“While digital cameras are now ubiquitous, high-quality prints are not. Most digital camera users store their images on their memory card or on their computer — but when it comes time to producing a print for the upstairs hallway or to send to grandma, you’ll want something well suited to the task of photo printing.”

Now you might be gasping with genuine shock and disbelief, here, as isn’t this Canada’s best games journalist lowering himself to review, of all things, consumer technology? Printers, even? Dear God.

Well, yes. He is. Because, as I explained only recently in my “So You Want to Be a Games Journalist” guide, you have to pay the bills.

And you know? It wasn’t that bad. This isn’t an exciting piece of journalism, really, but it’s useful. People need to know what printers are good and what printers are bad. This one is quite good. The end!

“Dracula’s interior designer.

That and his diet consisting mostly of blood.”

Matthew Williamson, editor of The Gamer’s Quarter, called this one of the best introductions to an article on Castlevania he’d ever read, and despite that being a pretty limited category, I’m still pleased with.

The Castlevania Double Pack This is one of the best value packages you can get for the GBA, by the way. Even Stuart Campbell likes Aria of Sorrow.

So you want to be a games journalist, eh?

The first thing you have to do is to write a guide on how to be a games journalist. Because if you’ve written a guide on it, you must be one! Write your guide with the help of these five easy steps!

1) The first part of your guide has to be blatantly obvious! Make sure you ask your reader to check if they

a) Like games and know about them
b) Know how to write words in order, so they make sentences (like this one!)

Because you’d be gob-smacked to find out just how many illiterate people with a passion and knowledge about deep sea fishing, or crochet or something, end up being games journalists because they’d never read a guide on being a games journalist and just fell into the job!

You may also want to explain what a games journalist is, because people who want to be one often have no idea what it even is! (This is how they trick people into being sewage technicians.)

You could go into a bit of a discussion as to how “games journalists” could in many cases be called “games critics” (at least in North American vernacular) because they usually just sit around playing games before then saying what they think about them, rather than, you know, running out and doing hard news coverage, but frankly we all rather like the prestige of a job title that includes the word “journalist”, even though we all know the word “game” in front ruins it.

2) Once you’ve got all that pesky explanation out of the way, you have to get down to the nitty-gritty of telling people how to “be” Goro (a games journalist!) To do this, just make up any old rubbish off the top of your head!

The most important thing is the format. You can make this bit a FAQ, like this:

“Q: Do I need a degree?

But better than that, you’ll already be thousands of pounds in debt! This is a way you must become used to living, because even with a degree you’ll be paid peanuts!”

Or you can make it a loosely connected step-by-step plan for becoming a games journalist:

“1. Beat Ninja Gaiden with your eyes closed and broken thumbs (get an adult to help you with this bit)

3. Get a job as a games journalist! To do this bit, apply for jobs, dress nice for the interview and don’t be a repulsive idiot! It may surprise you, you see, but just because you want to be a games journalist doesn’t mean that you should be one! The likelihood is that you’re a disgusting little internet troll who thinks that being able to beat Ninja Gaiden and knowing what a semicolon does means you’re cut out to be a writer. No. The horror the interviewers are likely to feel should be a sign that you should go back to crying and wanking (please wait until you’ve got home first, though.)”

If you can’t be bothered to structure your piece, just throw down the facts in any old order! But make sure you use headings! (This is how you break up your article so people know what they’re reading about before they even read it! But you already knew that, because we got rid of all the illiterates in step one!)

“Freelance Journalism

Learn how to live below the poverty line, as you’re ‘winning’ if you’re being paid at all and can live on the money you make, even if you’re eating only three meals a week. Maybe have a three year plan and if you don’t start to live comfortably by then, give up. [Editor’s note: The author is a year and a half in and is still sick of cup ramen.]”

3) So now you’ve written most of your guide! You should now write a conclusion. This is the bit of an article that ends it by summing everything up, and in a guide on how to be a games journalist, you don’t really even need to bother doing that! Just write some self congratulatory nonsense to lead up to your short bio (“biography”!) at the bottom, because, as you’re writing a guide on how to be a successful games journalist, no one reading it will have heard of you, so they’ll need to find out all about you and your illustrious career from it!

4) Some things you should never mention include:

“New” games journalism! Because describing games as experiences rather than checklists of graphics, “gameplay” and sound is a stupid load of old bollocks!

Needing a reason to be a games journalist! It’s just a job people do after reading about doing it from a guide or something, not a calling! It’s not like I’m basically starving here because the only thing I want to do is write about games but no one pays a living wage!

Any other sorts of journalism! People are only one type of journalist! Games journalism isn’t basically exactly the same as most consumer journalism, and the skills are totally not transferable!

That people shouldn’t become games journalists, because it’ll take away work from you (as you’re a struggling games journalist) and instead they should go back to being illiterate deep sea fishermen! Because that wouldn’t be nice!

5) You’re now a successful games journalist! Congratulations!

Still to come, Part Two: Eating shoes! Old timey folks like Laurel and Hardy were always eating their shoes when starving to death; is this a viable solution for struggling freelance journalists? We get the lowdown on the tastiest heels!

This is a piece written for a Kieron Gillen/Tim Edwards conceived “thing” in which as many games journalists as they could think of all wrote a “So You Want to Be a Games Journalist” piece (en large, to respond to this piece written by Aaron McKenna for CMP’s Game Career Guide Website.) Here are the others:

[1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9] | [10] | [11]

“Torontoist already has a documented history on disliking Death of a President (including arguing with a FIPRESCI jury member about it) and we don’t really need to go into it again, so let’s hear what the critics have to say. Eye’s Liz Clayton gives it three stars, but doesn’t seem that enthused; ‘ultimately doesn’t insinuate anything more creepy and despairing than what turns up in the real news every da’”, while NOW’s Cameron Bailey finds it more interesting to talk around the film rather than about it, finally admitting the film is ‘not paranoid enough to be really interesting’.

We’ll say one nice thing about it. James Urbaniak, the wonderful Dr. Venture from Adult Swim’s Venture Bros. is in it briefly. But that’s all we can think of.”

Another week, another Film Friday; not much to note other than a reference to a piñata full of offal (lovely image) and a film showing this weekend called Gamerz, “An off-beat comedy with a love triangle set in the fantasy role-playing society of Glasgow University”, apparently. I briefly remember an RPG society from my time at Glasgow Uni, but I could never abide role-playing groups. While the idea of interactive storytelling is sound, the people who do it tend to have absolutely no imaginations, which paired with their complete lack of social skills makes the whole experience unpalatable, so I’d be quite interested to see the film’s take.

“Ah, the Bust-A-Move series. Also known as Puzzle Bobble in Japan, or by Japanophiles who call Pro Evolution Soccer ‘Winning Eleven’, or something, the appearance of the series on the Nintendo DS was merely a matter of time, with the series having appeared on practically every system other than, um, the ZX81 or the Gizmondo. It’s likely that if you’ve ever played a videogame system, or maybe even just seen one from your car window while driving past a branch of Dixons, that you probably know all about the mechanics of playing Bust-A-Move.”

A version of Bust-A-Move on DS! What more can you say, really?

To be honest, I should have been a trifle harder on it. While it really is an okay version, it’s so completely lacking in any spark to make it worth returning to, and unlike many games, as soon as I put it down after finishing the review I never touched it again. There are far better versions of Bust-A-Move to waste your time with.

“When Rockstar Games announced Bully in mid-2005, the controversial name led to protests from not only vitriolic Florida lawyer and anti-video game campaigner Jack Thompson, but normally more rational organizations, such as anti-bullying charities and parents groups. However, the majority of these complaints came before any real details about the game emerged.

However, in near all cases where Jimmy is expected by the narrative to perform acts of violence, it is in self defence and Jimmy is never expected to attack children or girls. Even attempting to touch a girl without her permission is guaranteed to result in a swift kick in the tenders and a trip to the principal’s office.”

My take on Rockstar’s most recent controversial title, created, actually, by Rockstar Vancouver, which I feel like I should have mentioned in the review but I didn’t really have a place to note Canada’s part in creating the game (and all the GTA games were made in Scotland, which is also worth remembering.)

I write my reviews for the Globe and Mail in a different way than I’d write them for a publication purely for gamers; this review is somewhat set up with the idea that if the reader has heard of Bully at all it’s as a reprehensible “bully simulator” and whether or not they believe that, I stress that that’s really not what it is. Much like the GTA games, actually, meaningless violence and misbehavior becomes dull after about five minutes (and the plot rarely, if ever, asks for it), while experiencing the world in a constructive manner is completely brilliant.

I think the game is a nice step in the right direction; I really wasn’t a fan of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (big isn’t better) and the evolution of the design to more heavily stress a daily routine and interaction between factions is pretty great. A change of setting makes a world of difference, too, though it’s really the design that bodes well for the next in the GTA series.

“Gauntlet and I have a bit of history together.

I don’t think I’ve played Gauntlet since.”

Christ, I am a self obsessed bastard, aren’t I? I’m pretty certain that the only reason I reviewed this title was because I remembered that anecdote, too.

I think most people would consider me far too lenient on this game, giving it 5/10, but frankly, like pretty much any game that offers a co-op mode, it’s fun to blast through with a friend (in this case, my lovely girlfriend, who cut through the hordes as a statuesque Valkyrie). It is pretty much unplayable alone, though. And the final boss, as I state in the review, lives “in an area that houses five siege-grade ballistas all pointing at his head”.

Who do designers think they’re kidding with that rubbish, eh?

For shame, John Romero.

I did rather a lot this month, as you can see. No help from Gillen, either, just a mysterious gentleman called “Minister Drill-Cock!” with an article, it seems, that came from the future.

“A world unknown” is a little piece I wrote on Samorost, Amanita Design’s emotive little flash game, for the release of Samorost 2, the sequel. It contains a short interview with Jakub Dvorsky, the creator. My Mario Kart DS and Sonic Rush reviews are the usual sort of thing (well, if you ignore how vitriolic my Sonic Rush review was. A protip, kids: bottomless pits are total arse) but the piece I’d like to spotlight from this issue is my second, much shorter, Animal Crossing review.

Now, you might remember my first review and the furore that surrounded it, and basically, this second review is my response; a succinct example of why “new games journalism” is perfectly valid, and that it doesn’t have to be long winded. Here it is:

Roald is a penguin who lives in my Animal Crossing town. He’s fat, and squat, but he’s obsessed with body building. He reminds me of a good friend. Heck, somehow, he is a good friend. Yesterday, he’d put all of his items in boxes and was going to move out of town for a ‘sit-up competition’. Both myself and my girlfriend, who cohabit in the same Animal Crossing home, stylishly decorated by her, of course, were in a frenzy. We bought gifts, we sent him letters begging him not to leave, posted messages on the town billboard, fished, caught bugs, dug fossils, all in desperation to keep him. We entirely forgot about paying off our mortgage, or opening the gates to let visitors from other Animal Crossing owners with Wi-Fi into our town, such was our desperation. This morning I checked in – Roald is staying, happily fishing by the river. I think it was the punching bag I sent him. It’s his birthday tomorrow, though – I’ll have to buy him something else now.

In what appears to be little more than a short and very personal anecdote, I describe that you live in a town with animals in Animal Crossing. I explain the animals have personalities that you get attached to. I describe what you can do in the game (buy gifts, send letters, post messages, fish, catch bugs, dig fossils). I describe you have a mortgage to pay off and that the game has Wi-Fi capabilities. And, by doing that the way I do, I show that I liked the game very much. What more can a review do?

So. What’s everyone’s problem with “new games journalism” again? I forget.

(You can still get a copy of this as a back issue.)

“Now, although we’re siding with the After Dark Film Festival, there’s entirely the possibility that, you know, you’re a big scaredy-poo-pants and don’t fancy anything there.”

There were 10 film festivals this weekend in Toronto, which is, honestly, completely insane. As you can see, I considered the best of this week to be the Toronto After Dark Film Festival:

Toronto After Dark Film Festival: Zombies Always Win – And before anyone accuses me of cronyism just because I’m friends with programmer Todd Brown (and write occasionally for Todd’s website, Twitch) I made special mention of this festival because the line-up is genuinely good, and I’ll be checking most of it out. Of course, I’m friends with Todd and write for Twitch because our taste in films is at least similar, but that’s entirely unrelated.

ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival 2006: Dude? Dude! – I did take some time this week to also spotlight the ImagineNATIVE festival, too, a festival to which I have absolutely no personal connection. So there!

Cinematheque Ontario’s Inextinguishable Fire, and the Heart and Mind of Director Peter Davis – Perhaps the best thing I did this week, though, was interview Peter Davis, the director of the Vietnam documentary Hearts and Minds. To be honest, I should have even made a separate post on this blog about it, because I’m rather pleased with it. My favourite line from Peter might be; “The Iraq war is in its way, much worse [than Vietnam] and has many more ramifications; all a result of our decision to try to force Iraq to become Connecticut.”

A lovely cover featuring what might be Game Reactor editor Thomas Tanggaard‘s favourite game, Shadow of the Colossus, my article in the magazine (In English, “Your (Game) Quest is Over”) was actually conceived around one of my recent favourite games , Ninja 5-0 (also known as Ninja Cop in Europe). The piece is actually about Game Quest Direct, the company that forces reprints of these kind of hidden classics and then, while they don’t give them away, they still charge far less than speculators on eBay. In a way they do a good thing; anything that pisses off collectors I can’t complain about. As the article states, it’s ridiculous that I can walk into any record store and buy a CD of an album released in 1971 but I’d have trouble finding any game more than 6 months old in an Electronics Boutique; the sooner the games companies realise it might make sense to sell their games for as long as possible (not just in the month of December) the better.

You can download a PDF of this issue at the Game Reactor website.