Friday afternoon tidbits

Seeing a couple of movies this weekend: The Hurt Locker and Harry Potter. Which will be better? I can't even begin to guess.

-Kyle Orland imagines what life would be like if game characters used Twitter. Pretty funny, and an excellent opportunity to link to my own game-related Tweets.

-Also on Crispy Gamer, Scott Jones envisions a world in which great authors reviewed video games. The Hemingway excerpt almost made me choke.

-While I was on vacation, Clint Hocking responded to the Far Cry 2 perma-death phenomenon that's sweeping at least two blogs. He's a hell of a sharp guy, and argues forcefully once again that it's the elements of gameplay themselves that create meaning, and not a designer-imposed narrative.

-Ryan Stewart's review of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is worth reading on its own, but he does himself one better with a visual summary. His Guitar Hero Venn diagram neatly categories each song according to whether it is fun, good, hard, or any combination of the three. And, yes, "Back in the Saddle" is terrible.

-This one's been making its way around the intertubes, but in case you messed it: Jeff Atwood explores the devolution of the ads for Civony and Evony, from the initial generic Lord of the Rings rip to -- well, see for yourself.

-The sports blog Deadspin took a page from their Gawker media compadres Kotaku and posted "If They Were Athletes: The Robots from Mega Man 2." Curt Schilling as Air Man is too perfect.

Let the weekend start... now!