David Finkel, co-executive producer of 30 Rock (and therefore one of the greatest living Americans of our generation) has written a rather great justification of Guitar Hero and Rock Band for What They Play, a site intended to give parents an understanding of the games their children and help them find more games to enjoy. In it, he talks about how the music games of today are replacing the wise (and vanishing) expert at the local record store as a means of kids discovering new music. I’ve seen proof of this happening in the wild – girlfriend T’s brother had no idea who Nirvana, the Ramones, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and a dozen other bands were before Guitar Hero II and Rock Band, and now he can’t get enough of them. Of course, this led to the rather awkward and inevitable “Why there aren’t more Nirvana records” conversation, but hey, we’ve all got to grow up sometime.

Mauvais Rôle (“Bad Role”) is a short French film detailing the trials and tribulations of a videogame villain who decides he’s tired of being the bad guy and sets off to find something more. Well made and filled with more riffs familiar videogame moments than you can shake a large war hammer at, it’s an extremely endearing little story about a gigantic devil creature finding his place in the world. There is also dancing. (via Boing Boing)

EA’s Jim Preston wades into the “Are games art” discussion over at Gamasutra in an article called ”The Arty Party” with perhaps one of the more reasonable responses to Roger Ebert’s occasional diatribes against the medium: “Who cares?” He makes a number of good points, particularly focusing on capital-A Art (pronounced “Awt”, naturally) being a perception more than anything else – the idea of an agreed upon definition of what art is or isn’t is ridiculous, so why does Ebert’s opinion matter? While it’s hardly going to settle the debate, it does provide a nice breather from the usual frothiness this discussion generates. Perhaps if enough read it and stop worrying if what they’re creating is art, they can get around to making some.And from the makers of Velociraptor Safari comes this teaser image of their next project, via Kotaku:

Jetpack Brontosaurus for the win.

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