The Best of What's Around

Ten bonus "coolness points" if you recognized the headline as a song title.



Anyway, just to prove I'm not a bitter, negative crank towards videogame journalism all the time, I thought I'd take this post to point out some of the better examples of videogame writing I've seen recently.



The first is an interview with GameSpot's Brian Ekberg that ran on NPR's Morning Edition last week. The subject was NFL Madden 2005, a game that Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep gamely tried to play for the first time on the air, with Ekberg's help.



Now, I'm a little biased because I spend eight hours a day working for NPR's communications divison, but I'd like to think I'd enjoy this piece even if I had never heard of NPR. The outsiders perspective Inskeep brings to the interview is a welcome respite from the predicatably jaded been-there, done-that coverage that most videogame outlets give to Madden games. Be sure to listen to the piece all the way through to the end; the sounds of that desperate touchdown run are priceless.



Next we have an article on game sequels in Monday's New York Times that was sent to me by a few readers (thanks to all of you, by the way). While I am getting a little tired of the endless comparisons between the videogame and movie industries, I feel this one is pretty apt. The article itself is full of the kind of data and quotes that can make a reader care about an issue they may not have considered before, and it manages to cover both sides of the issue well.



Amidst all the PSP and Nintendo DS stories popping up around the Tokyo Game show this week (look for more on those next week, by the way), I came across a surprising little analysis piece over at PlanetGameCube. While the site could have gotten by posting the Nintendo-generated sheet by itself, they went the extra mile by adding some explanatory commentary to the technical details. In doing so they add important context for readers that might not know how good "256 x 192 pixel resolution" actually is.



And finally, I was a little tickled by a recent article on yet another PSP press conference over at GamesIndustry.biz. The article itself is pretty standard, but one line in particular made me smile:



"We won't announce the price of the PSP today," Kutaragi told the assembled hacks yesterday ..." (emphasis added)



Just between us hacks, that's not usually how we refer to each other. But if the shoe fits...