OK, so I've had this idea for months now, but I can't seem to get it off the ground because:

a: I'm lazy
b: I'm very busy
c: I'm very lazy

I want to start a video game club here on Kotaku that would work sort of like a book club. We'd select a video game each month and play through the game, meeting online to discuss our thoughts on it either after we complete it or, better still, at specific points through-out the game.

My hope is that it will get me and you and all gamers who participate to look beyond the graphics, the gameplay, the routine and perhaps think about games the way people think about a good book or a good movie. I want to do this because I think game developers deserve more than to hear that their game was kick-ass and has amazing graphics and is really super fun to play.

I'm a strong believer that people and by extension their work tend to rise to meet their expectations. If we as gamers start to look more critically at games, at their plots, the nuance of control, the deeper meaning found within a title, I think developers will feel more appreciated and, more importantly, will be more willing to spend time working on those things rather than on better graphics.

Of course I'm also painfully naive.

So let's get to it. I have an online meeting room set-up, but before we pick our first title I'd like to get a sense of who is interested in doing this, and much more importantly, some suggestions about how we should structure the meetings and what sort of rules we should have in place.

OK... GO! Brian Crecente

"Fukubukuro" is Japanese for "lucky bag." They are sold all over Japan during New Year's, and retailers cram a bevy of goods into a bag. The contents, however, are a mystery until the customer plops down their money and opens it up. Over at game site Insert Credit, Tim Rogers has penned "fukubukuro 2006: GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION." It's a whopper, and as Tim explains:

Expect very long reviews of at least three major games, and maybe a giant, rambling, world-changing essay of sorts. It's bursting with content — ten full-length articles totalling roughly 80,000 words, written in sentences and paragraphs, here and there, over the course of 2005 and 2006 (though mostly in the closing weeks of 2006). The reason I never put them on the website, uhh, as I was actually writing them is because, uhh, HTML is a hell of a lot harder than doing nothing.

All very raw, and not surprisingly, refreshingly honest. According to Tim, the most linkable article in the "fukuburo 2006" is on video game violence in which he riffs on, among other things, GTA, Jack Thompson and Mountain Dew. Not necessarily in that order, though. Brian Ashcraft

Are Video Games Terrorism? [Insert Credit]

More PS3 vs. Wii vs. Cat [Flickr]

On the heels of Crecente's How to Write for Kotaku post, comes GameSetWatch's round-up on how to become a games journo. From the writer who coined "New Games Journalism," Keiron Gillen, comes:

Few basic things before I move on: Don't be afraid to argue your corner. Don't claim to be a New Games Journalist, even if you are. Don't admit to thinking that the job is playing games all day for a living, even if you think it is.

to PC Gamer UK's Tim Edwards:

I want to work with people who are smart, who make me laugh, and who are going to put in the hours when a deadline goes to shit. That is all. Even though we don't look it all of us who do this job are professionals, and we look down on those that don't act like it. I like dealing with grownups.

Take a look, there are some nuggets. Not just how to write for Kotaku or game mags, but how to make a go of it professionally. My advice: Glitter Glue and an Idea Booklet are musts. Brian Ashcraft

How To Be a Games Journo [GameSetWatch, Thanks Chilly!]

Typos aside (we're above proofreading), we do a pretty darn good job. For instance, GameDaily's Chris Buffa takes supposed professional game journalists at IGN to task for multiple writing offenses in his op-ed piece "How to Become a Better Videogame Journalist". Here's one such jab:

For example, check out this sentence, taken from a recently-published article about Capcom's Dead Rising:
"After all, who doesn't enjoy running over 50 zombies with a lawnmower? Nobody. Except communists."
Wow Mr. Journalist! Way to keep up with 1980s humor!

Now, what I'd have done there is made a witty allusion to a similar scene from Night of the Creeps by cinematic auteur Fred Dekker, eliciting chirps of laughter from the schlock-horror/Kotaku reader fan base cross-section. See? We clearly don't need the help.

But if you don't think your game writing is up to snuff, do yourself a favor: read this editorial. It has tons of tips and tricks on how to unlock the elite journalist within. Hell, with enough practice and dedication, combined with less time fan-ficking Final Fantasy X-3 erotica, you might actually turn this little hobby into a "career". Michael McWhertor

How to Become a Better Videogame Journalist (thanks, Ben!)

The five worst are used to show major flaws in today's game journalism from suck-up reviews as illustrated by Planet Gamecube, to sensationalist previews by GameSpot, to the rambling antics of Tim Rogers, to (shudder) pretentious non-reviews as illustrated by Kieron Gillen.

The best of the bunch, by far, is Zack's review of Gillen's review of Darwinia. First let me say that I still can't make up my mind about Kieron and New Game Journalism. On the one hand it is incredibly elitist and pretentious, but on the other hands current game magazing journalism is, for the most part, crap.

So I suppose pretentious, self-aggrandizing twaddle is much better than poorly written, confused slop, but I'm still not a huge fan of either. And apparently, neither is Zack. From his review review:

The grand finale of this article actually appears just before his little festival of excuses in his rambling and parenthetical review. The first time I read it I laughed at how he's such a huge asshole. Then I read it a second time and I wanted to cave in his face with a shovel.

There are a few other problems which I don't really consider problems. Speaking generally, it strikes me already that its reviews are going to be brutally mixed, though the writing will tell as much - if not more - about the limitations of the reviewer as the limitations of Darwinia.

"If you don't get Darwinia then you're an idiot." Congratulations on inspiring my personal boycott of this game, Kieron. If you're the sort of person that gets Darwinia then the game is for cunts.

When he's right, he's right.

The Five Worst Gaming Articles of 2005 [Something Awful]