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

Now available on Steam!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!