* So, I just got an email from someone who who will remain nameless about those Art Attack Friday featuring art by Edmund McMillen that I've been working on. Said person thought these posts were "weird, tasteless and pseudo-tabloid" in nature. I'm pretty sure this is because in the first post anyway, I made a point to say that I liked Edmund McMillen's art better than David Hellman's, which set up you readers to believe that there is some sort of competition between the two artists.

Now in case I wasn't clear in the post, a lot of Edmund's art did make it's way into Braid, just in an altered form. I never meant to say that Edmund got fired and replaced with David or whatever. That said, clearly Jonathan Blow saw Edmund's art and thought "Yeah, this isn't quite going to do it", which had hum hire David to paint over Edmund's stuff.

Doesn't that imply that Jonathan Blow preferred David Hellman's finished work to Edmund's finished work? Doesn't that decision beg the questions "Did Mr Blow make the right move? Who's stuff looks better, David's or Edmund's".

If I'm wrong, does the fact that I even thought that piss you off?

Am I a weird, tasteles pseudo-tabloid journalist for what I've done?



* Bravo to Jim for his Defense force post on Bias, but I have to admit that seeing it on the front page made me a little sad. For the past three days I'd been planning a post called "You're doing it wrong: Bias, Fanboys and Hardcore gamers" that was going to have at least 1/3 of its content be about the very subject that Jim so eloquently touched upon in his piece.

My plan was to talk about these three terms and how I think they are being misused. There are a lot of times when I seem someone being called "biased" when really all they have is a preference. There are a lot of times I see someone being called a Fanboy when they are just a passionate fan. Worst of all, there are a lot of times when I see someone call themselves a hardcore gamer when they actually don't like videogames that much. Sure, they may like a select few videogames, and they may play these games a lot, but many self proclaimed hardcore gamers actually spend more time bashing games than playing them.

I think that this all stems from the fact that people still get mocked for playing videogames. It's still a social taboo. This causes gamers to become self loathing. That's why we attack each other for being "Fanboys". as if being a fan of videogames is a bad thing. That's why we need to differentiate ourselves as "hardcore" gamers, as if that puts us above other types gamer, like "casual" and "retro" gamers (many of which have shunned us for our interest in videogames for most of our lives).

In order for videogames to be taken seriously, we, the videogame fans, need to be taken seriously. As long as we spend most of our discussion time squabbling amongst ourselves, putting down games and the people who play them, and generally acting like angry children, the longer videogames will be considered to be stuff suitable only to angry children.

Then again, we wouldn't have Fanboy Fridays anymore if that happened, which would be a bummer.



* I bought You, Me, and the Cubes the other day with the intention of reviewing it, but now I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. This game is freaking hard! The last levels (or, at least, the last of the initially unlocked levels) are nigh impossible.

If I ever beat it, I will review it. Until then, here's a quick rundown of the game's highlights.

* The game is all about balancing people called "Falos" on a series giant, floating cubes.

* You actually create the Falos by shaking your Wii Remote. You place them on the cubes by first point where you want them to go, then throwing them. This is all done to help break the fourth wall, which is a big element of the game. Like so many of the more interesting Wii exclusives, You, Me, and the Cubes is all about you playing as yourself and interacting with the game world from your couch. It does a good job of making you feel a direct connection between your world and the game's world.

* There are three ways to get screwed up. First, you can just totally throw your Falos in stupid places, which will lead to the cube getting off balance. Second, you can have one of the games two types of enemies (Shade Falos in co-op games, Pale Falos in one player games) screw things up for you. These enemies can be killed, but it's not always easy to get them. Third, the cubes can take on different properties, some of which can murder you. Freeze cubes lock the playing field in place when hit by a Falos, which can either help of hurt you given the situation. Help cubes are always helpful, but hard to activate. Cap cubes can only hold so many Falos per side, extra Falos will be bumped off, and so one.

* The game's art design is a mixed bag. For the most part, it's really nice, a mixture of cold creepiness with occasional blasts of warmth. Things get a bit ugly when you look at the game's Lemmings, er, I mean, Falos. They look ugly, at least to me. When they die, I'm sometimes pleased, because I hate looking at them.

* Co-op mode is totally awesome, but really hard and really different from single player. Like any romantic relationship, You, Me and the Cubes two player is all about two people learning to think as one unit. It's pretty interesting stuff. The game also rates you on how compatible you are with the person you're playing with.

When I played by myself, I got 1 9/10 rating. When I played with my S/O, we got 10/10. So I guess there is something to be said for doing it with somebody else.

* Overall, the game could best be described as a "progressive puzzle" game. If I didn't know better, I'd be sure that it was an Art Style game. Fans of puzzle games or progressive games in general should buy it, others should not.

Ok, that's it for now. I hope you're all having a super Saturday!