It pains me reading some of the older articles with their atrocious spelling and grammatical errors. My arguments too were often pretty retarded. They’re probably not so bad though.

I share your distaste for the word “criticism,” not because it’s snobbish but because, as a philosophy and cultural studies person, “critique” has a very specific meaning: to reveal, examine, or invalidate the underlying assumptions of an artifact, system, or statement… instead of analyzing the thing on its own merits. *Usually* (not by any means always) what we do as games bloggers is analysis, and even great analysis isn’t critique (it’s not a question of degree, but method). I think you recognize this, because you separate the two in your blog’s subtitle… but most people don’t.

And props on being able to decide which of your posts are your favorite. I’m slowly making my way through them. Got stuck on the Morgan Webb one. The weird thing for me about that whole explanation she gives of the three gamer archetypes is that she fawns over people who like shooting games and RPGs, yet denigrates sports game fans specifically as people who chase false digital dreams of a life they’ll never have. I really don’t know if I agree that her insult can be generalized to gamers as a whole (though of course your breakdown of Tyra’s attitudes was perfect).