A moments silence, please.

This After Burner Climax cabinet, died in a fire on Weston Super Mare's Grand Pier, today.

While I can't give much a toss about the pier (Mr B's always had the better arcade), the fact that such a wonderful piece of arcade hardware died in the fire brings a tear to my eye.

I am truely sorry for their lots.

1942 Joint Strike: Fuck no... Not again.

So here we are, another week, another XBLA Wednesday, and another Backbone game where they simultaneously rape Capcom's back catalogue, my memories of old arcade games, and my MS points balance.

Joint Strike is yet another production where Backbone have made quite a lacklustre game, put a really nice front end on it, playtested it for a bit, said "It'll do", and called it done.

Aside from the fact that 1942 is actually more of a remake 19XX, (In a similar way as Commando 3 was more of a remake of Mercs than the original it references in the title), Lets look at it's checklist of some of it's crimes:

• Motion sickness inducing sweeping camera changes
• Slowdown. Yes - Fucking slowdown, on an Xbox 360 game which barely pushes the hardware.
• Yet again, like in Commando 3, they have some kind of hard-on for huge turrets that follow you round the screen, and enemies that spawn behind you.

Worst of all, Despite what it says on the tin, 1942 Joint Strike feels utterly NOTHING like a Capcom game. It feels more like a "fan remake".

These games are the videogame equivalent of J.K. Rowling getting someone to write some bad Harry Potter/Ron Weasley slash fiction, putting a nice shiny cover on it, and selling it as an offical story continuation.

Where's the little things that scream Capcom at the top of their lungs? The meta-references from other games? The bonus cow? The bonus barrel? The little robot from Side Arms? Joint Strike sees a return of the Yashichi powerup, but in some incredibly badly drawn "stylised" way...

DON'T YOU REALISE THAT LITTLE ICON HAS BEEN IN MORE GAMES THAN YOU'VE HAD HOT DINNERS?

The really sad thing is that Backbone can do so much better. I've seen it. I'm sure a lot of you have... And that's Bomberman Live. Why is there such a marked difference in the overall quality in these games? Were Hudsonsoft a little bit more hands on in the development of Bomberman? After all, these new Capcom XBLA games are the product of Capcom USA, and you know how much I completely distrust them.

Do yourself a favour. Save your Zenny.

RIP - Capcom's Soul, 1984 - 2008

SPECULATE-A-TRON 2000: The NEW Xbox 360 Dashboard...

This is what the gamercard on the current 360 dashboard looks like. I'd like to direct your attention to the coloured banner behind the gamertag.

It tells you if your Xbox Live subscription is GOLD (paying for something other consoles are kind of getting for free), or SILVER (crippled to fuckery).




This is the NEW gamercard. Lets ignore the fact that MS have decided to completely do away with gamerpics and steal Nintendo's "Mii" concept for a second here (after all, it was only inevitable that they'd do this eventually, between Mii and Home MS would have been left out).

I'd like to direct your attention to the...

Hold on a second, it's gone!

How do you differentiate between Gold and Silver accounts now?

Wait a minute... That can't be right...

Capcom USA in trying to fuck up SF4 as much as possible non-shocka

What. The. Fuck.

Yes, thats what Street Fighter IV really needed to gain more sales in the west... Poorly dubbed English language anime voices. Cunts.

Knock-Off Nigel: The Return

I can't believe this "advertising" campaign has returned to our TV screens, I really can't.

On the plus side, FACT have realised the first campaign was bollocks, as noone has bought a pirate video since the broadband explosion in the early 2000's. However, they are still trying to maintain that someone that copies the odd video is an utter cunt in other areas of life.

Yeah, that's going to work, just as well as that fucking annoying unskippable "You wouldn't steal a car" bullshit you put in front of DVD features - No wonder people look for a fucking DVD rip instead of the real deal if they don't have to see that shit every time they put a disk in the drive.



Well, at least they are not trying to say piracy funds terrorism, anymore.

This title intentionally left blank.

It has come to my attention via feedback through my never stated but very obvious email address, two things:

• I'm apparently, a terrible terrible racist.
• The site has devolved into too much talk about videogames.
• There isn't enough updates on late 80's/early 90's pop stars anymore.

Well, In response to the first comment, I can definitely confirm I am not a racist. I am a misanthrope. I hate the human race, regardless of creed and colour, you can all fuck off my planet. Got a problem with that? I don't care. I hate you.

However, the other two comments are probably very true. What is a cunt supposed to do, eh? I added favus as a contributor to the blog for him to go down just as well as the fucking Swill Man (PS: You're fucking fired!), and, well, 80's pop is a bit played out, in the post-Rick Roll internet age.

So I'm going for Muppets! They are great!

Now THIS is more fucking like it.

Lets all hope that that isn't just a trailer for the game but a new feature length movie, so it will wash away the pain of the inevitable shitness Street Fighter IV will turn out to be.

As a side note, anyone I catch calling Ryu and Ken's sensei, Gouken, by the name "Sheng Long", will get their shit firmly kicked in the fuck.