The Game Reviews - Why Games Fail to Emotionally Connect.
The binary choice in Infamous felt very ham-fisted and artificial. Although my character changed visually depending on my choices, it had no effect on the actual story. Also, the game spelt out these choices in the most ridiculous way, giving me such pantomime good-or-evil paths that I felt like I was playing a Sesame Street game. Diluting the narrative in this way ultimately didn’t work, and Infamous would’ve been better served by restricting its story to just one linear thread. This was Prototype’s method-of-choice, and it felt a stronger game for it. But where it succeeded in narrative, it failed with its characters. The dark, brooding Alex Mercer was immediately unlikable, and he seemed a totally different person in the game compared to within its cut scenes. This fuelled my feeling of disassociation with Prototype, and made it’s world an entirely uncomfortable place to be in.

Sessler's Soapbox- Censorship's Gone But Not Forgotten. It's gone?
Yesterday, July 21st was the 50th anniversary of the Lady Chatterley's Lover case, which is essentially the basis all media censorship cases are based on today. In case you're unfamiliar with the subject, check out the Wikipedia article about it. Now that you've done your homework, sit down with The Sess and listen to this week's Soapbox. Adam uses this date as a springboard to discuss how video games appear to have dodged the censorship bullet, if only temporarily. Is this the time to celebrate a small victory? Or is this just another calm before the inevitable storm? You decide.

Christian Science Monitor - Are "mature" video games worse than rated-R movies? Feburary?
The gaming industry has long complained about a double-standard. As the Monitor reported in Feburary, in the past few years, state legislators in California, Louisiana, and Massachusetts submitted or passed bills outlawing the sale or rental of mature games to children. Judges have consistently thrown out such measures as unconstitutional. In Feburary, a California appeals court struck down such a law. It ruled that targeting violent or sexual video games, while not expanding the law to cover R-rated movies or suggestive books, unfairly singled out the free speech rights of a particular industry. California lawmakers vow to continue the appeals process.

Game Informer - Retro Resuscitation – Why Are We Going Where We’ve Been? Thanks Ant and ClassicGaming.
Game developers everywhere have apparently found the magic tonic, and it’s being splashed around like champagne in a rap video. From the Blue Bomber to the Ninja Turtles, no childhood idol is being left behind in the ravenous rampage to revamp retro classics. The digital and retail marketplaces are being proliferated with stellar throw backs to yesteryear. Whatever a given publisher’s reason for updating an old series may be, an obvious pattern has emerged; when a classic franchise begins to struggle, hop in the time machine to remind people why they fell in love with the series in the first place. Using Metacritic’s aggregate scores as a rough guideline, we argue that two distinct types of retro-revivals have emerged, and that each has marked success compared to recent, non-retro efforts.