High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks 
Sunday Comics: Dead Island 
Roughly a week ago, I wrote a piece called I Like Games, which discussed my preference for games with set mechanics, games that are fundamentally fun. Some people agreed, some didn’t, but it seemed like a topic worth exploring, so I gathered up a group of the best Australian academics writing about video games to ask them a simple question: do video games need to be fun?
We talked about the best games of the first half of 2010 on Kotaku Talk Radio today and took your nominations by phone. What did we pick and why? Download and listen.
The Chicago Sun-Times film critic has finally revisited his old contention that games can never be art, to defend it “in principle,” and to dispute about that which cannot be disputed.
L.B. Jeffries over at Banana Pepper Martinis has apparently had it up to here with the ‘how to write reviews’ debate, and it sounds like the upcoming roundtable was maybe kinda the last straw.
GamerBytes, the new blog in the Game Developer/Gamasutra/GameSetWatch line up, chatted with some developers to get their opinions on the XBLA delisting issue. The little three parter is a nice look at a couple of view points. Unsurprisingly, opinions are mixed — some are staunchly opposed, while some (like the cofounder of Merscom, Buku Sudoku developer) think it’s a fabulous idea:
