“If you happen to read Gamasutra as well as GameSetWatch (and I hope you do, because it’s important to cut your intake of unusual game-related nonsense with hard-hitting industry reportage—otherwise, you won’t get all the nutrients that’ll help you grow up strong and healthy) you might have read a few reports I wrote last week from the Ontario Game Summit and Game On: Finance.”

The Artcade has been mentioned across the internet, but not in too much detail, so I decided to write up a slightly more in-depth report and add a hefty dose of opinion.

Usually I just throw up these links without too much thought, but I really do suggest you follow this one and read the whole article, because I think it’s worth it, and you’ll also reach the links for some very fun indie games, so what’s to lose?

“A few weeks ago, roughly seconds after I got an invite to Metanet Software’s N+ launch party at the Gladstone Hotel (which I immediately promised to go to, as I missed an earlier PR event arranged by Microsoft) I received both an IM from Simon Carless (our benevolent overlord) and an e-mail from Brandon Sheffield (Insert Credit’s not-even-vaguely benevolent overlord) asking me to go and cover it. In what capacity, I wondered? ‘I don’t know,’ was the response (from one or the other) ‘Just write 300 words or something on it.’”

It’s been ages since I’ve got to use the GameSetWatch tag!

This is a silly little piece on the (slightly early) launch party for N+ (which is completely great and I recommend you all run out and buy it) at which I had a grand old time. Even with a couple of unnamed (but very obvious) developers flashing me…

Rather pleased with the title of this column.

I suspect this is my last “Letters from the Metaverse”; “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” is actually a fairly apt statement about the general coverage of Second Life, if not Second Life itself. There really isn’t that much to it. It’s largely and embarrassingly dated piece of software that works as little more than a dress up doll and a chat client, and the majority of people creating many of the (often wonderful) structures in the game would be better off spending their time petitioning Linden Labs to actually, you know, make the system worthwhile. Second Life will hopefully go down in history as one of those seeds that created something far better, but I sincerely hope that someone other than Linden Labs create that something.

“I’ve been taking a bit of a break from Second Life this week, as I’ve been incredibly busy attempting to cover the Toronto International Film Festival. Film competes regularly in my affections with videogames, and I’m usually rather fascinated by the influence of one on the other. It’s worth noting, I think, that very little of Second Life feels “filmic”, unless you think the world feels a bit like virtual reality as imagined by early 90’s films like The Lawnmower Man, which it does, a bit.”

I had basically no time this week to really explore Second Life deeply, can you tell? A brief exploration of some interesting locations in the world that sets me up well for a better article, one on machinima, the next week.

“It might be very hard to play a game within Second Life, but it doesn’t mean that the people who use Second Life aren’t gamers, and though they’ve perhaps learned to keep the activity of gaming separate from Second Life, they still bring their culture with them.”

Coverage of, as ShaperMC put it in the comments, “meta-meta gaming” with Little Silent Hill, the home of the Japanese horror in Second Life. Unless there are any Sadakos running around the world. I really hope not…

“The last time I logged into Second Life it seemed to have more ghosts than ever.

Maybe one day I’ll be one of them.”

I thought the last column was weary, but this one takes the biscuit. Still, at least I got to write a very vague Specials reference in there.

I’d actually forgotten this got posted today until Thomas Robinson, one of the subjects of the article, mailed me to say he appreciated it, which was nice. I really liked his piece, so do check it out (if you have any interest in Second Life at all, that is.)

Coincidentally it’s “Ghost Week” on the Insert Credit forum’s home of the wretched and the damned, “Forum Axe”. Much like the Second Life forum, you can’t see it unless you’re logged in, but in this case, that’s a really, really good thing.

“Oh Second Life. We’ve had some interesting times, you and me, over the past 8 weeks we’ve been together. Mostly, I must admit, I’ve been complaining about the games I’ve played with you. ‘Too glitchy!’ I’d think, bemoaning a lack of polish, or ‘Not user friendly!’ I’d sigh, wishing for a better interface with the world the game was trying to present to me. I’m beginning to think I’ve been a little too harsh on all of those bedroom coders and Second Life architects. You see, maybe it’s not them. It’s you.”

Speak of the devil! My most recent article. Probably the weariest I’ve written so far, as I was genuinely intrigued by “The Pot Healer’s Adventure” but was completely and utterly turned off by the quirks of the Second Life engine. I’m still not going to give up exploring the games on offer in Second Life, though. I’ve just given up hope that they’ll be any good.

“Letters from the Metaverse” (named from Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash; it was only later that I remembered that it was “letter”, not “letters”) was a column several months in the making, as I’d been interesting in writing a column for GameSetWatch for a while, and discussed it with proprietor Simon Carless, but we never quite managed to settle on a topic. When Simon put out an open call for a Second Life column, I jumped at the chance, as I’d heard so bloody much about Second Life by then I just had to give it a shot.

I haven’t been too impressed, let’s say.

Despite that, it’s nice enough to have joined the 553,721 people who, at the precise minute, are Second Life users, and of whom about 90% are probably journalists or students writing their thesis about it. The other 10% are the sexual deviants who really drive the economy…

1: “Escape from Orientation Island”
“Fancy putting on a diaper and being teabagged by someone dressed in a raccoon suit? You can probably do that in Second Life.”

2: “American Apparel in a Parallel World”
“Second Life does seem a bit overexposed, doesn’t it? (Not that I’m trying to put you off this column, or anything.)”

3: “Take Shelter”
“I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk about the trauma I experienced teleporting somewhere only to find myself trapped in a cage by a huge muscular goth. Let me just say I’d noticed he was already dragging around two naked slaves on a chain and I decided he didn’t need a third.”

I think I had accidentally found myself on a “Gor” sim, which Warren Ellis blogged about recently. I’d never heard of the Gor series until I started playing Second Life, so I wonder why it is the culture is so big, and so apparent, within the world? (I don’t really want to explore it any more than I have to.)

4: “You Know When You’ve Been Tringo’ed”
“Really, the past few weeks I haven’t managed to prove to anyone, least of all myself, that Second Life is much more than a glorified chat room, with a dress-up doll attached.”

I finally get around to exploring the games available in Second Life (my original intention with the column) and do so with a snappy reference to the old Tango ads. I don’t know if anyone reading my column picked up on it.

5: “A Good Flight Spoilt”
“It must say something that the two sports I’m most aware of in Second Life are golf and sailing. I like to imagine it says, ‘All of the denizens of Second Life might be massive sexual deviants, but they’re also WASPy as hell.’ But I digress.”

6: “My Dark Life”
“It’s all because of that bloody Givan dagger.”

7: “Turning Japanese”
“I wonder, do the adult movie studios have a Second Life presence? Can you rent videos that aren’t porn in other stores? Both, I imagine, are also good ideas.”

Last week’s article, and probably my favourite area in the world so far – a samurai combat sim. Shame it costs so much.