I thought I'd crap out my thoughts on this game while they are still somewhat fresh. I hope that Journey lovers don't take this as a personal attack, because it's not.

I understand that my personal aesthetic may make me a poor candidate for appreciating games like Journey; indeed, I am so bored by this kind of stuff that I can't get far enough in the game to warrant writing a proper review.

But I have to ask to nobody in particular... what's the appeal? Bear in mind that I am the same hater of all things beautiful and stripped down who doesn't have much love for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus either.

But getting back to Journey: it's a very simplistic game. I may be wrong (again, I only passed 3 or 4 'levels') but here is a title where you can really make do with one button.

The good old Sonic the Hedgehog games only made use of one button function too. But those games offered some semblance of challenge and there was lots to see and do.

Not Journey though. This 'game' is a bland beige tour through a wasteland with cyclopean structures jutting out here and there, involving hopping about and riding carpets to no worthwhile end.

On some occasions, I can pierce the heavy veil of pretentious praise from supporters and see that they love the game because it offers something 'different and beautiful in its simplicity.'

I think back to Out of This World, which was a game that was different and offered a simple, yet beautifully told story of friendship. But that game also had sick puzzles and hard as hell shooting elements. That game killed you a lot.

I imagine OoTW in an alternate universe, where Lester and the big alien just hold hands and run and jump to the end. That would have been something else.

There's a new landing page for the site, which I know is always a surprise but I hope that you'll all find the new layout useful. It should more effectively highlight a variety of new content for people who visit the site for the first time, while the content that more regular users tend to enjoy most is right near the top of the page (or requires less scrolling to reach).

I've posted in more detail on the forums. You can view that topic right here.

In other news, I've taken additional steps to disable iframes on the forum, both in messages and in signatures, as they can serve as a security exploit. I know some people like to use things that include iframes, but there's no telling who might control the content on the other end, so it was an appropriate change. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Good luck, man. Every now and then, something comes along that takes priority over reviewing video games online, and I suppose this just about registers as such.

It's a round number, so I'm noting it as a milestone of sorts. Which gives me an excuse to celebrate heavily today. CHEERS!

It's worth every penny, but don't forget, you'll also have to pay for your own airfare and lodging! I'd maybe let you sleep on the floor in my front room, since you would have to come all that distance, but you seemed just a little too excited about the walk on the beach.

Congrats on your win. That's gotta be gratifying!

Lol...you might be right. Since, while CC was a long review, it wasn't 350K words long.

I think you mean KB. MB would be a LOT of text.

I don't know if its just because I've had a lot to say about certain games like FF XIII and Chrono Cross, but I've been more in the 8-9 MB realm than the 5-6 MB realm recently. Might have to do a couple short-n-sweet reviews just in case I'm just getting overly verbose.

OD's Thought for the Day

I discovered that the links to posts from the Friends page were not always working as should (specifically, when people would try to click to read the original post that prompted any replies that now appear in the feed), so I fixed those links. It's just a minor tweak, all for the best because previously the page was not working as intended and now it is.

You have likely noticed by now that the left and right columns on the main site were swapped. There's a simple reason for that. I've been reading for a long time about the natural path a person's eyes follow when viewing a site. I've also been reading within Google's help pages that it's important to switch up design elements (such as the orientation of columns) to determine which layouts get the desired response.

The new setup is an experiment. People tend to look toward the left of the page first, which will allow them to see our latest featured content no matter what page they first view upon arriving on the site. In general, the tendency is to ignore content on the far right side of a page. Because our left bar is narrower than the right bar, the effect of the new design is that the left content calls attention to itself (as it should, to encourage more traffic to reviews and such) but the right column also pops out more and is more comfortable to read.

I realize that the experience can be jarring for people who have been viewing pages on the site for years. It took me between 15 and 20 page loads as I browsed the site before I adapted to the change, but now I quite like it. I hope that you'll give the change a chance and see how it impacts your browsing experience. It will likely remain in place for at least a few weeks to give me time to determine what impact (if any) it has on our traffic.

Edit: For whatever reason, pages now seem to load faster than they did previously. I like that.

Obviously, I haven't been making huge tweaks to the blogs after the recent change of some enormity, but today I did add one tweak that's been on my mind for a bit: a bar along the top of the page so that it's easy to return to your own profile if you visit a friend's blog. It's something some of you had asked about, as well.

Another change I may implement today is a change to add replies to the "Friends" page, so that it's easier to see discussions friends might be having that you aren't necessarily aware exist. It's likely I'll put that change in place today, perhaps even in the next few minutes. It'll make it easier for more people to join interesting discussions.

This section of the site is obviously still a work in progress. I hope that you're enjoying the streamlined design as much as I am. Thanks for continuing to frequent the site and for posting in your blogs when you have something to share.

I always (as in, both times thus far) enjoy reading about your expliots at Gamejam. Long may it continue!

Awesome write-up describing what sounds like a wonderful event. Thanks for sharing!

I downloaded Pushmo this afternoon. Now a few hours later, I'm at 4-6 and ready to stop for a bit. I didn't skip any puzzles, so my brain is a bit fried at this point. Getting to the top of the Christmas Tree was quite the ordeal, and there were a few other tough puzzles along the way, as well (the NES controller comes to mind).

I use Microsoft Word and sometimes Open Office. I also write a surprising amount of stuff in regular Notepad if I'm in a rush.

Why does EmP already have five orbs while everyone else has four?

I'm playing through Longest Journey myself right now.

The only one of those games I don't own is Pushmo. I'm thinking I probably need to get it. I hear overwhelmingly good things about it. Lucid I picked up on the Steam sale, like you. In Zelda, the skulltula spiders got me, too. And you know how I feel about Mario Kart 7. It's like we're the same person this week!

Myself, I've been playing a game that I'll be reviewing next week, so I'll save up anything I have to say and talk about it then. I haven't had much motivation to do anything lately or I'd have more game progress to share. I need to shake this funk.