Dire Critic

Someone needs to invent a longer day so I can get more done.

Videogames

Emily Short, writing for Gamasutra, delivers an incisive critique of Christine Love’s don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story. Also from Gamasutra, and quite apropos for those readers joining me in the Planescape: Torment Play-Along, here’s an interview with Mr. Chris Avellone.

A call to arms for the games industry to step it up following Monday’s SCOTUS decision. This is a perspective I quite appreciate. Of course, I enjoy Michael Abbott’s more circumspect approach as well.

A nice lulzy video that’s as true as true can be: Duke Nukem Forever is offensive to women! Also bringing the funny tonight, Rock Paper Shotgun announces it’s gone free-to-read!

Really great long (long) article on perspective and Portal 2.

Matthew Weise at Outside Your Heaven has an audio interview up with Ken Levine that’s worth a listen.

And over at The Border House, Tami Baribeau tackles the idea that the games you play can make you a bad feminist.

That annoying, pretentious Dead Island trailer has won an award at Cannes. Guess it’s time to eat my hat.

Lastly, another utterly fantastic Child of Eden article, this one a commentary from Jane Pinckard of UC Santa Cruz.

Film

Oh man.

…Hello! Happy Monday. How are the kids?

Videogames

Let’s get the required news out of the way first. The US Supreme Court sided with the game industry. Game industry crows this validates games as free speech. I’m still scratching my head on why this industry makes use of its protected free speech the way it has, but more on that tomorrow.

Over on Critical Damage, Brendan Keogh has a lovely ramble/compare-and-contrast on Child of Eden and Rez.

And now for a few fantastic Mass Effect pieces on race and gender that seem to naturally go together. First is this critique of the asari from Retconning My Brain. Next, a pair of pieces from Two Whole Cakes’ Lesley Kinzel, on queerness and whiteness/maleness respectively.

Mass Effect was inspired by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. So I’m not the only person in the world who loves that movie, okay? So there.

Let’s chase that with a truly excellent and thoughtful piece from Jason Hawkins on the poetic nature of PlayDead’s Limbo. Elsewhere, Leigh Alexander opines on how to design good female characters for games. And at You Have Lost, we have a critique of Portal and accessibility.

Digging through some bookmarks, I unearthed a few links I meant to share from several days ago but which slipped through the cracks. Let’s rectify that! First, this fun visual comparison of generic white male protagonists from IGN. Next, a post from Glamgeekgirl provocatively titled “…that all game characters are created equal…” And Mitu Khandaker partakes of Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Gaming Made Me series with her reflections on Everquest.

Finally, to cap off tonight’s gaming section, Quintin Smith’s Journey of Saga series promises a gaming Citizen Kane. Enjoy yourself.

Fandom

The fans are rockin’ it tonight, let me tell you. First up, an article from GameSetWatch on Operation Rainfall, a fan-driven effort to prod Nintendo to localize some long-anticipated JRPGs. Next, czech this amazing Katamari Damacy mod for Minecraft. Also from The Escapist today, we have word of a listing Firefly MMO getting a boost of fan-power.

Lastly, Doctor Whooves is getting his own Doctor Who animation mashups now. Yes. Just yes.

Animation

Dear cosmos, look at her hair! The first trailer for Pixar’s Brave has finally been released. Do we really have to wait another year for this?

SCIENCE!

Hey! I’m not socially inept after all! I’m just more evolved than you!

Poor mayflies… :(

Curios

True friendship is stealing your friend’s bicycle over and over again.

GQ knows you have a burning question and the only cure is more cowbell: what exactly is middlebrow?

Should math be taught in schools? Teach the controversy!

For My Bronies

Guess who’s a closet Brony this week. Go on, guess.

Congratulations to New York are in order! Have some Kirk vs Kirk to mark the occasion.

Videogames

Brandon Sheffield is a busy little bee. Besides reigniting the spark beneath Insert Credit, he’s also got a new feature with Yu Suzuki up on Gamasutra.

And you thought you’d heard the last of the #ApocalyPS3. Not only is PSN still down in Japan, but a new lawsuit contends that Sony laid off a significant contingent of their net security staff just before the hack.

Lastly from Gamasutra tonight, a new opinion piece from Mike Diskett on game A.I..

On the heels of great fan musical tributes like “Hey There Keanu”, some denizens of 4chan’s /v/ board have composed this song for Valve dev Gabe Newell.

The best part of videogame blogging is when a real discussion gets going. After Extra Credits vlogged about the role of the player in modern games, they were engaged by Thomas Grip, lead designer for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, culminating in this fantastic conversation. Go have a read!

Emerging from outside our normal sphere of gaming blogs, feminist geek culture blog The Mary Sue has a fantastic long-form essay on Chell and representations of gender in videogames.

Speaking of Portal, you’ve heard that Portal 2 is getting dev tools for schools? It won’t be long before a whole generation of school children will love and loathe Portal 2 with the same deep-seated nostalgia as our generation look back on Oregon Trail. Funny thought, isn’t it?

Animation

This is some surreal muscle-bound princess animation right here.

SCIENCE!

Your DNA has cheat codes. Finally, a way for Gameshark to stay in business.

Cory Doctorow over on Boing Boing delivers with the link roundup to a three-part history on ELIZA, the first chatbot.

Curios

io9 Always answers the hard-hitting questions. Like what AU fanfic of your favorite sci-fi scientists doing tech support would sound like.

More Singularity debate? Seriously? Dear Sagan in cosmos! It’s a hypothetical technological projection! Why is there this much kerfuffle?

…I can’t stop looking at it.

Videogames

Kicking off with Gamasutra, Jeffrey Matulef has a riveting piece on the unusual health mechanics in Sword & Sworcery. Over among the member blogs, Alan Jack produces a few barbs about comedy and horror in gameplay and Seth Gorden looks to the role of action in the RPG.

ROUS regular Joel Goodwin sends his latest Where We Came From installment our way, this time speaking with Steven Furnell.

Fantastic piece tonight from Jonathan McCalmont over on Futurismic: how videogames get conversations so dreadfully, dreadfully wrong.

Everyone is all a-twitter about the return of Insert Coin under Brian Sheffield. And what better way to kick things off than with a totally tubular games journalism manifesto.

None too fond of Child of Eden? Don’t worry, there are other descendants of Rez to be happy about.

Fandom

I’m the one who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons!

Sherlock fanart by viaestelar @ deviantArt. Not related to tonight's roundup at all, but I mean, magic sci-fi Sherlock Holmes.

I am famished. I don’t know about you, but not having any news on Sunday always makes me overindulge on Monday evenings. Let’s get right to it.

Videogames/Tabletop

The father of Dungeons & Dragons is getting his own memorial, so now there’s at least one reason to visit Wisconsin.

This is kind of sweet, even though I’m sure we’re all quickly getting Duke Nukem fatigue. Someone turned in their 10 year old preorder, and got it honored. With honors.

Here’s a neat long-form article via Gawker network’s better half on sex in interactive media.

Another long-form critical piece, but a very different take on sex– namely, representation of gender. K. Cox of Your Critic is in Another Castle has the first part of a series up on Laura Mulvey, the male gaze, and videogames.

Rounding off tonight’s selection of denser articles, you know that anything that combines Kinect and Lacan is going to be good.

And now your dessert, deliciously schadenfreude-flavored tonight. First, GameSetWatch presents a video clip roll of the worst of E3. Second, remember that guy who tweeted in a hissyfit about Duke Nukem Forever‘s negative reviews? Color me shocked that he was fired.

Reading/Writing

There’s nothing like a hilarious and vitriolic author-on-author throwdown. Through the ages, even!

SCIENCE!

Flashcard-like memory retention, sayeth Jezebel? Sure, okay.

Something for the New York locals, via Alasdair Williams: the new Picturing Science exhibit at the NYC Natural History Museum.

Curios

Your late-breaking Twitterage story of the night: Twitter likes Fairfax better than you.

And as long as we’re shattering your happy illusions tonight, your car door clunk is a lie.

But cheer up, everyone, it’s not all frakked. Glitterbombing, for instance, is always hilarious. Juvenile, but hilarious.