H. G. Wells reviews Metropolis. I’d describe his general tone as ‘pissy’

Professor Layton no doubt relieved to have ‘only’ been accused of giving children rickets in the papers this week.

David Simon interviewed on the Journal. Well worth the time.

If I ever have to own a gun, I’m going to get me one that fires owls like this one.

The World’s Most Important 6 Second Drum Beat:

“If I’m lucky…Mr. Talent…will rub his…tentacles on my art.” Cartoons are funny!

Main quest or mini-game. The eternal dilemma…

If you were in any doubt about Unity being the most exciting middleware tool in gaming right now, read this.

Wutang vs. The Beatles. Properly amazing. (Very subtle use of the latter, in case they annoy you.)

It was Martin Luther King day last week. Here’s a cute, poignant story about why that matters.

The first level proper in MW2 and parts of Episode 2 of Generation Kill are frame for frame identical. Someone should do a side by side comparison! Exhibit A.

Candyman: the David Klein Story. “Spilling the beans”. A good day in the office for whoever came up with that tagline:

First Person Tetris. Will make you sick in 20 seconds max.

1983 comic themed around computer games. This is genuine treasure. Go look.

Suki’s pretty upset with game journalists this week. If you wrote a dumb/ over-reaching review of Bayonetta, ready up.

“Self-potato?” Amazing incorrect answer on Wheel of Fortune.

Wooden recreations of extinct animals. I had a panda toy when I was a kid. They said it’d soon be extinct so I’d sniff it so I’d always remember the scent when they were gone. *ahem*

12,000 years of population growth in a single graph.There’s no room at the inn.

Link of the Week

The Eurogamer 2009 Score Analysis. Like games? Like statistics? You’ll like this! Turns out I am soft on games; soft on the causes of games.

“Uncharted 2’s success may take us away from the potential that videogaming has twitching in its womb.” Best of 2009. But in which medium? Contains a few of my thoughts.

Power Glove + Arduino + Unity3D. Yowzers.

Mario vs. Bowser, inspired by Alan Moore. The league of extraordinary plumbers.

30 beautiful/ terrifying Christmas short. Let’s just hope this idea doesn’t get into THE WRONG HANDS.

Thing I’m gonna read in 2010. That Chabon endorsement on the front cover is the best endorsement ever.

15,740 self-proclaimed social media gurus on Twitter. You become one too if they touch you! Like zombies, but shit.

“We’re looking for a songwriter to create lyrics for a theme song to our next game” A job for the Doyouinverts?

Tiny Cartridge’s ‘09 handheld recommendations are good. Also, that screenshot at the top (from the brilliant Retro Game Challenge) makes me cry a little

Exhaustive breakdown of Pitchfork scoring in ‘09.

DieHard Battery vs. Reggie Watts. This is an excellent advertisement:

Woah. This is the best chiptune I’ve heard. Simultaneously the soundtrack to the past AND the future.

Brandon Boyer’s list of games to look forward to in 2010 is useful and typically leftfield.

A Flash game. Superb execution.

When I finally go, can it be in the claws of a GIANT EAGLE?

Castle of Cagliostro scale model. Probably the best anime for non-anime dorks, right?

Playing card spheres. A Christmas project if ever I saw one.

Capitol Records sues Vimeo over lip-dub videos. Because they are colossal, near extinct twits.

Extended US Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks TV commercial. A brazillion times better than the European one:

I really like this poster for Disney’s Mulan.

Robotic Doppelgangers For Sale. $223,000. AND WORTH THREE TIMES THAT.

Now that’s a kill screen.

Cowboy vs. Batman? Short, sweet post from Tom Armitage on how our approaches to game puzzles are tied to the imagination

Guitar Hero with 21,268 Christmas lights:

“Prominent blog Kotaku said that the ‘boobs smorgasbord’ was a ‘pathetic attempt at enticing people to play‘”

Whereas, a ‘boobs smorgasbord’ is perfectly acceptable when trying to get people to “read”…

Martin Sheen’s in Mass Effect 2?! WOAH.

Politicizing game rewards: “Earn Farmville cash by writing to Congress to oppose US Health reform” This is how the world ends, FYI.

Dave Eggers on selling out. Awexome.

The Citizen Kane of regrets: “I’m ashamed of Rosebud… It’s kind of a dollar book Freudian gag”

Ghosts of Shopping Past. A collection of still images of America’s abandoned malls.

“The hit detection is extremely hit or miss” In other words: perfect, then.

The peerless Phoenix perform 1901 in front of the Eiffel Tower for French site fantastique, La Blogotheque.

“The spiders are harnessed … held down in a delicate way.” Tapestry woven from the silk of a million spiders.

Link of the Week

On finding the single unknown fighter who boxed Ali. When I grow up, I want to write about videogames like this.

Continuity is an AMAZING flash game

Muscle March coming to the West. The best homoerotic gaming since Cho Aniki/ Gears of War?

50 awesome things about Tokyo. Hott tips.

The brilliant 25 Times a Second gives up AAA games: “No more grinding. No more 15 hour stories that aren’t worth 15 minutes.”

Sin and Punishment 2 box art. I would marry this artwork in the face.

YouTube Piano. Neat, if ultimately useless, idea.

FAO: Nepalese chickens. Might be time to emigrate.

The DeLorean Motor Company in its heyday. If you already saw these then travel back to a time when you hadn’t.

The amazing photographs of Barry Underwood.

Accidental geography. For people who see maps in the unlikeliest places.

Pentecostals vs. Drum and Bass: This is amazing.

Social media sites as substance vices. At this rate I’ll be dead by 31.

How biologists leave their wives.

Read the micro-poem ‘Troths’ by Carl Sandburg again. The last two lines win poetry. Also: my heart.

TheJapanese are better at barcodes than you.

Scientists Create Bacteria that Glows to Reveal Land Mines. Hope they develop some that works on lost car keys.

Things Magazine writes about the GTA4 time lapse videos uploaded by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry. Good stuff all round.

Link of the Week

What Philip K Dick thought of Blade Runner. An amazing document.

Kieron Gillen on ‘No Russian’, the controversial level from Modern Warfare 2. Pretty much the last word on the subject.

Last week the eloquent, anonymous ex-London call girl, Belle de Jour, revealed her identity. Here’s an excellent side story about a blogger who figured it all out years ago, and how he helped keep her secret from the press.

Someone forgot to consider the SUN when designing this wall.

The 100 best quotes from The Wire:

Veteran video game writer Susan O’Connor (Far Cry 2) on ways to advance the craft of game narrative.

Matthew Wasteland writes apologetically about Citizen Kane and videogames. Great stuff.

LEGO Architecture Series: Empire State Building

‘Space Invaders explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between videogame spaces and real spaces’. Let’s all definitely go.

A lawnmower being controlled by a Wiimote. We are basically three steps away from F15s being controlled by Guitar Hero.

Two kite surfers jump over Worthing pier: THEY JUMP OVER WORTHING PIER.

Turns out Russia’s the airport massacre level of Modern Warfare 2.

Three guesses as to whether this Tipalet cigarette slogan was conceived by a man or a woman.

‘Broken Things’, an exhibition by Chilean artist Livia Marin. Sort of want to eat these…

The French are better at zombies than you. Braaaaiiiiiinnnnsssss-a-hon-hee-hon.

Gaming will eat itself.

The UK trailer for Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno looks INCROYABLE: Let’s all see this, OK?

Quizipedia. Excellent multiple choice quiz generated from Wikipedia scrape data.

Jordan Mechner’s 11 tips for designing narrative-driven games. Concise and brilliant.

Howl’s Moving Castle, recreated in Lego.

iPhone developers troll Tim Langdell.

Link of the Week

Readers, meet Josiah James Parkin. Look around son. One day, all of this could be yours… (He is the reason for the sporadic updates in the past fortnight. Apols but, y’know…)

Hey, Obama! Dude, you won already…

Succeed blog. Positively wonderful.

I am a grown man. I have responsibilities and dependents. And yet this squat chocobo tat steals my heart. Idiot.

“Many gamers would rather take a beating if they think that they are accomplishing something” Nice little post.

List of cats with fraudulent diplomas.

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of pictures of Japanese men pulling silly faces.

Awesome ‘No Smoking’ ads.

The batman. Sort of.

Long live the author. Good thoughts, well-expressed.

Slightly incongruous message but super sweet 3D work in this short animation from Tronic Studio:

Vehicle smashing minigame returns to Street Fighter. Oh! My car…

How to use an apostrophe. A useful chart.

Chiddy Bang’s first record is out. And free! Hyper sweet Philly hipster-hop.

Lichtenstein’s iconic blond made flesh.

Paper sneakers. Good in the sun. In the rain, not so much.

Knitted Panda ski mask. Combine with www.banknotes365.com for criminal win.

This comment on Gamasutra about defining the role and purpose of a game designer is brilliant.

A death on the line.

Wataru Itou: better at origami than you.

Banner ads literally tied to flies: Oh advertising…

Link of the Week

The disappearing man. Excellent at hide and seek. Providing you count to five thousand before going looking.

One Night Left, final lineup announced. I’m on from midnight-ish I think. Will probably post up the mix after the event.

‘Hosting Your Windows 7 Torrenting Party‘ Like a good Onion headline, you almost don’t need the rest of the content…

I AM THE CLIENT! Insights into the mind of a marketing commissioner.

Dubstep remix based on samples from SNK’s Last Blade. Warning: could give you a nosebleed. HAJIME!

Hip-Hop Medley using the new Stylophone Beatbox:

Blizzard Twitter-source game design for Diablo III. Presumably the number of characters in the game will be limited to 140.

‘I wish I was in your arms full of faith or that a thunderbolt would strike me.’ Careful what you wish for, Keats.

John Walker’s analysis of the recent World Of Goo sale. Excellent stat porn.

Hyper-real oil paintings are hyper terrifying: I mean, what if YOU’RE just an oil painting and I didn’t notice?

A reminder.

Japan, going too far.

Japanese arch-cruelty in game shows is long-established. But they’ll never top what happened to poor old Nasubi.

Artist’s forensic reconstruction of famous fictional skulls. Fun.

Isaac Asimov describes the sky. From the brilliant ‘Letters of Note.’

Comic Sans’ creator speaks. Inspired by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (?!). Who knew?

“In the context of [the Daily Mail], Moir’s journalistic crime is merely one of insufficient art.” And that’s a KO.

Link of the Week

Super amazing pop-up book of the Kyoto temple Kinkaku-ji, made from LEGO: I can’t fathom the sort of mind that could work this out. (Thanks Alex H):

E Honda is so fat, even his hair is big-boned (Via Gril)

Cigs on the Queen’s bed. Chris Donlan pointed out that this provides an excellent premise for the next Jonathan Blow game: wandering dark corridors, eating cheese, finding out your Queen is always in another bedroom…

Scribblenauts made hideous flesh:

Google turns making adding 3D buildings to Google Earth into a sort of game.

The full range of career choices for girls, according to Ubisoft.

Did the Higgs Boson go back in time to prevent its creation? The very best of the theories.

My life in oranges.

There are a couple of critical holes in your argument…

Sonic vs Fiddy. Green (hill) with envy:

Earlier this week London was (quite rightly) up in arms over Trafigura. Meanwhile, Eastbourne chose the moment to introspect.

FAO: scriptwriters, material for Catch Me If You Can II in the making.

Leather speedos on Etsy. All rush at once.

Marge poses for Playboy. “[It's reminiscent] of another first, in 1971 when a black woman appeared on the cover.” Um, sort of…

How humanity defines itself, via Google searches.

“The Beatles rejected several game ideas before accepting the Rock Band offer.”

“I HATE MY VILLAGE” Amazing, unsettling hand-drawn film posters from Ghana.

Something for the shmup fans.

Fascinating Reddit Q&A with a victim of Scientology. Made me think that exploring the parallels between Scientology and MMO-style leveling would probably make for a useful explanation of its appeal.

Thought the Daigio parry vid was the pinnacle of 3rd Strike showboating? It has competition. 6:00-7:15 in particular.

Michael Moschen performs The Triangle. Dude must be something pretty special when it comes to Peggle.

Robert Kirby, string arranger for Nick Drake died this week. This is one of my favourite pieces of his:

A couple of weeks ago things at Boing Boing’s Offworld fell quiet. Here’s the story (or half of it, at least) from editor Brandon. ☹

Sumo Digital are more Sega than Sega these days. “I’m looking for some sailors. ON THE RACE TRACK”.

Twadges: achievements for Twitter.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, analysed.

Art made from parcel tape. Better than you’re expecting.

The inimitable and essential Demon’s Souls is out in the US this week. Here’s the Edge review.

“IKEA Heights is a melodrama shot entirely in the Burbank California IKEA Store without the store knowing.”

Sufjan’s as yet unreleased ‘Joy to the World’ makes everything a little brighter.

Flipbook animation x 1000 (sorta). Coming soon to an ad agency near you…

‘Draw a sketch, label each item, and PhotoSketch will autocreate a composite image‘ What? WHAT?!

Left4Dead Teletubbies mod. Brilliant and terrifying.

Fish in a squirrel suit taxidermy. No, really.

The Most Controversial Magazine Covers of All Time. Edge’s midriff shot from DOAX: Beach Volleyball not included.

4-years-old recites the ‘Miracle on Ice’ locker room speech. Awesome.

Link of the Week

Always worth re-watching. ‘Some of the pets I have lost’ by the lovely and brilliant Jon Blyth.

‘There are 12 reporters in Columbia whose work is critical to that town, trapped inside a burning business model‘.

8-bit Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Regretsy.com tracks the most questionable offerings on Etsy, like this Pokemon menstrual pad.

How videogame producers roll.

Videogame character Facebook status updates. *titter*

Katy Perry’s Hot n´ Cold on Mario Paint Composer. Amaze!

“The best, most forward-reaching magazine covers of the 50s were commissioned by Fortune magazine’s Leo Lionni.”

What thing do you wish you could have, but cannot? WELL GET SOME PERSPECTIVE.

‘When AR glasses come in designer frames that’s when things get really interesting from a mass-adoption perspective.’

Wired’s 10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids.

EA moves to revoke all of Tim Langdell’s ‘Edge’ trademarks.

36 skaters take to San Fransisco at night to create neon game of Tetris. Awexome:

William Safire’s speech prepared in case the first moon landing went awry. Very good writing.

Replacing ‘wand’ with ‘wang’ in Harry Potter. Puerile but revealing: wands were often synonymous with, um, ‘members’ in classical literature, no?

Eric Idle’s Gamesmaster-esque Call of Duty tips make him the new Patrick Moore. Sort of.

He-Man characters as dressed by American Apparel.

Steven Poole’s being awesomely feisty at the moment. This week it’s the New Yorker’s turn. Be very afraid, writer kids.

Beetles + scientists + electronics + shaky ethics = death of the RC car industry:

Bustler: Winners of the 2009 Architectural 3D Awards. I CAN’T TELL WHAT’S REAL OR NOT ANY MORE.

Building Rome in a day.

Link of the Week

Nabokov edits the first page of Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’. A bit like spying on two gods having sex.