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Bangai-O Spirits + Inception + girlfriend = good times. Some new writings for the blog are done and should kick off during August. Until then, some more links:

• The british newspaper Daily Star has caused a certain backlash after “journalist” Jerry lawton published that Raoul Moat, the criminal who shot three people (two of which were hospitalized, while another died) and who commited suicided after finding himself surrounded by the police on the 10th of July, would have a game based on his murders. The name of the game? Grand Theft Auto: Rothbury. The problem? It was a lie. Things got trickier when the Daily Star and Lawton were accused of lousy journalism, and Lawton claimed to be surprised with the reactions. “Baffled by the fury of adult gamers. These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another who’ve today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto!”. Meanwhile Rockstar Games arrived on the scene and as a result, the Daily Star apologized, admiting that they made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. If you’ll note the official communiqué reveals no intention to reevaluate Lawton’s competence or his continued presence in the newspaper. Something’s wrong when “children” have to teach “adults” what it means to be responsible, or when those who “sit around all day playing computer games” have a better understanding of journalistic ethics than so called “journalists”, no?

• Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Conan O’Brien seen by GQ. It’s a tryptic that reveals some interesting moments about each individual – Murray‘s reclusive nature and choices, Ramis‘ evolution and the final days of O’Brien‘s show through the eyes of a writer on the team. In other words, perhaps, the end of comedy. I don’t mean to look at it in a very apocalyptic way, but the truth is comedy’s always been about format (of attitude) then “genre” (a series of rules to follow). It’s something quite tricky to pull off and what better example than Saturday Night Live, which gave us great names (Murray, Aykroyd, Franken) but also some of the most mediocre comedians in modern times (Wayans, Sandler, Fallon)? Murray, Ramis and O’Brien are still doing it their own way, of course, but people usually don’t learn with the best things from the past.
• UFO: The Two Sides is basically X-Com: Enemy Unknown redone by a group of fans and made to play online, whether as a human or an alien invader. A good way to find out why the phrase “Hidden Movement” had such a great impact in past generations.
• Jeff Vogel, author of indie RPGs such as the Avernum and Geneforge series, does what nobody expected and reveals how he’s fine with people pirating his games… Sometimes.
• “(…) Nadia is a camera that has no display of the photographs to be taken, but rather gives the judgment of aesthetic quality to the machine, displaying only a current rating as feedback about when and what to snap“. + “Artificial Smile is (…) a camera (that) plays with the notion of perfection and auto-retouch. Created as a picture apparatus, it shows only smiling people’s picture to be taken, irrespective of their former emotional state“. Unnatural or a blow against the egotistical desire to manipulate reality?
• In honor of the console created by Gunpei Yokoi, Pixel Joint is asking its members to imagine demakes of games for Virtual Boy. So far the challenge has resulted in images for Metroid Prime and Mega Man, among others, but it’s The Secret of Monkey Island that’s stealing the show.
• “Maps” is Simon Parkin righting about videogame maps in general, and Final Fantasy VII maps in particular. yet, as if often the case in his writing, there’s much more at play.
• “Jnkboy” imagined some demakes for Way of the Pixel’s forums. The attention to detail is superb, and many of these impossible versions seem more appealing than the original ones.
• Brenda Brathwaite, one of the designers of the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series, thinks about some of the rules that should be applied to social games.
• The expression “a good idea on paper” taken literally with Mortal Kombat‘s Fatalities, animated… On paper.
• How a Robocop poster should be made.
• Two side of Pokémon: the sweet and the hideous.
• Bayonetta taking Amaterasu for a walk or the opposite?
• Shut up woman, get off my log!