Distantly Yours: Web Design and Photos in Bloomington, IN, by Dan Hiester

Here’s one for the programmers in the house. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the guy who oversaw Dead or Alive, and the more recent Ninja Gaiden games. He’s a total rockstar. He drinks, smokes, swears, and criticizes everything. And yet, he’s so much fun to read. So when Kotaku posts that Tomonobu Itagaku bets you a beer that PS3 is easier to program for than the NES, it totally makes my day.

Some videogame developers act as though videogames won’t be taken seriously until they affect players emotionally just as much as a touching book, movie, or song. Their hearts are in the right place, but often their minds are not.

Nine Inch Nails’ latest album, The Slip, may be something of a conundrum, but that’s fine – music critics can handle that. However, how would videogame critics handle a conundrum like this?

Gotta love Nolan Bushnell. He’s always good for a sound-byte, whether it’s funny, or just plain thought-provoking. He’s trying to distance “social videogames” from a geeky stigma by comparing them to board games – but are board games really that much less geeky?

When videogames are virtually forbidden from deeply addressing critical events in the world, it leaves us to address something both smaller and bigger.

Much like music, videogames can now be innovative for blending old ideas with older ones.

Having recently rediscovered Metroid Fusion, I’ve been blown away by how great that game really was.