The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for working your way from Agatha-Christie-esque countryside across the country towards an eventual destination of evening Agatha-Christie Sunday Evening Cheesy Adaptations. But on the way I take a break to chew on pop-corn, sip tea and compile a list of some of the fine reading that came to my attention this week, present it for your delectation and try not to include a link to a couple of pieces of pop music. I must try. I must.

• Edge's Making Of articles are always pretty decent, especially when it's on a genuinely good game. You don't get much more genuinely good than Deus Ex. The nameless Edge-hero chats to Warren Spector on the Doom where you could talk to the monsters.
• Point/Counterpoint: The New York Times' Seth Schiesel thinks Rock Band: Beatles may be the most important game of all time. Conversely, Crispygamer's John Teti thinks that the New York Times' Seth Schiesel's review of Rock Band: Beatles may be the worst game review of all time.
• While we're on the Fake Plastic Guitars part of the world, you followed the whole Courtney Love Gets Angry With Guitar Hero 5 thing, yeah?
• Vertical Slice believe they can predict review scores. EG talk to them, and about how you can predict fairly well even from the first 30 seconds how a game will score.
• Blue Casket really is a lovely little site. Their Saturday Short stories are good teasers of what they do. Go see.
• Gaming Daily dropped me a line saying we haven't included anything for a while. And we haven't! Here's Craig Lager scowling at motion-control and hoping it stays as far away from the PC as possible. Here's Steve Peacock on why he likes playing the HYPER HARD MACHO AMERICAN MAN in games. Yes.
• This week's sexy graphs: CCP on their current actions against real-world-trading of Eve's ISK.
• I've been a bit mean in the past about the Technical Comparison articles which Richard has been doing over at Eurogamer, which is probably unfair. The articles themselves are always well done, but it just seems to feed into the console-wars in a not particularly useful fashion. Conversely, I think the PC ones - especially when they just focus on the PC - are a little more interesting, if only because it has a much wider remit. This one looking at the forthcoming Red Faction: Guerrilla is a good example. I'm also looking forward to RF:G enormously.
• Do you want another gaming round-up article? YOU CHEATER. STAY TRUE TO THE SUNDAY PAPERS. Or, if you want to philander, Critical Distance is a smart cross-section of the weekly conversation.
• This was distributed widely, but on the chance you're not in those circles... A History Of Violence's screenwriter Josh Olson on Why He Will Not Read Your Fucking Script. The comments thread is also a very funny breeding ground for bitter writers.
• I suspect Jim slipped this into the Sunday Papers document, the little futurist that he is. A chronological list of when inventions first appeared in fiction.
• Waking up to find a message from Gordon Brown apologising for the treatment of Alan Turing was a pleasure this week. Go read what he had to say.
• Los Campesinos release new track The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future online, for shits and giggles, apparently. Strong micro-epic thing I like a lot. Go get. Also, S*M*A*S*H's Kill Somebody. I loved S*M*A*S*H and I don't care. IT'S NOT THAT I WANT THEM DEAD - IT'S JUST THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE IF THEY NEVER EXISTED. Ah, teenagerdom.
• Actually "Virginia Bottomley, Especially" still makes me smile.

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