In which I review Black. Another games review, up over at Pixelsurgeon. I didn’t like it much. Technically wonderful, entirely soulless. And I really tried hard to like it, too. Ah well. I traded it for Advance Wars DS before the California trip. Now that was a good idea.

So you may (or may not) be aware that I gave a 40-minute talk at Etech this year entitled “From Paddles to Pads: Is Controller Design Killing Creativity In Videogames?“. Well, I’m now doing a 15-minute recap of it in the UK (London, to be precise) at an event which (for one reason or another) is entitled Technology 2.0. If that sounds offputting, consider this: it’s basically ConCon 2006 (and that may still make no sense to you, so in short: people at US conferences recap them for those who couldn’t make it).

Anyhow, details of the event are linked above; it’s free, but it’s also RSVP only. Do come if it sounds interesting (or, more to the point, you want a quick yammer afterwards). I’ll be doing my best to ram an 8000-word, 67-slide extravaganza into 15 minutes, and give a rough overview of my argument (if not all the lovely evidence). There are fewer words in this version of the talk. There are, however, more slides than before, and a new joke about Larry Lessig.

Also, Yoz is talking about Ning, which should be fun (in a UK context) and there’s more promise.tv goodness from the Ludlams. And it’s all chaired by Internet Celebrity, The Dave Green (from NTK). More to the point, there’s drink later. So maybe see you then. Do say hello if we’ve not met before.

(Yes, I know I still haven’t got around to posting my Etech recap and notes. I will get around to this shortly, but it’s still percolating, which is probably a good thing).

“Seven years. That’s how long it’s been since Tony Hawk Pro Skater first rolled onto the PlayStation. Like it or not, Hawk is now a part of the gaming canon, committed to rolling out yearly updates. Indeed, Activision has exclusive rights to the Hawk brand until 2015 – we’re not even halfway through the series’ life.”

A new game review up over at Pixelsurgeon, this time of Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land on the Nintendo DS. Very impressed with this – an amazingly good online implementation, which, in terms of how it links up with the internet almost puts Mario Kart to shame; lovely cel-shaded visuals; none of the nonsense that the Underground games brought in. As the review says, it’s essentially Pro Skater 5.

Read the full review.

“It’s a hard life, being a games reviewer. You’d think it would all be peaches and cream – playing games for ages and then being allowed to write about them (and if you’re really lucky, being paid for the privilege).

But it’s a lot harder than that.”

Another game review up on Pixelsurgeon. This time, a review of the Xbox port of Half-Life 2. It’s possibly a bit too “heavy” (you’ll see what I mean when you read it), but it was fun to break away from convention for a while. There’s a horrific typo/crap sentence based around a pun that doesn’t quite work and I’m a bit embarassed about that. Other than that, though, one of the better things I’ve written in a while.

Read the full review.