Level Up, Newsweek’s gaming blog run by the remarkably talented N’Gai Croal, is surprisingly one of the best sources for videogames discussion outside of England. It’s surprising because you don’t expect a weekly news mag like Newsweek to bother caring enough to hire somebody who knows what he’s talking about. Also because most American games journalism is shit.

This is oldish news, and a little obscure unless you follow the game blogs regularly, so a bit of background: Bill Harris wrote on his blog Dubious Quality a defense of critically-detested party games for the Nintendo Wii. Level Up linked his piece from their blog, and then asked him to elaborate on his opinions in the form of a guest post. Harris took them up on the offer, and expanded on his original piece to include a discussion about videogame controllers and their potential to be a barrier of entry for new players. The piece is not only a smart breakdown of the flaws in many game reviewers’ approach to games meant to be played in groups or with younger children, it’s also an eye-opening look at how videogames damned themselves by choosing complexity over accessibility. You can read the whole thing here.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though, as the last half of the piece concerns the Nintendo Wii’s innovative motion controls as the ease of use they offer players of all ages. There’s a lot here that makes me smile, including this:

So who is the target demographic for the Wii? Well, everybody. It’s not drilling down–it’s spreading across. Disruptive technologies do that–they dramatically change markets. Nintendo shows games in their commercials, but they also always show people playing the games. How boring would it be to show someone playing a game with a 360 or PS3 controller? It would be stupefying. When you watch people moving around, though, and having fun, it’s very powerful.

I’ve never read Bill Harris’ blog before, but if this piece ( and this post on Rock Band) are any indication), it’s now considered required reading. Hell, my brain’s still reeling from his explanation of how Street Fighter II and it’s needlessly complicated control scheme nearly ruined everything.

Filed under: talk about games