The Sunday Papers

Normally I'd fill in a joke about being hungover here. Alas, it's no joke, especially for my poor poisoned body. But still, a good time to do what we always do with the Sunday Papers - that is, compile a list of some thoughtful pieces of commentary I've happened upon this week and present them to you, and try really hard not to link to a record which sounds a lot like I feel.

• The Big Idea series over at Newsweek have all had their merits, but I was particularly taken with "A Brief Look Inside the Mind of the Monogamous Gamer--And a Plea to Developers to Cater to His or Her Needs". Opening with the entertainment-per-hour argument is a weak one (Whenever anyone comes up with that, I find myself suspecting they wouldn't get their round in in the pub due to the low ratio of booze-price/booze consumption or something), it quickly moves into more interesting terrain. How much fidelity characterises you as a gamer? As a perpetual mayfly, I'm just a big dirty slut.
• Leigh Alexander debuts over at Kotaku, starting by interviewing the splendidly named Kevin Unangst. She's aggressive, but Unangst doesn't shift from the company line. There's not much party line shifting from Microsoft full stop - Leigh ended up getting accused of plagarising after another kotaku piece.
• Prompted by my piece on Mucky Foot, The_B puts republishes retrospective piece about Startopia he wrote for PC Gamer.
• Chris Plante writes about - er - us for his inaugural Why We Play column. Specifically, the comments thread for Jim's news piece on the closing on VMK.
• I was working through Duncan Fyfe's archive, and was particularly taken by a couple of pieces. Firstly, focusing on the Thief series, notes about the problem of consistency and vision and similar. Second -and digging up an old corpse - why 1UP's 5/10 review of Neverwinter Nights 2 was actually fine.
• Following on from the Amiga sniff-fest, came across this tribute video from Eric Schwartz. And that probably means nothing to you unless you're an Amiga fan from the early nineties.
• I liked this. 1UP piece on how Message boards influence the industry, specifically about general message boards rather than game specific ones. Mainly touches on NeoGAF (Which my account still has never been activated for. C'est la vie.) and Quarter To Three (Which I spend far too much time on) and makes some fun observations. Clearly, the RPS comments threads are the best, however.
• Japan's Ghosts. Beautifully disconnected.

Failed.