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Why FF2, Kawazu and every other games he makes, sucks:

http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff02

http://www.largeprimenumbers.com/article.php?sid=saga

Haha disregard that, that one is just perfect. Tim's reviews of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Mother 2 blew my mind. After reading those, I gave up mainstream game media altogether.

In this corner of the net a lot of people have been experimenting with alternative game review forms for a long time. Some fun sites for starters are:

• selectbutton forums
• insertcredit news, of which I'm a humble very occasional contributor
• gamer's quarter magazine, which I reviewed in a vaguely gamer's quarter style here
• actionbutton reviews

Like what you see? Are you into literary criticism? Do you spend more time talking about videogames than playing them? Join us in the pretentious side! We got doujin games! Pongism is the truth!

Whatever good game review structure might be, this isn't it.

Rob

Novels are art, right?
Some RPGs have novel-sized plots.

This is what Dictionary.com has to say about art:
"High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value."
Games seem to fit this description as well. Half Life and Doom are wonderful aesthetically.

Other games even have literary merits.
Case in point: Earthbound/Mother2 (warning, tsunami of text)

Maybe you should get out to different areas yourself. Some of the best punk and noise bands are Japanese. I don't see any lack of willingness to express themselves there.

One of my favorite blogs is largeprimenumbers.com. Apparently they're a band (and half look western), but they post tons of video game reviews, hilarious writeups of random events, and this: http://www.largeprimenumbers.com/news.php?nid=81/, the most perfect existential blog about Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon ever. It finished with the writer posting a list of what he's done in his life, as he compares his life to Neal Stephenson's:

1. Went to Europe. England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy (Rome, Venice, Naples, Florence).
2. Spent much time homeless, penniless, wandering London, went to some rock shows.
3. Back in America, drove a convertible cross-country to Los Angeles.
4. Gave a valet in San Diego a $100 tip.
5. Went to Mexico.
6. In Tokyo, taught English.
7. Got in trouble with the Yakuza, and got pushed down stairs.
8. Got fired and kicked out of my house on Christmas Day.
9. Spent some time homeless in Tokyo.
10. Hired by a once-famous, now-drawing-soft-porn comic artist as a personal assistant.
11. Cooked hundreds of omelets for said comic artist.
12. Sang lead in a hardcore punk-rock band called Small Prime Numbers.
13. Wrote thirty-nine novels, four of which were about myself, twenty-five of which were about people who definitely weren't me, fourteen of which took place in Tokyo, four of which were longer than a thousand pages, twenty-seven of which were shorter than three hundred pages, and three of which were about tennis. One of the ones about tennis was pretty good.
14. Talked to someone on the phone an hour before they died.
15. Met a guy named Doug Jones via an internet forum, discovered we lived very close to one another, met, and became friends. He eventually met, befriended, fell in love with, married, and impregnated (though I think that would belong on his list) a girl named Julie Schimoller, who had sat next to me in half of my classes for half of my high school experience.
16. Wrote articles about videogames online, independently; gained a few thousand fans and a dozen or so haters, all of the haters being people who professionally write about videogames.
17. Angered a large videogame company.
18. Grew hair to impressive and disgusting length, then cut it all off.
19. Spent a combined total of about eighteen months homeless and jobless, with no prospects.
20. Published articles in sixteen magazines, including Wired.
21. Write columns about life in Japan under four different pen names for four different magazines of three different publishers.
22. Had pieces of my writing linked by Slashdot.org eleven times.
23. Started a band called "Large Prime Numbers," which may or may not go somewhere.
24. Have learned to play harmonica, guitar, bass guitar, and drums. Can play the former like a son of a bitch, the middle two like a bastard, and the latter like a god damned psychopath.
25. In the last six months, no, really, I guess I can play the guitar now.
26. Once beat the shit out of four guys in a fight in Ikebukuro West Gate Park.
27. Walked into a karate dojo by the sea in Chiba, thinking I'd train there, sparred the top student, beat him, and walked out.
28. Learned PHP and HTML; served as a technical consultant on a large yakuza-run website.
29. Interviewed Kazunori Yamauchi, producer of the Gran Turismo games, in Japanese, on Japanese broadcast television.
30. Appeared as an extra in a Japanese television drama series.
31. Can be seen singing in a Japanese music video.
32. Met each of the members of my favorite band, The Blue Hearts (this was not easy, as they have been broken up for a decade).
33. Translated some five thousand pages of Japanese comics into Americanized English for several publishers. Got paid for . . . about 600 page

Insert Credit - some of the most engaging games writing on the web. Rather than these dry, cut and paste reviews that most mainstream game rags use, they actually capture the FEELING of playing a game. Frequently, their reviews have made me interested in actually tracking down and playing the game at hand. (An excellent, long Earthbound review at Large Prime Numbers by InsertCredit's Tim Rogers, makes me want to go and pick up this 10 year old game... their review for Rez did the same, too).

Unfortunately, the best US magazine, Next Generation, went under years ago and all we have to look forward to is SeanBaby bashing more games for 5 year old girls in EGM or PSM's yearly game character swimsuit issue. I heard Edge in the UK was a good mag, though.