icon 022 This is one of the pieces I’m most proud of. Not so much because I think it’s definitive or hugely insightful, but because I think it was important to cover Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby, and because I really respect their work and got to know them. I’m also pleased that I (think) I managed to communicate the complexities of what they do in an accessible way.

“We don’t have happy endings. Things never work out. They’re grey and muddy and complex,” says Fiona Raby of design duo Dunne & Raby, snuffling into a hanky. “We’re living in this irresolvable, messy place …”

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I just saw François Truffaut’s 1966 film of Farenheit 451. It still feels very fresh, despite some faintly hammy performances (Julie Christie especially). I really liked the level of detail: the opening credits are spoken (since the written word is forbidden in this future distopia), and the production design is inspired.

This repressive world isn’t set in some 1984/Brazil densely-populated concrete-and-steel city. Its people live in modernist Span-style houses in tree-lined suburbs, tastefully furnished in mid-century modern chairs and ornaments. It even features a monorail. Truffaut’s characterisation of this world of ignorant comfort with utopian modernist design is perfect.

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It’s been a long, long time coming, what with another frustrating wait between its US and Euro releases, but Shadow of the Colossus is finally out over here.

Like its successor, the remarkable Ico, it pits a lonely hero against huge structures. In Ico it was a windblown, impossibly complex Mervyn Peake-like castle. In Colossus it is a series of enormous, towering creatures, seemingly made from stone and moss. The hero’s task is to find them in the beautifully empty landscape and to climb them to find their weak spot and bring them crashing to the ground.

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I had my leaving do from icon on Thursday night. It was a good one, but a little sad – through all the good times, fraught times, pressured times and exciting times we’ve become a close gang and I’ll miss being so close to them, much as the intensity could get painful now and again. Perhaps the measure of my feelings for icon is in the fact that I still haven’t changed my About page. Really big thanks to all there – especially Marcus, Kieran and Justin for their support over the last three years.

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icon 027 And to go with the DS review, a review of the PSP. One thing thats rather lacking is any mention of the web browser (which is great, by the way) – it hadn’t been announced at time of writing. Honest. I was a little nervous being so critical: it was rather early to go around saying that it was a bit boring when everyone was going on about how it was such an “iPod beater” (whatever that means). But judging by the regularity that I hear that owners don’t use it much (and I don’t either), I was right. If, on the other hand, some interesting games came out for it…

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icon 023 Dear old DS. Most of my complaints have been dealt with in the form of the the lovely new design and the load of truly great games (Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Castlevania, Ouendan, Advance Wars) that have come out for it. Not many use the touch screen in any particular depth, but hey: the DS is where some of the most exciting things in videogaming are happening at the moment.

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icon 031 It was good to write a piece for icon that was about developments on the web – especially as it helped clarify some of my own thoughts about all this web 2.0 stuff. Though I think its barking up the wrong tree, I really do respect the dedication, talent and thought that has gone into Flock. If rumours are true, it’s currently in the process of a rethink, maybe transforming it into a set of extensions for Firefox. At the least, it seems to me that as a browser it stands as one of those important mistakes that helps make sense of new technologies.

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Activision sent me a copy of True Crime: New York City for review the other day. Im only an hour or so in, but one thing is already apparent: it’s another game that makes it feel as if my PS2 is about to fall over and die.

The creaking framerate, the extended load times, the sluggish controls – they’ve become standard features of blockbuster mainstream games for the (cliche ahoy) aging system. Splinter Cell 3, The Warriors, Midnight Club 3, The Matrix: Path of Neo – they’re all loved by the masses, they’re all released on other systems, they’re all horrendous to play on the PS2. Yet it’s on the super-popular PS2 that they’ll get most of their sales.

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At last: I’ve done a new review for Pixelsurgeon:

The depth of the characterisation that represents the souls of the cities in Vice City, San Andreas and GTA 3 isn’t quite here. GTA at heart is a scattershot satire of picture-book greed and amorality in modern America. From the knockabout cartoon of Vice City to the more realistic San Andreas, the satire is frequently very funny, but LCS is much cruder.

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If there’s anything that the whole ‘new games journalism’ thing was good for highlighting it was the crappy state of games criticism. Most of it is by the numbers graphics/sound/longevity bullshit, mere product guides for consumers instead of useful and constructive critical investigations into what games mean.

That game reviews can be something more has become nearly common currency now, a fact confirmed by the appearance of new games journalism on a study module on games reviewing (via Infovore) at the University of Bolton, part of its (I think) games design course. It includes (week 9) a whole lecture on NGJ, along with readings on Gamespot reviews and writing reviews of games like Uplink. All very trendy stuff.

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