"There's a school of gaming that thinks games need to be more cinematic -- a school where they have to put padding on every solid surface and none of the students are allowed near anything sharper than a crayon."

"If I were feeling charitable, I'd liken it to having infinite amounts of Lego and only being allowed to access ten blocks of it at a time. But it's not even that. It's more like no-clipping through Doom 3 with all the lights turned up; all the content with no structure or entertainment value; not so much a game as a developer showing off. Congratulations guys, you've proved that you have a fuck-load of free time and a dictionary. Come back when you've looked up what "fun" means."

"Don't ask how I got into this situation but, on one level, I had a truck hanging Italian Job-style over a lava pit with a star embedded in an ice block sitting on the end. I had an ice pick and all I had to do was carefully move along the truck, smash the ice and get the star. Even if I fell into the lava, if I had the star, I'd still win, with an agonizing, flesh-vaporizing victory dance. But as I tapped on the block to break it, it shifted slightly and I clicked the background. And fuck! it was like my character had been waiting all day for me to do that! He flung his pick into the air and started jumping up and down like he wanted to be a clown when he grew up. I'd call him a fucking drunken spastic, but apparently those words don't exist."

"I feel sorry for people who are god, and I shouldn't because that's like feeling sorry for Paris Hilton."

"When you're dealing with time travel it's important to establish whose rules are in play. Is this 12 Monkeys rules where you can't change shit? Or Back to the Future rules where you can change shit but the time line is kind of easygoing about it? Or Terminator rules where you can change shit, but then maybe you can't change shit, and then you make a God-awful TV series and Christian Bale yells at someone?"

"Rhythm games are a bit of an indictment of our generation, aren't they? Why yes, I would like to clarify that position! We've never had a decent war to give us any sense of mutual achievement or confidence, so we place anyone with the slightest talent or notoriety on ridiculous pedestals and tell ourselves we could never reach them because we're just so shit! And then Rock Band and Guitar Hero say, "Yes! You are shit! Real guitar's not in your league; all the shit will come off your shitty fingers and clog up the fretboard! But never mind; here's something that isn't much like playing real guitar but kind of looks like it, and that's the best you could hope for, isn't it, you empty, hopeless turd?!" Let me ask you something, Guitar Hero: Do you really want to create a generation surfing across mediocrity on a wave of plinky-plonky plastic? And when the fuck are you going to license Stairway to Heaven?"

"Also, it's amazing how I only really care about auto-run after it's been taken away. If I fail to hold down "X" every single time I move, Batman marches ridiculously around like a pompous sergeant major with a broom stuck up his ass. I thought we perfected this technology! Push the analog stick to run, push it half way to walk. This would have also freed up a button that could have been used for... I dunno, the "bat spank?""

"Kevin Spacey essentially becomes a G.I. Joe villain. The usual anomalously well-organized terrorist strike cripples most of the world, so Kevin Spacey rolls in, takes the credit for ending terrorism, and becomes the most powerful corporation on Earth. And then, having essentially conquered the world with money and minimal force, Kevin Spacey decides his next course of action will be to invade the United States. Yeah, this is where I sort of lose his train of logic. I mean, he practically runs the world already at that point; but I guess conquest just doesn't feel like conquest 'till you've stuck a flag in someone else's shit. And he openly announces his intentions to take over the world in a speech at the United Nations, after which the world turns against him and I want to know what the fuck he was expecting would happen after he stopped talking - pyjama party?"

"I had my doubts about Arkham Asylum because it looked like a dark, gritty game with scary horror elements, and how can you have scary horror when you're Batman, ostensibly the most capable fictional character since Jesus? (Ooh, edgy!) And how can you have dark grittiness when you're Batman, a man who swishes about in his underpants and a fabulous cape? This does feel like reaching for the low-hanging fruit - and Batman is nothing if not a low-hanging fruit - but I just love that bit in The Dark Knight when Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart are talking about bringing down the mob, and it could almost be a scene from The Departed, until Batman flounces in wearing pajamas and a bucket on his head and no one bats an eye."

"Your gun is of course your best friend / On which you must always depend / When you get into fights / You can look down the sights / And bullets come out of the end."

"In the tumultuous time before D-day / There once was man named BJ / With chocolate box hair / And a face like a bear / And a jacket he picked up on E-bay."

"You know what future historians will say about us, right? There were two very different games within the same twenty-year period, both called Wolfenstein and the second one was not strictly speaking a remake of the first. From this we conclude that the people of the early 21st century were taking the piss! It feels weird to call it generic, since this is the franchise that practically invented the genre, but Wolfenstein (the new one that is) subscribes to so many of the cliches of current generation action games that it's like The Spy Who Loved Me of FPSs. It's so obnoxiously safe and committee-designed that any attempt to critique it in my normal manner would be equally as dull. That's why I've decided to review it... in limerick form!"

"Where Brody became a killing machine out of desperate survival need and enough drugs to occupy Amy Winehouse for one lazy Sunday afternoon, Ghale only does it essentially because somebody told him to and he didn't want to make a fuss. He's just a dope who does nothing but agree with the last thing he heard. And everyone around him seems to realize it, you can tell from the way characters give him mission briefings. Every single time they make some token instructing noises, give him a little encouraging smack on the bum and close the door in his face and go back to the TV. Ajay's story eventually leads to his parent's dark secret that explains why the villain has an interest in him. But since Ajay reacts to the revelation like a St. Bernard being told he can't have another biscuit, my first thought was "Any chance we could play as your parents instead? They sound more interesting than you.""

"Monkey Island was part of my childhood. I had the first two on my Amiga - don't suppose you embryos would remember those times when a game like Monkey Island 2 came on twelve floppy disks and playing it was like operating an old-fashioned switchboard? The first two games are still timelessly imaginative, sparkling, and very very funny, and therefore have no place in this review. The problem with the later installments is the usual one that occurs when a series has been in cryogenics for a few years in that the new developers are almost always fans who, in their eagerness to show "respect" for their beloved franchise, prefer to lavish it in tongue baths in place of any significant evolution. In the second episode of Tales of Monkey Island, a character whistles a snatch of music from Monkey Island 2, which might have been kind of cool if he had not then said, "GEE I WONDER WHERE THAT MUSIC'S FROM, HMM?! HMM?! Wink-wink! Slurp-slurp! Tongue bath!" I'm reminded of a cat showing affection to its owner by gobbing a dead bird onto his rug."

"'Splosion Man puts me in mind of N+ crossed with Portal, and then crossed with Portal a few more times until very little of N+ remained. It's set in a futuristic laboratory like the one in Portal, but it doesn't get suspicious until you find your first cake. There's one on every level you can get for extra points, which is obviously way better than Portal which just had the one, and even that one was of questionable status. And you remember how Portal memorably featured a jaunty song with quirky lyrics? 'Splosion Man has three. I appreciate that you have to do whatever it takes to stand out in the indie market, but 'Splosion Man really is trying too hard, like an insecure man who goes to work in bright green trousers so the people will pay attention to him, if only for long enough to tell him to change his stupid green trousers."

"Silent Hill 2 is very good at telling a story without words. Everything is drenched in symbolism, the basic monsters are all suspiciously effeminate, with the exception of Pyramid Head (in his first appearance before he totally sold out) an uber-masculine powerhouse repeatedly seen plunging his massive throbbing knife into the other monsters' moist quivering bodies, which obviously symbolizes...neo-conservative imperialism. You start to think that James' nightmare might be entirely of his own creation, as if the town is just handing him a set of jump leads and watching as he sticks them on his balls. It's a fascinating voyage of pain and despair that leaves you emotionally drained and satisfied, like fucking a burning dolphin."

"You see, Silent Hill 2 isn't just a game I think is good. Silent Hill 2 is the game I replay every now and again to remind myself that, for all the shiny brown/quick time event/RPG element/space marines, gaming is still worth defending. If I were Batman, Silent Hill 2 would be my murdered parents, if you see what I mean."

"Our friend, who's identical to ourselves, dies in a very heroic and insecure way, and at the funeral, we are introduced to his father, Kevin Spacey, who is the only white guy in the plot who doesn't have atrocious facial hair which I suppose means that he's the baddie. I'd spoiler that since he doesn't properly villain it up until a ways in the game, but come on! It's Kevin Spacey; of course he's the villain. He's got two faces: smart arsed and recently punched for being a smart arse."

"The sole element The Conduit can claim as a unique gameplay mechanic is a glorified flashlight that reveals invisible locking mechanisms, essentially doing nothing but an extra phase to the "press button, open door" routine. Don't worry if you're not keen on scavenger hunts, though, because the presence of a nearby invisible thing is helpfully indicated by the soundtrack going, "BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP!" while you're still trying to clear the room of those fucking insidious scuttlefuck spawners. "BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP BDEEP!" And then when you think you've cleared the room and put your weapon away to shut the fucking thing up; Lo and behold! There was another monster spawner on the ceiling you couldn't see because you can't look up!"

"I read in the gaming journals that The Conduit uses special technology that makes it look as good as games on the PS3 and Xbox. Then I waited a few minutes for the punchline, but apparently they were serious! To put it charitably, the game is fucking ugly! This isn't even because of the Wii. I've seen better-looking Wii games and even Gamecube games - this is more on the level of a PS2 that someone's trodden on. I can't remember the last time I saw a game depict a skyline by painting one on a wall and erecting it a few feet away from the window. That's shit I'd expect from a Tex Murphy game, and Christ, this is turning into a good review for obscure references, isn't it?"

"They could even have had three-way co-op, let the third guy play as "Wee-um". Press X to hide, press triangle to quote bible, right trigger to poo pants."

"At the start of each mission, you choose which of the two effectual brothers you want to play as, and the AI will control the other. As Thomas, you can shoot more accurately, throw lassos, and climb ledges; and as Ray, you can open the pause menu, restart the mission, and choose Thomas instead, you fucking idiot!"

"Wii Sports Resort is mostly functional and you could probably have a lot of fun playing it with friends or some children you intend to molest. But I oppose it because I see what it represents: a dead end. Your motion sensor could have full 1:1 control and incorporate a twenty-two function Swiss Army knife, but that won't change the fact that without physical feedback, motion controls are unimmersive! In the long run, they can only hope to sucker in casual gamers with teaspoon-shallow minigames like Wii Sports, the gaming equivalent of the cartoon cinemas used to play before the film. I say stop buying the Wii, fuck Project Natal up the arse, and maybe this whole motion sensor trend can fuck off and make room for the next innovation. Like cyberspace! Or a controller made of fruit!"

"After that a load of boring plot happened, and I was let into the real game and still brimming with Viking rage, my first instinct was to see what effect Mjöllnir would have on the nearest human being. For the first blow they just told me to stop arsing around, and on the second their spine snapped neatly in half. Hah! Teach him to tell me what to do. But then a little message came up saying that my morale had gone down. No, it fucking hadn't, Red Faction Guerrilla! Now get out of the way so I can break all your stuff!"

"You see, while it is true that people enjoy being a dick in games, it stops being fun when the game actually wants you to be a dick. It's less about dickishness itself and more about defying the rules. That's why it's more fun to be a dick in, say, Half Life 2 because the game is desperately trying to make you out as the hero even while you're jumping on someone's head throwing broken bottles into people's eyes."

"Also, is there a specific imp who has died and for whom you had a particular fondness? No there isn't, you fucking liar, they're all identical! But just in case there is (if you're the kind of person who assigns personalities to their dining room chairs), then you can resurrect specific ones for a small price, you weirdo. You see, the imps fail to endear themselves to me, which could be because they control like ass! A fat one to be precise, sitting on a pair of stilts with roller skates on the end."

"It plays like somebody said, "Hey, make a horror game!" And somebody else said, "Okay, what about?" "I've just told you, about horror." "No, I mean, what happens in it? What's the context? What are the major themes you want to work with?" "Horror, horror, and horror! Jesus Christ, just do it! Why are you so difficult to work with?" And so the result is this undisciplined mishmash of horror set pieces and imagery barely justified by a toilet-tissue-flimsy plot, populated entirely by stock characters."

"Overlord 2 plonks you in the usual generic fantasy world and into the big Renaissance Faire booties of some guy who at least subscribes to the same magazines as Lord Sauron, and your task is to use an army of giggling imp minions to... Actually that's a good point; what the fuck are we doing here? Taking over the world, probably, not that they ever tell you that. I guess once you put your big spiky helmet on over your glowing eyes and raised an army of demons to do your bidding, you can't exactly go back to business school."

"People or properties more commonly associated with famous movies, books, birthday card messages, etc, decide to grace the video game industry with their presence and everyone's all like, "Ooh, show us how it's done great sensei, because we've honestly just been guessing up to now!" It belies not only the endless disrespect video games receive, but also gaming's collective self-esteem problem. If something worked as a movie, then that qualifies it to work as a sequence of amusing lights and sounds that hold the average scumbag's jaw slacked for around two hours. Whereas a video game has to stand up to about ten hours of unpleaseable nerds like me turning over every rock looking for stuff to complain about. My point is, asking a filmmaker to make a game is like asking a sausage maker to suck off a pig. You can sort of see the logical connection there, but it's a completely different skillset and the effort will just leave a bad taste in someone's mouth."

"This may sound a little bit hysterical but The Sims is probably the most evil game in the world. It's not the Manhunt kind of evil that convinces children to put each others' heads in plastic bags - that's pussy evil. It's not even the World of Warcraft type of evil that turns millions of people into mindless zombies, doomed to walk the earth devouring pizza and Cheetos. No, The Sims is evil out of a sense of underlying wrongness. Despite physical appearance every character feels the same, a facade of wholesomeness stretched over a dead empty interior, a hive-like community of beings who make an effort to imitate human behavior but don't quite grasp the subtleties. And you just know that if you peel their skin back you'll find reptilian scales or a black chitinous exoskeleton."

"Truly, my objection comes because what I am is a critic of games, not a critic of computer programs that you just fuck around in!"

"CODAW starts off on the right foot when we're introduced to our hero taking off his helmet to reveal that he's a white dude with awful facial hair. We then turn to his best friend who takes off his helmet to reveal that he's the exact same, identical white dude with awful facial hair. Then they start talking about their dads because it's always dads, isn't it? There are no mothers in Call of Duty's world. Soldiers are birthed fully formed from the tail pipes of their father's restored Cadillacs."

"Again, zapping people in the balls is really the only schadenfreude to be had in inFamous, and Prototype absolutely skull-fucks it in the dicking around event: Eat an old man, take his appearance, run all they way up the tallest building, then elbow-drop two hundred stories directly onto his confused and frightened wife. Then sneak up behind two soldiers and eat one without his friend noticing, then when the two of you get back to base, accuse your friend of being you in disguise. Then when all the other soldiers are distracted shooting him, EAT THEM, TOO!"

"Prototype still wins, though, because a sandbox is only as good as the method by which you get around it, and Cole has a tendency to get bogged down with climbing, while Alex can shoot blood out of his wrists at jet engine velocity and fly like emo Peter Pan. I'd say it was, "Made of win," but if I did I'd have to strangle myself."

"The main plot thread concerns the resistance being torn between two leaders, one old-fashioned and moralistic, and the other extreme but pragmatic, and you have to decide which one to support. They both have good points, it was a somewhat interesting dilemma and I put quite a bit of thought into my decisions. But what I wanted was some sodding payoff. And at the end of it all, you install you preferred dictator and they go "Cheers, for that", smack on the bum, close door in face. This must be what it's like to be the American secretary of state. And then you trudge up main villain's house and they're all like "Don't look at me, my ending's completely anticlimactic as well.""

"Sonic All-Stars Racing! First thought: "Why the fuck does Sonic the Hedgehog need a car?" Second thought: "Why the fuck does Sonic the Hedgehog need to still exist?""

"Project Natal! I know they pronounced it "Nat-ahl", but I'm going to keep calling it "Nay-tal" because that's what it looks like, and it's a really fucking creepy image. The only thing creepier would be a grown woman flirting with a dead-eyed CG ten-year-old while Peter Molyneux stands in the background gushing about it. It may be an amazing bit of technology, but all these motion sensor concepts have to eventually face the fact that people play games to unwind, and no one "unwinds" by coming home and waving their arms about like an air traffic controller covered in beetles."

"I played a bit of it co-op, but cooperative it is not; it's more competitive than fucking Bushido Blade. All possible enjoyment was replaced by stress and bitterness because, at the end of the level, whoever got the most points is given a fucking crown, and with that largesse on the table camaraderie was only the first thing to drop off the map as we both tried to sprint ahead, snatching up coins. And once one person touches the flag at the end the other has a deadline the length of an average pull-out procedure before the level ends and the players who made it are showered with confetti and accolades, while everyone else harbors the kind of seething resentment usually reserved for Palestinians and bridesmaids."

"Anyway, everyone knows that a really evil person would take the good options to create a facade of benevolence while slowly building their power base and public confidence until, just when you least expect it... BAM! Off-world slavery. And even then the Republicans would probably still vote for them."

"In my FEAR 2 review I made the point that government supersoldier projects are a flawed premise because any death machine with free will will inevitably notice that there's something iffy about taking orders from cabals of aging generals when they could beat bears to death from across the room using only their prostates. If superpowers are to be had handing them out to random passers-by seems as good a system as any, because then we could all ask ourselves whether we'd use the gift to help people or blow up the entire world. Of course I would ask why we can't have more options. Can't I just help people as a day job and destroy the world on the weekends? Or maybe I'd just fuck the whole complicated business and go back to working at Wal-Mart, using my powers to jump-start the little carts the fatties ride around on."

"The bionic commando, a character so lasting and dynamic that I completely forgot his name, is on death row for... being a bionic commando apparently. But then a group of radical bionics nuke a city to make everyone realize what harmless and level-headed people they are, so the government give our hero his arm back and send him in, but they call him up every five minutes to call him a tosser so at least they're not hypocrites. Also, there's a subplot concerning his missing wife, and the twist that resolves that subplot is officially the most retarded thing I've heard since I called the walrus hotline! Whatever, I don't give a toss about no wife, bitch - I'm here to make my little bionic monkey swing on shit!"

"My one criticism for Duke Nukem Forever is that it comes on fourteen DVDs, but I'd expect nothing less from a game with such a long development time! And every second is on display, and a good thing too. I mean, hypothetically, if 3D Realms hadn't used the time to put together a titanic super-game and had merely been jerking off for twelve years, then it raises unfortunate implications. It means that not only can a studio be staffed entirely by howler monkeys, but there are also investors (who probably consider themselves to be quite serious people) who will pay them to jump about and wee on things for over a decade while talented people with great ideas for games are snubbed because they've never had dinner with John Carmack or whatever. And then when the monkeys present nothing more entertaining than a fistful of poo on a tray and they get sued for all their bananas, a bunch of extremely thick people who still genuinely believe that something half-decent could come out of this rigmarole would say, "That's tragic." NO IT IS NOT TRAGIC! If you get sued because you were paid to do a job you didn't do, that is not tragic, that is how the world should be! And you are a magnificent retard who should have their brain taken away by Social Services. But anyway, the point was, I'm just glad I don't live in a world where such scenarios exist. Now I'd better stop here, because I promised Jimi Hendrix that we'd go pony trekking under the sea."

"It’s difficult to pin down my favorite aspect of Duke Nukem Forever between the dolphin races and the gun that shoots dogs and the liberal use of full-frontal nudity, but I think the achievements deserve particular mention. It’s not just the usual token achievement every time you beat a chapter and a big one at the end, no sir, Duke Nukem Forever makes you fucking work for your gamer score. There’s the achievement for beating the final boss using only your ears; there’s the achievement for playing the whole game with the controller immersed in icy water; the achievement for placing a Wii Fit board in front of the TV and obliterating it with a croquet mallet; but the hardest one of all is the achievement for turning off the console, leaving the house, meeting a nice girl, taking a sailing boat around the world, having three beautiful blonde children, and finally dying content with an honest that you didn’t spend twelve years waiting for an utterly pedestrian sequel to a game that everyone stopped caring about circa 1997 to be released by a developer that makes John Romero look on the ball! Which is a huge challenge because if just one of those kids turns out brunette then you have to start all over again."

"One thing's for sure: This definitely wasn't an American production because, if it was, it would have ended with Hitler's volcano doom fortress sinking into the ocean while Violet watches from the deck of a nearby submarine with the orphan children she rescued from the underground genetics lab. Out of curiosity, I looked up the developers, and they're actually German! Which surprised me because I heard that if you even mention the Nazis in Germany then the government come over and set your house on fire. Between this and Valkyria Chronicles, what's with all the World War Two games being developed by the Axis forces? What is this, community service?"

"I have a special little black hole in my cold obsidian heart for stealth gameplay, but it's like owning a tiger. It's very impressive if you know how to look after it, but if you don't you're going to be cleaning massive dollops of your former children off of the kitchen floor. Instant game-overs the moment the guards so much as smell your farts are an example of bad stealth. And while Velvet Assassin does give you the opportunity to fight back or evade when you're spotted, they have assault rifles, you have a pistol, they have several friends, you have a bad haircut, so they might as well just dump you to the load screen to try again for the sixteen hyperbolillionth time."

"So it's a third person stealth game with a Splinter-Cell-crossed-with-Hitman-crossed-with-Schindler's-List sort of feel, with a dash of Thief's atmosphere and a sprinkling of Metal Gear Solid's confused vaguely anti-war bullshit message."

"So presumably, you know what The Sims is by this point: It's the best possible argument against the existence of a benevolent interventionist god, in which you direct small groups of dollhouse residents until they cease to amuse, then burn their lives to the ground and laugh at their betrayed tears. But before you start assembling your psychotic single white female-esque campaign of torment, do bear in mind that there isn't any swimming in Sims 4. So you can no longer lure them into the pool and delete the ladder, which was so iconic to the series, they might as well have removed the green diamond thing."

"Valkyria Chronicles helped me come to two distressing realizations about myself -- firstly, that I might technically be a Nazi sympathizer; and secondly, that turn-based strategy is something I might be able to get into. Here and there in battle, I caught myself getting slightly entertained. but Valkyria Chronicles messes itself around too much. Aside from the action being outnumbered five to one by cutscenes and muddy menu-driven micromanagement motherfuckery, enemies should not be able to shoot you when it's not their fucking turn! It's like an opponent in chess flicking elastic bands at your pawns while you're trying to think."

"Work has been put into giving every soldier a distinct face, personality, and one-line back story, which is probably just intended to make us give a shit, but was really useful in helping me remember the useless fatheads. There was this one guy, a sniper, looked like he was suffering from reverse aging and he just felt his testicles being absorbed into his body, seemed to hit maybe one out of every ten shots, and every time I brought him along, the enemy would always aim for him first. It was uncanny. It was like he was so dense that his gravitational pull sucked every passing bullet right into his face."

"Riddick in Pitch Black had some personality, a sense of humor, actual flaws and ambiguous morals — you know, like what us tiresome human beings have. But now he's just an infallible cardboard cut-out who does nothing but growl threats and pretentious bullshit one-liners that are supposed to make him sound like a warrior poet but more give the impression that he has fortune cookie papers glued to the inside of his goggles!"