The Sunday Papers

The day is almost over, so a relatively truncated version of the Sunday Papers today. The idea of this RPS-regular - in fact, THE RPS regular, as it's the most regular thing we do - is that we link to some more of the extended thinky-pieces to chew over on Sunday, and do so in such a rush before we link to an old post rock record featuring lyrics about bodily fluids in hair.

• Interesting column from James Lantz at Game Set Watch about how Starcraft's clarity and precision makes it better competitive game than Relic's Dawn of War and Company of Heroes, with the implication that Relic and THQ should follow in that direction. I really couldn't disagree more, and suspect Starcraft 2's biggest problem is going to be trying to balance the desires of their enormous Korean audience who have a national sport based around precision control and the mainstream western audience who now quite like games trying to minimise the Obsessive-compulsive part of play. The debate is also picked up internally here, at a previous RPS thread. Oh, man, we've gone meta
• And talking about Meta, if you read the original post about Hitchhikers Guide II when we linked to it, it's worth returning and reading some of the enormous thread. The majority of the primaries involved in the story have arrived, and Michael Bywater particularly feels sleighted by his portrayal.
• Talking about Epic online fisticuffs, British games industry veteran Brian Everiss wrote a column about how Imagine were killed by Piracy. British games industry veteran The Reverend Stuart Campbell is enraged. The comments thread has been cleaned up a little, but even what remains is a bit like the ball scene in Carrie.
• Indiegamer interview with Kian Bashiri, the man behind You Have To Burn The Rope. Claims to not be influenced at Portal at all. Yeah, man. we believe you. Pull the other rope, it's got an enormous Big Boss crushing weight attached.
• Lots mall fallout from N'Gai Croal's comments to MTV, but I thought Bill Harris' take took the time to explain exactly what people's problems are and the history thereof.
• Morning After Pill by Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia. Really kicks off as it approaches the two minute mark. Sylvia Plath fronting Arab Strap is the swiftest way to describe them, if clearly the sort of thing that annoyed the band immensely. Since relapsing into them, I've also been enjoying Emily Gray and Tim Croston's latter-day project, Ape Has Killed Ape!

Failed.