The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for only begrudgingly compiling a list of the fine (mostly) games related reading from across the week while trying to avoid linking to any pop music. Because I'd rather curl up on the floor and lament the wrath booze have wrecked upon my noble brow.

• Steve Gaynor takes a swing at the art and games debate. As he argues convincingly, Fuck This Conversation.
• Lewis Denby has a nose at Codename: Outbreak, what GSC did before STALKER. Which is an interesting game to talk about in the same way that Codename: Eagle was the forerunner of Battlefield 2. There's probably an article somewhere charting all the John The Baptists to later Jesus' from Developers who required an earlier swing to prepare to hit the target. That metaphor is hopelessly mixed, but I'm going to press on and hope no-one notices.
• Ars Technica take a photo-tour of the Blizzard Campus. Yet again, I actually did the feature for PC Gamer where we would take a photo every time we went to a developer of their toilets, and then compile a big piece showing them all. THIS IS WHERE WARREN SPECTOR POOPS. Yes.
• Gaming Daily's been busy. Here's Hatfield just having a good old eye-roll at 10 things which are rubbish. Meanwhile, Steven Croop considers what he calls The New Imagination. Example quote: "Every medium is essentially interactive to some extent in that it leaves space for the imagination of the viewer. Literature is not illustrated and requires that we create our own mental portraits of characters and action. Graphic literature or, more commonly, comic books, stagger representations of people and action in a series of panels, but the action between the panels must be filled in by the reader. I have had gaming experiences that utilize my imagination in both of these ways."
• Resolution interview Magnus Palsson about making the music for V.
• James Andrewartha pointed me at this very long post at Team Liquid's forum where they take apart the Micro in the Starcraft 2 beta. Enormous, and its actual appeal is tinged by increasingly falling into the tone of idiot fanboy snark, but I found it interesting to see a total dissection of a couple of design choices.
• Technologizer have an article on the "real" Mario.
• Two Downtime Towns in a week? You are treating us, Rab. Here's him on the nifty-sounding Summoner Wars.
• If you've any interest in comics art, this is fascinating. PJ Holden shows how he takes a page of script to a page of art.
• I find it worrying I got into this via soundtracking a game video earlier this week. That's never happened before. Anyway, here's Spose's I'm Awesome.

Failed.