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I like Penny Arcade. I've been reading them since about strip #20, and while I don't always agree with what they say, I like the way they say it.

Every time someone releases a new hardware platform there's an interview with one of the lucky developers who was chosen to help out with the launch lineup. This interview reveals very little, and always covers the same points. Here's a checklist for you to use next time you're reading an interview like this:

Over on insert credit I was talking about E3 and I wasn't very impressed. Microsoft and Sony tried to copy Nintendo without really succeeding: Sony's Move is a Wiimote clone in everything but colour, and Microsoft's Kinect system is an overpriced EyeToy. I also decided Nintendo's 3DS was bound to be a purchase I'd have to make, but that it'd end up in the same place as my regular DS: In a box, unwanted and forgotten. But in 3D.

Marble Madness is a lot of fun with two players and large trackballs, but when emulated it's a very poor experience. The shallow quarter-eating arcade-style gameplay, very typical of Atari at the time, is all too clear when you're playing it by yourself with a digital pad or (gasp!) keyboard.

I'd always meant to type up the fantastic pinball techniques Kaze printed in their guidebook for Last Gladiators and Necronomicon pinball. I never got around to it, but now Bexide/Kaze's got them on their site. These techniques are pretty basic, and I'm sure anyone who's played a pinball game has figured them out already, but whatever - here they are. =D

Man, I love pixels. Check out this deleriously wicket artwork from Air Gallet, a little known shooter from Gazelle and Banpresto:

One of the best traditional shooters ever made is Seibu Kaihatsu's Viper: Phase 1. It was the second game to grace their new modular arcade hardware, and I've always kind of thought it was a trial for them, a game that was just like their seminal Raiden series but with a different name in case it sucked. It was similar in a lot of ways - only one ship to choose from, slightly different weapons (but not too different), and similar gameplay.

I don't remember why, but a few days ago I wondered what the history of vertical shooters would look like. I decided to gather every vertical shooter player sprite I could find, based on these criteria:

Nearly a decade ago, a small band of game enthusiasts from around the world banded together to produce a magazine. It included the ex-editor of Diehard GameFan, the owner of a video game import company, a handful of serious gamers from around the globe, and for some reason, me.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this one yet, but here's the WIP screenshots:

Sony doesn't really seem to like its customers. According to The Consumerist, the new PS3 update not only comes with less functionality than before (You can't install alternative operating systems anymore), it also comes with a tasty fuck you from Sony:

Acclaimed movie critic Roger Ebert recently said that games aren't art, while a game producer (Kellee Santiago) said they were. Honestly, the opinions of two people I don't care about don't mean much to me, especially when they're taking positions without agreeing on the foundations of the discussion.

I wrote this for the Official Nintendo Magazine (UK) a few years back. It's a rewrite of this article which is where they found me. "We'll give you money if you write a new version just for us" they said. So I did.

V3.co.uk listed the top 10 arcade games of all time. I do not know what kind of criteria they used to come up with this list, but I think it's rubbish.

Flip and Flop was a very cool game. It earned kudos at the time for being entirely non-violent, but despite that shortcoming it was good fun. You played either Flip the kangaroo or Mitch (not Flop) the monkey, and you were escaping from the evil zookeeper and his sentient net... by, uh... colouring in squares.