“Tim has just done a nice post celebrating Canadian music for Canada Day, pointing out some Canadian music worth checking out (such as Malajube, which I second). If I was to write about Canadian music I’d spend the whole time inciting the nation to murder Nickleback, so I won’t do that. Instead I’m inspired to write about one of my favourite Canadian directors, Bruce McDonald, in the hopes that if you’ve never seen anything by him you’ll check him out.”

Though hardly tech related, I thought I’d celebrate Bruce McDonald this Canada day.

“Developer Tilted Mill (SimCities Societies) has regained the rights to its 2004 PC strategy game Children of the Nile, and is preparing to self-publish an enhanced version – founder Chris Beatrice tells Gamasutra how he hopes indie distribution will work for them.”

Now available on Steam!

A slightly different post on the workblog, this one. Last night I was at the One Inch Punch art show, as my button design was part of the show.

One Inch Punch is a very clever (and fun) art show – the buttons on show are sold in random bags of $5, and so during the show people purchase buttons and trade them to get all of the ones they want. I’m pleased to say that my button was a hot commodity! Whether that’s to do with the fact that it’s good or not I don’t know – it might have had a lot more to do with the fact that I didn’t take the opportunity that I had as an artist in the show to have extra copies of my button printed, so there were only the copies of my button that people got in the random bags available, unlike other artists who chose to flood the marketplace. Economics at work!

The button, titled “We Don’t Talk Anymore” was popular despite no-one I asked clocking the idea behind it – it’s a man with a book on his face. A facebook, get it? (The book is actually in the Facebook colour scheme.) And the title is a commentary on the way people communicate now blah blah boring artistic statement blah blah.

Anyway, it’s a great event and big thanks to the One Inch Punch organisers choosing my button. It looks a lot better in physical form than it did when I was designing it in Photoshop. Any for anyone who visits the One Inch Punch website, that’s actually my hand that forms the biggest image on the flyer. I could be a hand model, I really could.

It’s that time of year again! When the Eurogamer ‘massiv’ all get together and have a big argument about their favourite games of the year. Over the last week the top 50 has been uploaded on Eurogamer and I took part in the compilation.

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 50 – 41- A few words on Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 40 – 31- My thoughts about Yakuza and Chibi-Robo (the both of which should be way higher in the final list.)

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 20 – 11- I spotlight Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, We Love Katamari and Canis Canem Edit (Bully).

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 10 – 1- Opinions of Gears of War, Dead Rising, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Guitar Hero.

Unlike last year, the top game on my personal list wasn’t the last game I made comment on in the official list, as thought I do love Guitar Hero it isn’t as high in my estimation as Dead Rising, which is probably my game of the year. Probably. I find it rather hard to pick favourites.

Hmm. I don’t seem to have got a copy of Plan B in the mail for a very long time; have they just stopped sending them out to the writers, or what, I wonder? Still, I at least have a copy of this issue, which features only two small capsule reviews; Shadow of the Colossus and Super Princess Peach.

Shadows of the Colossus is pretty much the one game (other than perhaps 9:05, but that’s a different story) I would use in any discussion of “are games art?” The interactive form is the only one that can force the player into performing actions they’d rather not (such as murdering peaceful giants) for what may, or may not, be an important reason, rather than just watching a character go through the motions. Of course, whether that makes it art (or even disqualifies it) would be part of the debate.

Oh, and my review of Super Princess Peach takes a slightly different tact from my earlier Eurogamer review, claiming that the game accuses your mother of owning a vibrator at the end of the game. Peach’s quest is, after all, for an item called the Vibe Scepter, and if that doesn’t have a weird sexual undertone I don’t know what does.

You can pick up a copy of this as a back issue.

“How much do you know about modern North Korea? I’m guessing that, unless you’ve just escaped from North Korea (and been pretty quick at learning to read English competently / use the internet / gain a love of obscure cinema to bring you to you to Twitch in the first place) very, very little.”

A glowing review of a film about North Korea’s “Mass Games” which created some controversy in the comments thread as certainly at least one reader seemed to think my appreciation of the Mass Games meant I had been sucked in by propaganda. I really don’t consider A State of Mind to be itself a propaganda piece; it seems at least as “fair and balanced” as Seoul Train, which I have now seen, but have not yet got around to reviewing. I will soon, though.

“The opening scenes of The Chronicles of Narnia deal with the realities of the world that the child protagonists, Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy, live in. Bombs fall from the sky during a blitz on London in World War II, and with the immediate and terrifying results of a war apparent all around them, their mother sends them off to the countryside as part of the evacuation programme for school aged children.

It’s around about this point I began a rumination.”

A strange sort of review; a defense of The Chronicles of Narnia as an adaptation, really. I thought it was very good; managing to capture the unique Britishness of C.S. Lewis’ work. Not everyone agrees. I think it’s a good kids film, really!