bed with Safe Search turned off. This is a very good start. This might even be a "trousers off, blinds closed" kind of movie!




Oh. They seem to be going for some kind of "girl buddy" movie feel...




...mixed in with soft porn.




And Tina even has her DoA Xtreme bikini. Which is good, as "Tina in Bikini (fighting/swimming)" would've been first on our list of things to put in the film, if we were writing the pitch.




There's a man :( Hopefully he's the pizza delivery guy who arrives just in time for a threes-up with Kasumi and Tina. He probably isn't a pizza delivery guy, though, as he looks like he can speak English and men who look like that don't tend to ride mopeds.




A bit in the woods. The makers will issue a press release saying someone famous from some B-list Hong Kong movie helped produce this sequence.




Holly Vallance again! Her off Neighbours and those phone ads, only this time fighting while a bit naked!!




The towel comes off. It'll be artistically shot, guaranteed.




ONE MILLION POUNDS says she never turns round. Hollywood builds us up then SMACKS US DOWN yet again.




Holly/Christie catches her bra as it falls from the sky. Again, it appears to be very artistically shot and not rude. Stupid arty shots.




Une homage de Beach Volleyball. Not as good as the one we did ages ago though.




More fighting. The trailer's only 1.22 long, and we're already bored and deciding it's a Bittorrent download/skip through film only.




Dead, please.

Microsoft needs to convince the "urban yoot" that Xbox 360 is cool, not wank its money away over the tits of some useless celebrity.



That said we still WOULD (go round her house to play Gotham 3 for a bit as long as she has an Xbox Live account).

OTHER THINGS THE POSH WHORE GOT GIVEN FOR FREE:

Xbox 1:



Gamecube:



Soul Calibur II:



A good seeing to:



And she got a PSP, but we can't find a photo of her holding it while looking like a vacuous slapper who deserves a smack in the face.

Sega are taking Taito to court over alledged simularities (read: complete identicalities) between Mushi King and Dino King, and we can't think of a decent headline. That's why we're going to send a free Nintendogs chia pet to the first person who can come up with one that makes us laugh out loud.

COMPETITION RULES

1) The webmaster's girlfriend is barred from entering
2) It's the chihuahua, so shut up
3) Jokes such as "Sega Vs Taito Millionaire Fighting," "Clash Of The Taito-ns" or absolutely ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT FUCKING CGI THING FROM LORD OF THE RINGS will be dismissed out of hand
4) If it goes missing in the post, tough shit
5) Toy may be already opened and played with depending on how ratted we get between now and the winning entry; the grass you get in it will probably grow better when we've finished with it, though

And the winner is... Nintendo! Its forthcoming DS game Animal Crossing: Wild World is the best at doing sky by miles, thanks to the DS having a whole separate screen just for doing sky! Not even the mad Sega of the late-1990s would've gone that far.



It's like being young again and lying on the grass in the summer, listening to birds and aeroplanes and being happy about nothing. Just happy! That's why everyone says Shigeru Miyamoto is a genius, he knows it's all about having a really fucking good and big sky. We always knew the DS was a great idea, despite what we said on some internet messageboards when it was first revealed.

ANIMAL CROSSING ALSO PICKED UP THE FOLLOWING AWARDS AT YESTERDAY'S STAR-PACKED CEREMONY:

The Gay Pride Gayest Little Game Award

The Sugar Magazine Girl Gamer Award (4-8-year-old category)

The London Underground Most Embarrassing Game For a 32-Year-Old-Man To Be Seen Playing On The Train To Work In The Morning Award

What Paedophile? Magazine's 'Best For Grooming' Award

As part of our Blue Skies campaign (and due to popular-esque demand), we're going to be having a look at where the rot set in. First up: Megaman.



1987: MEGAMAN

LOOKS LIKE: Astro Boy!
RIDES: A happy, smiling, Knuckles-coloured robot dog! Woof! Woof!
MENTOR CHARACTERS: Megaman gets his power-ups from a kindly old portly father figure in a lab coat, and he uses them to battle brightly coloured villains with retarded themed powers. It's like every wonderful Saturday morning cartoon ever. Sometimes Protoman shows up to fill in the Racer-X style "Absent Brother" role and look smashing in a shiny red crash helmet.
PEOPLE IN THE WORLD STILL ALIVE BY THIS POINT: All of them, because Megaman ALWAYS saves the day! Hooray!



1993: MEGAMAN X

LOOKS LIKE: A grumpy Dragonball teenager.
RIDES: A flying jet-powered motorbike (does not transform, talk or have anthropomorphic face)
MENTORS: Megaman Zero, a kind of robot version of Steve Tyler who shows up to stand on cliffs with a big lightsaber and his long cock-rock hair flowing in the wind.
PEOPLE IN THE WORLD STILL ALIVE BY THIS POINT: Between the Sigma, the Maverick Virus, all-out Reploid war and a space station smashing into the planet... oooh, about half of them.



2002: MEGAMAN ZERO

LOOKS LIKE: Beast from the fourteenth circle of anime convention hell
RIDES: Bugger all
MENTORS: None, because EVERYONE'S BLOODY DEAD
PEOPLE IN THE WORLD STILL ALIVE BY THIS POINT: Think "Dawn of the Dead."

Thus, we can see the natural progression of Capcom's games from our childhoods to the present day runs something like this:

Now, predictably, you can.

This is too much. We've only just flushed away the phenomenon of "Girl Gamer" websites getting an extra two hundred thousand hits every time they make a sly WINKY SMILEY reference to the Rez Trance Vibrator. Action must be taken to preserve our sanity. It's time to retrofit the entire history of video games with shit blog referentialism so that we can pretend things were always as bad, then we can not feel the pain any more and just slip away.



OMG INTELLIVISION IS TEH HUGE!!!!!

So much for the internet killing magazines off! This one (the FIFTH Xbox 360 magazine in the UK now) is by Uncooked Media, which we've never heard of but are reliably informed is a small-to-medium-sized name in the world of anime magazines.

This is what it's made:



It's only three quid and definitely green enough to be about Xbox.




It's only three quid because it comes with a "free online disc". It turns out an "online disc" is a web site you go to to download really old movies of Kameo from E3 by typing in a password out of the mag.




Suffice to say? The use of phrases "suffice to say" and "sweaty mitts" reveals the people writing this magazine are (a) old, (b) isolated from modern pop culture, and (c) probably haven't read any games magazines in the last 20 years else they'd realise what tired old cliches they're using.




They have an interview with the Frag Dolls. It's a bit boring, because they don't talk about which ones they'd like to have sex with, nor do they refer to them by their proper title -- which is "Entirely Fabricated Girl Gaming Clan The Frag Dolls". They've also managed to ask the least interesting interview question we've ever seen; "Who would win in a fight between Joanna Dark and Lara Croft?". Whoever did that interview must have even less experience at talking to girls than we do!




Some rubbish about clans. The problem with doing things about Xbox clans is there's only about three of them that ever join in with things like this, so after a while you run out. These ones have already been in all the other Xbox magazines' clans sections.




This is why putting photos of the readers in a magazine is always a bit of a bad idea. He's not a weirdo or anything, just not... aspirational.




The editor's letter is probably a bit wordy. When we write imaginary editor's letters in our head for the imaginary time someone lets us be in charge of an imaginary magazine, they're much shorter. And loads funnier!




NEW LOW REACHED: A war game feature with the headline "War! What is it good for?". This is the oldest, laziest, most well-worn headline in magazines today. Maybe if this was 1984 and Zzap! magazine it would be just about acceptable. If we were ever in charge of a magazine and one of our staff seriously suggested calling a war feature "War! What is it good for?" we'd compose a very strongly-worded email for them to read when they sit back down at their desk.




AND ANOTHER ONE: "Around the World in 60 Games" is also shit and old and massively over-used. Changing it to "360" doesn't make it any better. We can't wait for next issue's Games of 2006 feature, which we're prepared to bet our lives on being called "2006: A Games Odyssey".

SO ANYWAY
It's a bit poor, but for a first attempt at a games magazine by new people that obviously aren't aware of the "veritable smorgasbord" of over-used gaming cliches from the last 20 years, it's an OK go at it. 5/10.

By making a flashgame about it. We hoped for a bit that this WAS Shadow the Hedgehog and that no more would be said about it ever again.



We just know this is a secret admission from Sega that they know EXACTLY how shit this game is, because everyone knows that flash games are UTTER SHIT. They're even offering a Shadow Beanie to people who are stupid enough to pre-order, it's like they're secretly talking to us and admitting they were wrong!

We didn't make this up! Torture yourself here if you don't believe us.

There is no point even trying to resist any more. TRON is going to be in Kingdom Hearts 2, and Donald Duck is going to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with Cid and Yuffie against the David "Jesus Christ" Warner. This is assuming you're still alive after Pirates of the Carribean World, and haven't been found dead in your chair with a big smile on your face like in the original Batman movie.



Click for a larger image, as if we were a proper website and everything. Or don't. It doesn't matter anyway - the fan service apocalypse has arrived, and everything is finished forever. Anyone fancy a daisychain?

"Ow, my childhood!"

Seriously though, you can't even crawl while you're wearing the jetpack and the only way to remove it (and thus advance in some cases) is to kill yourself. What happened? Were we all too blinded by the glory of Outrun and Space Harrier when we were children to notice that games like this were terrible, or did we just eat a lot of marker pens? More to the point, what in the name of Jay Maynard's Tron Costume persuaded us (now that we're older) to go and spend fifteen quid on a version of it that we can't even play on the train?



Oh... right.

So, how does the new, souped-up Counter-Strike differ from the old?



1) See above.

2) Shit J-rock soundtrack by a guitar outfit called "SEX MACHINE GUN."

3) Costs a quid to play for ten minutes plus the bus fare to your local arcade, instead of NOTHING AT ALL AT HOME.

We fully expect it to be a big hit in England, where going into an internet cafe costs that much anyway. Keeping the vodka in a used Lucozade bottle instead of in a cracked unwashed coffee mug on the pile of crispy socks next to the monitor is going to be extra work, though.

Carol Vorderman, aka Pythagoras, will be playing Sudoku online from 21:00 hours on Friday November 18.



She's looking a bit old nowadays. Her arms have turned into liver-spotted grandma claws :(




That pen could easily be replaced by a willie! The Sudoku game could easily be replaced by any other game apart from a Sudoku game.

A QUOTE FROM CAROL HERSELF!
As a self-confessed Sudoku addict, the Channel 4 Countdown presenter says: 'I have become completely obsessed and a bit of a saddo. I love competitions with friends to see who finishes first. I go for the fiendishly hard one and have got my time down from five hours to under twenty minutes.' She adds, 'Mind you I'm told off at home, at work and even in the hairdressers for going "into the Sudoku zone" and "not listening to a word anyone says".'

HOW TO PLAY SUDOKU:
Simply stare at someone who is playing Sudoku, and wonder why they're playing Sudoku when they could be spending their time more productively by looking at the ceiling and imagining themselves being superheroes or shagging lovely girls, or thinking about being in space or on a mission to Mars.

Every year we look forward to the new Sonic game being called the fastest Sonic game ever. It always happens and means it's time to post off our Christmas present list to mum!



More stuff about it here. We've played it for a bit and it was very OK!

This is .hack - some of you may already have seen it. It's an offline RPG about a pretend online RPG being taken over by hackers that pretends to be an online RPG by having buckets of independent characters mailing you all the time to say "OMFG DUDE WTF!?"

Then there's the .hack anime, which is a cartoon where characters are meant to be real people playing a real version of a pretend RPG that pretends to be real in the real world, and watching it confers privileges in the game itself.

Get ready to put another three or four of your NGJ hats on, though, because HACK IS GOING ONLINE FOR REAL. Not only will the pretend but real game about a pretend game pretending to be really online be really online, but if you have a PC you can link it up to your PlayStation's USB port and play as a hacker - really pretend hacking the pretend real online pretend game that is now really online with you hacking it only in pretend.

The sad thing is that it actually sounds like really good fun, but we'll never get to play it because A) Our heads just exploded just trying to categorise it, and B) Will Wright will have already put a contract out on the life of the game's creator for stealing his crown of "World's Most Postmodern Man."

To celebrate Paris burning to the fucking ground, here's a lovely picture of Wheelchair Girl.



*sigh* Oh, Wheelchair Girl. If it were all real, would YOU travel half way around the world to fight evil with US? You'd get 15% off if you did.

Not in the slightest! This is a perfectly normal day in "The Hood" or "Brooklyn" or wherever it is "hip hop rapper" Redman lives (or pretends to live now he's rich and has moved somewhere nice).

Jesus Christ, Activision! Isn't making and distributing this type of image against the law?



EXCLUSIVE: Shadow The Hedgehog 2 on Xbox 360.

HOW THEY COULD'VE MADE IT BETTER:



Join the "Blue Sky In Games Campaign" today!

No! Rockstar Games DIDN'T storm out of the Golden Joysticks in a huff this year because they didn't win anything! Come back next year for an update on Rockstar Games storming out of awards ceremonies in a huff at not winning anything, like they REALLY AND ACTUALLY DID last year.

Just in case the last one was too traditional for all you bedsit bloggers out there in tedium-land.

OF BLOCKS AND COUNTER MEASURES: A JOURNEY THROUGH NINJA GAIDEN (AND OUT THE OTHER SIDE AGAIN)
By Michael Zorg

A guard emerges from the shadows and slaps me in the face.

"Are you MAN enough?" he offers, roughly.

"Yes" I reply.

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH" he yells back, slapping me again. "Are you MAN enough to take any more?"

There was no way I would talk. He could slap me all he wanted. I had learned the importance of blocking and there was no way he could hurt me now. The secrets of my clan, the Hyabusa clan, would die with me if there was no other way.

"Tell me what you know about the Dark Dragon Blade"

"I know nothing"

I could see the anger building within him. He was almost at Master Ninja level, which would mean his slaps would get even harder and some I wouldn't be able to block at all.

"Your family knows about the Dragon Blade... YOU know about the Dragon Blade. TELL ME NOW or I burn the village!"

He could burn the village and I still wouldn't say. I knew from the high-resolution cut-scenes that ran at 50 frames a second that Ayane was safe. He could burn the village for all I cared.

He slapped me again. And again I managed to block, cleverly absorbing some of the essence his attack left behind to restore my health a little.

"TELL ME!"

It was a torturous time, just like Raskolnikov's journey through insanity in Fyodor Dostoevsky's fantastic novel Crime and Punishment, which I read all of at university.

My beatings went on for some 15 days (levels), with his slaps (by this I mean the game) getting harder each time but also being more satisfying to block (complete).

The graphics and gameplay are also great. 10/10.

But the 'Somewhere Else' decided they didn't need it after all. Which is fine, so like all our rejected ideas here it is on the site.

Only seeing as we're putting it on the internet, we've put the word "fucking" in where we originally wrote "damn", changed "idiot" to "spastic", changed "people" to "cocks" and have added some ironic gay bashing and several BONUS SEGA REFERENCES so you have to read it.

A REVIEW OF NINJA GAIDEN BLACK
For the internet.

CHAPTER 1: THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS

We're not going to mess around with introductory paragraphs here. There is only one fact you need to know about Ninja Gaiden Black -- it's the best action game there has ever been and, we confidently predict, the best one there ever will be. No way can anyone ever make a better one than this. It's perfect in all ways.

It's the most arse-kicking, kick-arse, arse-destroying action game there has ever been. It's like there's ten million arses, and you've got a boot the size of a car to kick them with. And you can kick them so hard they're going to be finding smashed bits of arse stuck in the walls of the International Space Station -- THAT'S how hard Ninja Gaiden Black kicks arse. And it's kick-arse, kick-arse, kick-arse all the way through, non-stop, from beginning to end, and is by far and away the greatest action game on Xbox or any other games console -- even the Sega ones.

It's a game for fans of Ninja Gaiden. It's more Ninja Gaiden, more bosses, new enemies, harder attackers and a bigger, greater and even more focused and demanding challenge. But! It's also easier too, courtesy of two things; (1) all the whining cocks who said it was "too hard" on the internet because they didn't understand how important it was to use the 'block' button, and (2) the new 'Ninja Dog' difficulty setting made to shut them the fuck up.

CHAPTER 2: THE FEATURES EXPLAINED

Now, if you're rubbish at games or a child or a spastic and manage to die quite a few times on the first level, Ninja Gaiden Black gives you the opportunity of playing through on its Ninja Dog setting where everything's easy for grandad. Too easy for most, but a necessary easy seeing as a few loud-mouthed idiots found the original too hard.

The shame heaped upon you and your family by playing the greatest action game of all-time on I'M A FUCKING IDIOT difficulty will haunt you for the rest of your life, but if you found the first Ninja Gaiden too hard the option is there. You still see all the plot, levels and beautiful, beautiful scenery on Ninja Dog, it's just the personal shame thing you'll have a problem with in later life.

Oh, and lots of cocks whined about Ninja Gaiden's camera. That's a total non-issue as far as we're concerned, seeing as pressing the right trigger always centres it behind Ryu -- and the camera shot is fixed in small rooms so it never gets lost. It's perfect. Black also features the option of using the Hurricane Pack's altered system where the right stick can be used as a 'free look' thing, but that just makes this LIGHTNING FAST ACTION GAME harder to play. This game is about fighting ninjas all the time, not looking at stuff. There is no sniper rifle in Ninja Gaiden. Just get used to it.

However, this game is meant for people that 'got' and 'liked' the first game and want more of it. To start with, if you haven't got a completed save position from Ninja Gaiden you have to complete it on Normal difficulty to open up Hard. That's REALLY HARD to do! Then you have to complete it again on Hard to unlock the new Missions bits, which are fights against newer, clever enemies, and - we're not exaggerating for effect here - are the hardest 50 things you will ever have to do in a modern game.

(We say 'modern' because a lot of retro games were harder than this but that was mainly because no one bothered to test games in the old days so some were actually technically impossible. Those technically impossible ones are harder than NGB by accident. Anyway.)

You'd better be prepared to play the same mission 20 times in a row before you do it, and that's only on Normal.

CHAPTER 3: SUMMARY AND END

But it's so amazingly awesome you HAVE TO DO IT. There is no try. The enemy AI is so perfect and mean it's a personal grudge match, one that's better than playing rubbish, predictable humans because Tecmo's ace ninjas do such a great job of blocking, rolling and throwing your attacks back at you. It's phenomenally, ludicrously difficult, perhaps ten times harder than the first game, but that's exactly why this is dream material for Ninja Gaiden fans.

And if you're not a fan of Ninja Gaiden -- buy this, play it, don't give up when it gets too hard because it soon 'clicks' and seems just right, and then you'll realise what an epic you have. You will like it, even if you're a puny effeminate man who usually only likes dancing games, puzzle games and watching imported anime with those girls who find you safe, non-threatening company.

And all this for only 20 quid? It's the greatest video game deal in history! Even better than when Sega started giving away Sonic The Hedgehog with the Mega Drive! We're off to complete it again for fun, and you'd better go off and buy it. Not via Bittorrent you pikey twat, via a shop. If Ninja Gaiden Black isn't number one in the charts for AT LEAST a month starting from next Tuesday's chart, you're all in deep trouble and missing out on a genuine modern-day classic.

NEXT WEEK:
Something else we wrote for somewhere else, only this one was rejected for being "too weird".

Thankfully, they've stuck up an age verification thingy so that kids have to lie about their age before they can become serial killers (or even worse, gay) by looking at this:



There's no telling how many junior baseball players this game could turn into deviants if it's released! We just wish there were some sort of ratings system, or perhaps a magical laser forcefield, to protect young impressionable children from all this.

We have no idea what that ancient old movie was about but here's what we think you might be able to do in this game:

• Catch an STD.
  
• Get a stupid haircut.
  
• Form a gang of partially clad males (in a purely macho and heterosexual sense).
  
• Pop caps into nigger's bitches.
  
• Go to a Village People concert.
  
• Complete thousands of identical missions. Probably involving drive-bys.
  

Lots of self-conscious, fashionable, sub-viral, below-the-line, anti-marketing marketing ads from the history of PlayStation here. This one is probably best:



We mean funny in a clever way.

Yes!

30-40 down in Virtua Tennis 3, with a look of resignation on his face. It's so accurate.



On the plus side, this is the most realistic-looking video game man ever. If you had a Sega Lindbergh in your house it would be like having a friend!

After two months of crying and denial, we got round to playing Beat Down: Fists of Vengance. The strategy of chavving your games up for fun and profit has finally reached Japan and, as you could probably predict, has come out like a kitten that's shat itself on your bed. It's adorable, but it's still disgusting and has to be shut in the fridge until it learns.



Join "A Street Fighting Man Raven," "Clever Fighter Aaron" and the inevitable six foot black guy "JASON G" as they struggle to defeat Chester, Wallace, Fatima, Eugene and Ignacy. It's like when you were sixteen and too embarassed to show your friends Final Fantasy because the main character was called Cecil, all over again.

Capcom's biggest secret weapon for making the game feel "Street" and "Cred" and "A lot of other things in quote marks to denote that we're making a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle while saying it" is the incessant repetition of the phrase "WE ARE ON THE BLACK LIST" which is clearly the "Street"-est thing anyone in Tokyo has ever heard.



Sorry, Japan. You do not have gangs like America has gangs. You do not even have gangs like Walton on the Naze has gangs. Please leave this nonsense to EA and Rockstar and go back to making happy games about hedgehogs and mice and mushrooms and rape and destroying the world with a giant beachball.

Afterburner Climax is why we will ALWAYS love Sega. The sky is SONIC BLUE, the sea is SONIC BLUE, the sun is SUPERSONIC YELLOW and it all looks like a memory of being on a happy childhood holiday.



Look! It's a postcard from daddy saying he loves us and is coming home!




Or it's actually the staggeringly hot Afterburner Climax and we're going to go mad about until it comes out, and then probably for quite some time afterwards, too.




We have just climaxed...




...all over Wolf's buff stomach. These are Sega's new arcade machines and our only hope. Three cheers for games with blue skies that aren't about being in a fucking gang.

And if you don't know what that means, close the curtains, take your trousers off and put it into Google image search.



If only all women were kept in clean plastic boxes for us to take out when we need them.

MORE SILENT HILL MOVIE PICS HERE, NONE OF WHICH ARE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT POSSIBLE TO WANK OVER:
http://www.silenthillresorts.com/gallery/folder/Movie%20Stills

Only ONE MONTH AND THIRTY ONE DAYS TO GO! And a year. (Source: Gamestats.com)

Bollocks to it. We've waited this long. Another year won't hurt, even if we have to spend it knelt on the floor gazing upwards with longing anticipation like a beautiful young girl, and Sega are a creepy 30-something man with a slight beer gut standing on the kitchen stool preparing to fling string over us (with our mouth open and hand held out so we can catch as much as possible to rub into our tits).



NO! Not her! We were only making a harmless analogy! She's pure and innocent and would never do anything like that. Never. She'd only even CONSIDER it if was like a really good friend that she knew she could rely on and trust and would never leave her because they'd sent her pictures of their Nintendogs and the bus they used to take to work before the council sold out to Firstbus and they cancelled the service.

oh god richard it could have been so special why have you driven us into HER arms like this