The Sunday Papers

In the RPS Religion, Sunday exists for quiet contemplation. That is, quiet contemplation of thoughtful pieces of game writing we found in the last seven days, which we arrange in a list and try not to work in nods to Webcomics or links to podcasts we dig. Because if we do that, we'll have failed (again) and wll be sacrificed to a dark power. And we'd hate that. We really would.

• Alex Trowers writes about some of his memories of being at Bullfrog. Specifically interesting seeing Bullfrog's growing pains from the inside. Also, talking about Syndicate never gets boring. Or, at least, we hope it doesn't, otherwise RPS is screwed.
• Simon Parkin seems to be getting linked in the Sunday Papers a lot. Here, just to house a mea culpa about his GTA4 review, he talks about the dangers of PR manipulation in 11th hour reviews. Clearly he's right, but I think the dangers of tailing reviews tends to be overlooked - when there's a critical consensus out there, it's easy to find a reviewer writing either to support the general consensus or to over-react against it. And both distort the truth a little. That Metacritic spread is a thing that puts fear into us weak minded reviewers. And I really hope someone is stupid enough to give me an MGS4 review, because I'd love to give it 3/10. Anyway! I digress.
• Tongue occasionally in cheek, Ludo has a look at Violence in games. It's one of the perennial topics - I didn't link to a Piracy piece today because I figure that one needs to be left fallow for a while - but it's a fun take.
• This was buried in the comments thread for RPS: The Game, and deserves more attention. Cargo Cult finds that some evil person has pirated it. The basts!
• Good news for fans of The New Hotkey Journalism. Tom Chick is now blogging at a place called Fidgit. Multi-format, but we'll forgive him that. Regular Tom is good Tom sez I.
• Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's slow-burning post-apocalyptic psychic-squatter webcomic Freakangels has inched over the half-way point of its first volume. There's certainly enough of Freakangels to devour in a Sunday sitting, and you probably should. Oh - and this is incredible. The Rub is a year by year hip-hop history podcast. For a bluffer's guide to the history and development of the form, you could do a lot worse than listening to 'em. Amazing stuff.

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