
Yeah, that's my dog... What's it to you?
Everybody had that one friend in school who relished the opportunity to take the collective joy of the surrounding masses and crap all over their parade. Well hello there internet, allow me to introduce myself: I am the Grumpy Gamer and it is my sole purpose in life to take whatever gibberish you nerdy fanboys are blathering incessantly about and eviscerate it in front of your very eyes. No matter what you are thrilled, elated, excited and downright frothy over, I will reap great pleasure in poking more holes in it than the plot line of a Wayan’s brothers movie. Oh, and you’re welcome… It is a tough job, but somebody had to do it.
I can just hear you now, bitching that I am just some cheap rip off of that Yahtzee chap over at The Escapist and the truth is yeah, I kinda am. But unlike that poor bastard, I have the creativity to paint my pictures with words, not some generic glorified yellow tinted dry-erase board of hate. I don’t need some character to dance around and make lewd gestures to show how much a game sucks. I’ll just spit it like it is and say that Unknown Game A sucks harder than the collective gusto of a Korean house of ill-repute. I am a straight shooter, and I call it like I see it, but if your game is bad, I could very well end up with the aim of Dick Cheney on a quail hunt.
Another thing you may have noticed already is that I have a bit of a flare for the over-the-top. Now this is not “over-the-top” in a flamboyant “throwing on an ascot for a weekend out with the boys” kind of way. I prefer to think of myself as the voice inside everyone else’s head; I am just the only one with the pills to spew my hatred in the most vile and demeaning manner possible. I have been told for years that there is medication that could fix this problem, but why would I do that when it is more therapeutic and amusing to write it out for the entire free world to see?
When writing this column I will live by the following creed:
- I promise to piss and moan.
- I vow to yell and swear.
- I will remain as inappropriate for your children as humanly possible.
- I promise to push the boundaries of what can be said on ThePortableGamer.com.
- I must be censored at least once every single week.
- I’ll find the silver lining of every cloud and use it to wipe my myself after a nasty trip to the loo.
When reading this column there is a good possibility of the following:
- You MAY read my words from time to time and think something was uncalled for.
- You MAY stop reading what I have written because I used a disrespectful analogy.
- You WILL laugh at my writing what you were thinking, but were too scared to mention to your friends.
- You WILL think that I am a self righteous a-hole.
- You WILL come back every week, just to see what the next target in my sights will be.
If you can’t learn to cope with the above conditions I hate to tell you: you may need to see a physician about a very serious medical condition, otherwise known as the twig you have wedged in your sphincter. When it comes right down to it, if you don’t like what I have to say you can go and find your daily dose of hatred where every other self respecting human does: your local church.
I have experience in every facet of gaming. Yes, the site’s influence will keep my content mainly focused on despising things in the portable iOS game space, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to restrict myself from comparing things to a garbage release over on the console side if it is warranted. Oh, and don’t even get me started on those whining babies over in the PC gaming scene. Those sniveling piss-ants hold more protests and sign more petitions than Malcom X, yet continue to downright steal without any respect for those who created the content. I may have no conscience or self respect, but even I know repugnant behavior when I see it (in others, at least). And if you are one of the donkeys who stole the Humble Indie Bundle that was being sold for charity, do me a favor and throw yourself down a flight of stairs. That way, you can feel the collective power of the internet curb stomping your worthless soul into oblivion.
I am well beyond playing devil’s advocate, because these columns practically write themselves. Here is a perfect example of the prose that you can come to expect from me on a weekly basis:
SEGA is officially on my “developer who I no longer give a flying (I told you I would get edited) about list” They have had nearly a decade since the Dreamcast went tits up, and they have yet to churn out anything worth throwing more than a pity party over. A sterling example of their malaise has been their mediocre iPhone library. The sad part is that “mediocre” is the nicest term I could come up with to describe this worm ridden collection of filth. It is like the ghost of crappy consoles past is back to now haunt our iPhones.
Sure, it makes sense to revisit a couple of the classics like the Sonic franchise, but when your big original release for the year is Soccer Manager 2010, the director of publishing should be ashamed of themselves. I know being in charge of SEGA is painful enough but this is like phoning your job in… from the freaking moon, a decade in the past. How about releasing a new game that core gamers really give a damn about, or at least something that will appeal to someone in North America. Seriously, if you were the one that thought porting a glorified soccer spreadsheet would sell well, please re-evaluate you career choice. I hear Barnum and Bailey are hiring trained chimps that can double as lion food…
At the end of the day I hope you can come away with an alternate view on gaming from the perspective of a angry misanthrope from the burbs, hell-bent on destroying all the ideologies and biases that you hold ever so precious. That isn’t to say that everything that hits the page is to be taken as the gospel according to me. No, I am hoping for exactly the contrary. I will provide the dissenting view and then leave it up to you to decide if in fact it too is what you believe.
Trust me on this, I am in this just as much to entertain myself as I am to rile you poor sods up. If you disagree with me, GOOD! I desire nothing more than inspiring discussion about topics that I am obviously very passionate about. After all, everyone is entitled to their opinion, as long as it reflects mine exactly. Feel free to try and leave a comment below, if you dare.
One last note for the fanboys: do us all a favor and laugh at yourself from time to time. If you don’t, you will end up a bitter old nerd like me, getting paid to write a weekly column about things that piss you off.

Sure, it makes sense to revisit a couple of the classics like the Sonic franchise, but when your big original release for the year is Soccer Manager 2010, the director of publishing should be ashamed of themselves. I know being in charge of SEGA is painful enough but this is like phoning your job in… from the freaking moon, a decade in the past. How about releasing a new game that core gamers really give a damn about, or at least something that will appeal to someone in North America. Seriously, if you were the one that thought porting a glorified soccer spreadsheet would sell well, please re-evaluate you career choice. I hear Barnum and Bailey are hiring trained chimps that can double as lion food…






Everybody loves a shooting gallery once in a while. It is a good way to not only let off steam, but it also can help improve your hand-eye coordination. Do I have any scientific information to back that claim up? Heck no. Honestly, though, what other pretext can there be for a game that revolves around launching lawn Gnomes at a revolving gallery of baddies? 











Quiz games on the iPhone are beginning to become a genre that is becoming seriously crowded in the App Store. Whether you are developing a for a special genre of niche questions or an interesting presentation type, there is a serious need to do something unique in order to stand out. Now you would think that if you were a developer you would be trumpeting your special new features from the rooftops, right? Well, 







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As the name would imply, instead of micromanaging the growth of some digital ingrate that just eats, sleeps, craps and dies, you get to raise a pixelized plant. I have to say that despite the idea sounding slightly ridiculous I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt based on one key aspect to the game: weather. Now we are not talking about some kind of randomly generated weather, this is the genuine weather of your location. Here is the official description of the feature:




City Story
Tap Fish: Sharks
Shoot To Kill














Spider-Man is a name that has not only been one bantered about among Comic Book (ahem…) I mean Graphic Novel fans, it has become a part of Americana. As several successful film releases have proven, the webslinger has drawing power far beyond the printed page. With that in mind, it was only a matter of time before a Marvel approved Spider-Man game was going to climb onto the iPhone.










SEGA. The name is synonymous with all things both awesome and retro. As one of the original innovators in the home video game console space, the company has a gigantic back library of amazing titles. Now that they are out of the console business, they have focused on publishing games that harken back to their franchises of old, while bringing new innovations to the gaming space. Something else they have started doing recently is going back through their extensive archives and picking select titles for re-release on iOS devices.







