Meet the Admin. Team

Fire Emblem Fates has you flaunting your royal birthright (eh? eh?    ) on the battlefield... just like most other Fire Emblem games. Who's your favourite video game royal?

Gotta be King Dedede. He's such a lovable goof in Smash - that crouch is a thing of beauty!

Donald Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee this month. What's recently made you lose your faith in humanity?

On a similar political note, the swelling of support for Brexit.  

We took over some video game companies last month. Which non-gaming company would you take over and what would you do with it?

Ooh... I wouldn't mind having a go taking over Disney. You'd get Marvel, Lucasfilm... and that's where all their filmmaking talents would go. Sorry Disney Studios!

Fire Emblem Fates also challenges you to think strategically and guide your troops in glorious conquest (    ) through your military tactics. Tell us about a time you cleverly achieved victory in a video game.

Well, I've been replaying Dark Souls to see how it shapes up compared to Dark Souls III, and last night I spent ages lamely sniping Knight Lautrec's bodyguards because I noticed they didn't aggro on to me when I shot from the starting position of that encounter. Clever? Probably. Lame? Absolutely.

Last month Super Meat Boy finally came to a Nintendo machine. Which Nontendo game do you think would be a good fit for the Wii U or 3DS?

Hmm... in all honesty, Ratchet and Clank or Jak and Daxter would easily make the leap to Nintendo. Colourful platformers with solid combat mechanics? Yep, that'd work.

Leicester City won the Premier League last month. What's your favourite underdog story?

My rise to adminhood. They said I'd never amount to anything - well look at me now!

Seriously though, most Smash Bros. tournaments I watch on Twitch usually have a low ranked player making a deep run through the bracket - my favourite was probably an Ice Climbers player called Wobbles at a tournament called Battle of the Five Gods. He's one of my favourites, and he exceeded expectations.

Fire Emblem Fates has you flaunting your royal birthright (eh? eh?    ) on the battlefield... just like most other Fire Emblem games. Who's your favourite video game royal?

Rosalina. She's quite a mysterious woman and, for whatever reason, I feel she has a bit more steel than some of Nintendo's more established princesses.

Donald Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee this month. What's recently made you lose your faith in humanity?

The first few revision sessions can feel like they're setting a tone. A lot of the students don't get into a serious gear until May but we finish teaching by mid-April, so they have the opportunity to get a lot of work in. Few take up said opportunity.

We took over some video game companies last month. Which non-gaming company would you take over and what would you do with it?

Cadbury's. I would rein in the R&D department as they have been flooding the market with products that I don't believe have much of a long-term future.

Fire Emblem Fates also challenges you to think strategically and guide your troops in glorious conquest (    ) through your military tactics. Tell us about a time you cleverly achieved victory in a video game.

Very few of my video game victories are cleverly achieved these days... unless they are puzzle games, I suppose. That being the case, I did win a StreetPass Manchester Tetris competition by playing my usual tactics (place your pieces so that you can accommodate any other piece on the field somewhere; line up the gap of the 'rubbish' lines your opponents send you and Tetris them right back, where possible; try to leave it so that an L or a J can make three lines for you).

Last month Super Meat Boy finally came to a Nintendo machine. Which Nontendo game do you think would be a good fit for the Wii U or 3DS?

At the time I recall being jealous of other format owners when the Scott Pilgrim game came out. Obsessed with that film, I was.

Leicester City won the Premier League last month. What's your favourite underdog story?

The film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. So funny.

Code:

[b]Fire Emblem Fates has you flaunting your royal birthright (eh? eh?    ) on the battlefield... just like most other Fire Emblem games. Who's your favourite video game royal?[/b]

[b]Donald Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee this month. What's recently made you lose your faith in humanity?[/b]

[b]We took over some video game companies last month. Which non-gaming company would you take over and what would you do with it?[/b]

[b]Fire Emblem Fates also challenges you to think strategically and guide your troops in glorious conquest (    ) through your military tactics. Tell us about a time you cleverly achieved victory in a video game.[/b]

[b]Last month Super Meat Boy finally came to a Nintendo machine. Which Nontendo game do you think would be a good fit for the Wii U or 3DS?[/b]

[b]Leicester City won the Premier League last month. What's your favourite underdog story?[/b]

Fire Emblem Fates has you flaunting your royal birthright (eh? eh?    ) on the battlefield... just like most other Fire Emblem games. Who's your favourite video game royal?
Zelda

Donald Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee this month. What's recently made you lose your faith in humanity?
A few things maybe how some well-known people in gaming a treated, like the death threats to Shawn Murray  

We took over some video game companies last month. Which non-gaming company would you take over and what would you do with it?
Can I take over the City Group and basically play real life Football Manager

Fire Emblem Fates also challenges you to think strategically and guide your troops in glorious conquest (    ) through your military tactics. Tell us about a time you cleverly achieved victory in a video game. hmm not really sure

Last month Super Meat Boy finally came to a Nintendo machine. Which Nontendo game do you think would be a good fit for the Wii U or 3DS?
Tearaway as it's the game Nintendo would make with Kirby in it, if they made VITA games

Leicester City won the Premier League last month. What's your favourite underdog story?
Rocky

Fire Emblem Fates has you flaunting your royal birthright (eh? eh?  ) on the battlefield... just like most other Fire Emblem games. Who's your favourite video game royal?
Midna, Queen of the Twili.  Because obviously.

Donald Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee this month. What's recently made you lose your faith in humanity?
Among many many other things: climate change deniers, football hooligans, the change in meaning of "literally", and Jeremy Chuffing Hunt.  But my "faith in humanity" has always been fairly strained, as I believe that humans at heart are short-term-thinking selfish creatures, who need to use their higher functions to overcome their base instincts and struggle to do that.  Anyway...

We took over some video game companies last month. Which non-gaming company would you take over and what would you do with it?
Silph Co.  Make me a thousand Master Balls gents, there's some legendary Pokémon to catch.

Fire Emblem Fates also challenges you to think strategically and guide your troops in glorious conquest ( ) through your military tactics. Tell us about a time you cleverly achieved victory in a video game.
I don't.  My clever victories are in real life, over the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  I play videogames to relax, so the more thoughtless they are the better.  (I say that, there are limits.  Thoughtlessness is fine so long as it's thoughtless variety, not thoughtless repetition.)

Last month Super Meat Boy finally came to a Nintendo machine. Which Nontendo game do you think would be a good fit for the Wii U or 3DS?
Ni No Kuni, as discussed recently.  But I'll take Hyper Light Drifter finally making its way to Nintendo for now thank you.

Leicester City won the Premier League last month. What's your favourite underdog story?
I can only think of sporting examples, that's not good.

I'll go for the 2005 Ashes Marion Bartoli winning Wimbledon in 2013.  Not just because she was an underdog rankings-wise; not just because she'd made a world-record 47 Grand Slam appearances before winning one; but because in the semis-finals (Williams having been upset that year), it was three slim blonde goddesses and this stocky non-conventionally attractive brunette.  There is a distinct image of the female tennis player, that it would seem even the Williams sisters haven't managed to change, and Marion didn't fit it.  Several (male) sports commentators commented on it like the sexist twats they were.  

And she won, having not dropped a set all tournament; and said words to the effect of, "I don't want to be a model, I wanted to win Wimbledon."

E3! It's been and gone now, but what game shown off at this year's E3 do you wish you could be playing right now?

It's got to be The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I'm being a bit sneaky here as that would also mean I'd be the proud owner of an NX, but the game itself looks like an easy lock for GOTY 2017.

Mighty No. 9 launched like a damp squib last month. What was the last game that really disappointed you?

Probably Street Fighter V - a dearth of modes, broken servers, and - although this one isn't Capcom's fault - no consistent group to battle online. Although, the former issues could have caused the latter, so maybe it is actually Capcom's fault.

The British public voted for Brexit in the EU Referendum. Where does the UK go from here?



Kirby Planet Robobot saw the pink puffball climb into a mech. Which game series really needs mechs?

FIFA. Have it appear as a power-up for struggling teams. Portugal down 3-1 with 20 minutes to go? Chuck Ronaldo in a mech.

We got to see a fair chunk of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which seems to be rejuvenating the Zelda formula. What Nintendo series should be reworked next and in what way?

I'd love to see Metroid go back to its roots in the same way as Zelda - strip out the unnecessary story elements, chuck Samus onto an unexplored alien world and let adventure happen.

The music festival season is upon us! Share a music festival memory, good or bad. If you've not been to one, a music gig memory will do us fine.

I've only ever been to one music festival, and Foo Fighters closed it out. Listen to this bit from Best of You. After they'd finished their set, the whole crowd was singing "ohhhhhh, ohhhhh" like the bit I linked on their way back to the campsite. The gig itself was brilliant - Dave Grohl is a terrific frontman.

E3! It's been and gone now, but what game shown off at this year's E3 do you wish you could be playing right now?
I'm going to champion Ever Oasis. You have to sit up and take notice whenever Nintendo release a new IP, and this one looks a corking little adventure.

Mighty No. 9 launched like a damp squib last month. What was the last game that really disappointed you?
The last real disappointment I remember was Final Fantasy VII or, more accurately, the version of it on iOS. It's not optimised for the platform at all - they've just dumped it on there with a button overlay and no consideration for saving your game on the go.

The British public voted for Brexit in the EU Referendum. Where does the UK go from here?
Into the Great Halls of Uncertainty! It feels like the EU's big hitters are almost daring the UK to trigger Article 50 and start the negotiations, and so they should: those negotiations are going to be on a knife edge. To get what the country wants and to get what the EU wants at the same time will be impossible. The Great Halls of Uncertainty lead to Compromise Land.

Kirby Planet Robobot saw the pink puffball climb into a mech. Which game series really needs mechs?
I can see the Zelda series making proper use of mechs before too long, from the ancient but massively technologically advanced civilisation that clearly once existed.

We got to see a fair chunk of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which seems to be rejuvenating the Zelda formula. What Nintendo series should be reworked next and in what way?
Code Name S.T.E.A.M. could make for a good first- or third-person shooter. It'll free the game of some of the mechanics that people disliked about the original...

The music festival season is upon us! Share a music festival memory, good or bad. If you've not been to one, a music gig memory will do us fine.
I've never been to a festival - I like my home comforts too much - so it's a gig memory for me. My uni friends and I are big fans of the band James and at one stage going to see them at the MEN Arena near Christmas was an annual thing. The band have a thing about ironic T-shirts that slag off the group, which resulted in a friend getting to the front of the T-shirt queue and near-shouting "One James suck, please!"

Code:

[b]E3! It's been and gone now, but what game shown off at this year's E3 do you wish you could be playing right now?[/b]

[b][i]Mighty No. 9[/i] launched like a damp squib last month. What was the last game that really disappointed you?[/b]

[b]The British public voted for Brexit in the EU Referendum. Where does the UK go from here?[/b]

[b][i]Kirby Planet Robobot[/i] saw the pink puffball climb into a mech. Which game series really needs mechs?[/b]

[b]We got to see a fair chunk of [i]The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild[/i], which seems to be rejuvenating the Zelda formula. What Nintendo series should be reworked next and in what way?[/b]

[b]The music festival season is upon us! Share a music festival memory, good or bad. If you've not been to one, a music gig memory will do us fine.[/b]

E3! It's been and gone now, but what game shown off at this year's E3 do you wish you could be playing right now?
I want to be clever or original here, but man... dat Zelda tho.
Mighty No. 9 launched like a damp squib last month. What was the last game that really disappointed you?
Paper Mario Sticker Star,off the top of my noggin.

The British public voted for Brexit in the EU Referendum. Where does the UK go from here?
Away. I don't foresee the Kingdom remaining United.

Kirby Planet Robobot saw the pink puffball climb into a mech. Which game series really needs mechs?
Animal Crossing. Make weeding and traversal and chasingbugs easier by stomping around in a big robot covered in pictures of Reggie's face and crudely drawn swastikas.
We got to see a fair chunk of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which seems to be rejuvenating the Zelda formula. What Nintendo series should be reworked next and in what way?
Metroid, in the same way as Zelda: make it Dark Souls.

The music festival season is upon us! Share a music festival memory, good or bad. If you've not been to one, a music gig memory will do us fine.
Glastonbury Festival. A "Buddhist Monk" teaches me how to take energy from the heavens for a bit, then offers me a cake. His friend tells me it's a "bit strong", which I assume refers to flavour. I gorge myself on muffin and watch Muse stoned off my face

Monster Hunter Generations stormed through the undergrowth and burst out onto 3DS this month. Before taking on the biggest monsters, you cut your teeth on smaller, more common beasts. What's your favourite recurring grunt from a videogame?

Shy Guys are always fun - I like the goofy noises they make.

The NX rumour mill has gone into overdrive this month as we edge closer to concrete news about the system. What's the craziest rumour you've ever heard?

Wrestling related, so not many will get this, but a luchador by the name of Kalisto was once rumoured to be repackaged and debuted as a gay hairdresser. That was going to be his character. Some folks genuinely believed it, too.

July was a pretty scary month for world events, but let's look at the better side of humanity. Tell us about a time you saw an act of human kindness.

Witnessed somebody at a bank branch hand in ten quid, which was supposedly left in the ATM. Not many would do that, I reckon.

Pokémon GO was released last month. What's the first thing you would do to improve the game?

The infamous tracking system needs fixed, natch. It's one of the core mechanics of the game and without it functioning properly, it's restricting the fun I can have with Pokémon Go. Being able to zero in on a 'Mon would be much better than aimless wandering and seeing what I come across.

Lady Layton was announced. Which game series would benefit most from gender-flipping the protagonist?

Hmm... in all honestly, probably Zelda. It'd certainly freshen up the story, although I'm interested to find out what the hell is going on in BotW.

Theresa May became the UK's second female Prime Minister. Which Metroid weapon would help her most with negotiating the terms of Brexit?

The Plasma Beam. Burn it all down.

Monster Hunter Generations stormed through the undergrowth and burst out onto 3DS this month. Before taking on the biggest monsters, you cut your teeth on smaller, more common beasts. What's your favourite recurring grunt from a videogame?

Having played Pokémon Blue recently, I'm plumping for Zubat. It's a cheeky little thing. Also, I had a Crobat in one of my Elite Four bashing teams one time and she came from a Zubers.

The NX rumour mill has gone into overdrive this month as we edge closer to concrete news about the system. What's the craziest rumour you've ever heard?

A mate of mine at school would tell me that Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta was going to join Manchester United for three summers in a row. He never left Italy (if I remember rightly). Give it a rest!

Spoiler: he did.

July was a pretty scary month for world events, but let's look at the better side of humanity. Tell us about a time you saw an act of human kindness.

Unbelievably, today (at time of writing). We were at the vet getting Gus his first lot of injections but behind a couple of people with a dog. It turned out that they'd found the dog loose on the street and brought it to their vet, who scanned its microchip and called the owners!

Pokémon GO was released last month. What's the first thing you would do to improve the game?

Give fans some details on when legendaries are going to be announced/released. Not all at once, natch - just give us something to keep us going!

Lady Layton was announced. Which game series would benefit most from gender-flipping the protagonist?

If there's to be a third Inazuma Eleven trilogy, I'd like it to have a female protagonist. You've been able to recruit female players since the second game of the first trilogy, so let's go that one step further.

Theresa May became the UK's second female Prime Minister. Which Metroid weapon would help her most with negotiating the terms of Brexit?

The Varia Suit. Not only ace shoulder pads but shielded from the extremes of temperature that certain parts of Europe endure.

Code:

[b]Monster Hunter Generations stormed through the undergrowth and burst out onto 3DS this month. Before taking on the biggest monsters, you cut your teeth on smaller, more common beasts. What's your favourite recurring grunt from a videogame?[/b]

[b]The NX rumour mill has gone into overdrive this month as we edge closer to concrete news about the system. What's the craziest rumour you've ever heard?[/b]

[b]July was a pretty scary month for world events, but let's look at the better side of humanity. Tell us about a time you saw an act of human kindness.[/b]

[b]Pokémon GO was released last month. What's the first thing you would do to improve the game?[/b]

[b]Lady Layton was announced. Which game series would benefit most from gender-flipping the protagonist?[/b]

[b]Theresa May became the UK's second female Prime Minister. Which Metroid weapon would help her most with negotiating the terms of Brexit?[/b]

Monster Hunter Generations stormed through the undergrowth and burst out onto 3DS this month. Before taking on the biggest monsters, you cut your teeth on smaller, more common beasts. What's your favourite recurring grunt from a videogame?
The Black Knights in Dark Souls made the game for me. Terrifying sentinels at the start, mooks to be mown down by the end.

The NX rumour mill has gone into overdrive this month as we edge closer to concrete news about the system. What's the craziest rumour you've ever heard?
There was a kid at school who was a bit of a knobber, but not too unpleasant. The rumour went around that he'd fingered his sister's cat and to this day, I look at him and think about that as though it were true even though, surely, it can't be.

July was a pretty scary month for world events, but let's look at the better side of humanity. Tell us about a time you saw an act of human kindness.
Really enjoyed this one when I saw it this morning.

Pokémon GO was released last month. What's the first thing you would do to improve the game?
Make it Digimon.

Lady Layton was announced. Which game series would benefit most from gender-flipping the protagonist?
Luigi's Mansion

Theresa May became the UK's second female Prime Minister. Which Metroid weapon would help her most with negotiating the terms of Brexit?
A revolver. She can put it in her mouth and squeeze.