BLDGBLOG- On the Architecture of the Enemy in Videogame Worlds. Thanks Ant and Boing Boing.
Conveniently, evil already has a visual language. Put another way: I have seen the face of evil, and it is a caricature of gothic construction. There's barely a necromancer in existence whose dark citadel doesn't in some way reflect real-world Romanian landmarks, such as Hunyad or Bran Castle. The visual theme of these games is so heavily dependent on previously pillaged artistic ideas from Dungeons & Dragons and Tolkien that evil ambiance is delivered by shorthand. (Of course, World of Warcraft's Lich King gets a Stone UFO to fly around in – but it's still the same old prefab pseudo-Medieval schtick inside). Where the enemy is extra-terrestrial, HR Giger's influence is probably going to be felt instead.

Edge Online - Bad Ideas For Games That Aren’t Fun. Thanks Mike Martinez.
This column is part three in a series about the theoretical design of games that are valuable without being fun, just like all other media have Fun and Not Fun varieties, and the observation about how choice is used in a Not Fun film implies that by leveraging interactivity, games should be able to do even better. Shouldn’t a game be able to combine the structured fiction of a film with the simulation of real life choices and effectively become a safe playground for us to experiment with our limitations and come to terms with our character flaws? Already today you can choose to beat up old ladies in games and perhaps feel bad about yourself as she bleeds and crawls towards safety. This is wonderful, but as a choice it’s degenerate. Suppose there was more conflict of values, like you have to choose whether to go the extra mile just for some character’s benefit? Or sacrifice something so they won’t suffer? Then, would you find yourself making the same choices that you would in real life, and from the consequences the game depicts, learning something about yourself?