Michael Thompson at Ars Technica takes a look at the in-house bloggers for three of the biggest names in gaming — EA, Microsoft and Sony — to see what their jobs really entail and how they got there. It's more than a worthwhile read.

I have a lot of respect for Goichi Suda's projects and what he's trying to do with videogames. Maybe one day I'll get a chance to chat with him. About what, I haven't a clue!

GamesRadar covers six of Tokyo's video game themed bars. I planned on at least visiting 16Shots on my last day in Tokyo in 2008, however due to a full day of shopping in Akihabara with the ever charming DCharlie, I didn't have the energy to go. Maybe next time!

I've compiled all of the hands-on impressions of competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes for UNCHARTED 2 on the Naughty Dog Delicious page. All hands-on coverage from a variety of online sites has been placed under the 'apr27' tag.

Speaking of Criterion Collection box covers, here is the full catalog of DVD covers on the Criterion Collection website.

Google presents a set of official themes for iGoogle that feature art from a wide range of videogames.

The Criterion Collection inspired set of videogame box covers has been saved, resized and collected on one page for easy reference.

There's been an interest recent surge of interpreting videogame box covers (and movie posters) in a style inspired by iconic design schemata from other media, like books (e.g. Penguin), movies or earlier eras in videogames. In this collection, gaffers take inspiration from covers of the acclaimed Criterion Collection. Possibly inspired by this post from WellMedicated: http://wellmedicated.com/inspiration/an-ode-to-criterion-box-art/

Tiny Cartridge ran a photo I of my pair of Puma 917 Lo Mega shoes that I sent JC. They basically got delivered in one day since the shipping center was nearby. They're pretty bright (and I love em), but they look a lot better than the product shot on Puma.com.

An interesting experiment by Introversion — they are going to basically document as much as possible regarding the development of Darwinia+ for Xbox Live Arcade.

Gamasutra's write-up about the Evolving Game Design panel I missed at GDC09.

The Brainy Gamer's write-up about the Evolving Game Design panel I missed at GDC09 due to other work commitments.

Speaking of Derek Yu, he was asked to collaborate with his artist friend Hellen Jo to collaborate on a game for the Giant Robot art show Game Over/Continue? I saw Derek playing this during the opening of the show and it looked pretty fun. Have to say that the art style is pretty great too. Can't wait until Derek provides the game for us to download, I'll be there day one.

A game I saw at the Experimental Gameplay session at GDC09. While I had played Spelunky before, I hadn't really read about it. My interest increased exponentially when Derek mentioned that aspects of roguelikes inspired the creation of Spelunky.

Home of ROM CHECK FAIL — a game I saw at the Experimental Gameplay session at GDC09. ROM CHECK FAIL was born out of an idea to combine variations of player characters and enemies, all randomly mashed-up from various videogames from the past.

One of the games I saw at the Experimental Gameplay session at GDC09. The background was that Tyler wanted to create a game where darkness would be an aid to the player, instead of just a challenge of obstacle.

One of the games I saw as part of the Experimental Gameplay session at GDC09. 10 years in the making, this looks like it has some really interesting potential. Can't wait to be able to play this, if that becomes an option.

Gamasutra's write-up about the Experimental Gameplay session I attended the second half to, after the original session I was going to attend was massively overbooked.

This is the thread on NeoGAF that Matt Matthews posts to accompany his NPD analysis feature on Gamastura. It's equally as fascinating.

This monthly feature on Gamasutra is fascinating even if you're not an NPD armchair analyst. I know I always inadvertantly get sucked into reading this even if I have better (or more important) things to do at that moment.

Even though I had read about 'tower defense' games and I had meant to play Desktop Tower Defense but I never did. When Final Fantasy: Crystal Defenders came out on consoles last week I gave it a trial run with the demo. I was instantly hooked, it's all relatively simple, but the whole "how far can you get" part is diabolically addicting.

Four of the four made so far. Sega Genesis controller.

Third in a series of four so far. This one is of the Super Nintendo controller.

Second in a series of four, so far at least. This one is of a PlayStation controller.

One of currently four pin designs that "commemorates" the console wars. This one is of a NES controller. I kind of want just because it's so amusing, although they have to be shipped from Greece.