It’s only been three weeks, but there’s always time for more Carnival! Yet again we have some superb articles on games ranging from Mass Effect to MegaMan, and Pokémon to Prince of Persia. Well, without further ado, let’s get stuck in!

Kicking us off in style this month is Miles Moen, with three posts at his superb website “The Necessities of Life” (extra marks for the right spelling, Miles!). His three posts The N Game Review, Death of My Xbox 360 and Mass Effect: Review are insightful, honest and entertaining – who could ask for anything more?

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Well, I might as well get this month’s Herbertathon underway – here’s our current offerings from the Chancellor of the Carnival himself, HRH David Herbert, all posted at www.pariahs-guild.com. I don’t know if King David knows I know he’s set up a script to spam us with every article he posts, but the second article is a dead giveaway he doesn’t put in as much thought as he should.

PSA-Happy Birthday Pariah’s Guild!
Games-Coming Out This Week-August 31st-September 6th
Games-Videos-Street Fighter IV Japanese Vega vs. Chun Li Gameplay
Games-News-New PSN Games And Trailers!
Modding Warehouse-Interviews-Naruto: Naiteki Kensei
Games-Videos-LittleBigPlanet Exclusive Adventures of Sackboy Trailer
Games-News-Playstation Home Is “on track”
Games-News-Red Vs. Blue Anime!
Games-Reviews-Castle Crashers
Games-News-Sony CEO Admits That The Wii Is Superior In Demographics
Games-Videos-Dissidia: Final Fantasy DKS3713: Tidus vs. Jecht Gameplay

Next up is another veteran of the Carnival, the old wizard himself, old-wizard! As usual he’s conjured controversial countdowns, the leader of which is his “Top 10 Worst Types of People“, including “people who try to defend the Sega Genesis over the SNES” and “People who don’t appreciate 16 bit gaming”. You’re a talented writer, OW: baiting Sega fans is below you (though you seem very good at it!)

After such controversy, OW shares with us his Top 10 Mega Man X Bosses and his Top 5 Racing Games. I’m sure you’ll be extremely surprised to discover there isn’t a single Sega racing game in the list!

Next up is Jet Set Radio legend Jam, with an article on how to “Increase Your Battery Life” posted at Jam’s Ubuntu. Nice work Jam, but how about getting those blades on again?

Now it’s time for one of my favourite posts, How Sweet is the Shepherd’s Sweet Lot: Rickey Reviews “Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise” at Riding with Rickey. I recently got a DS Lite ad Viva Piñata, and I’m loving the game so far – it’s a huge step better than I thought it would be, but don’t take my word for it, read Rickey’s review!

A challenger for Old Wizard‘s magic crown now, the freakily-named Glowing Face Man, with his article Real Life Tool-Assisted Speedrun (TAS)? posted at Glowing Face Man: Awaken the Badass Within. He has this to say about this arcane magic: a “speedrun” is a movie of a video game being beaten extremely fast. It made me ask, what if there was a speedrun of Real Life?

An insightful list next from Cancerkitty, with some great ideas on Improving Video Games, posted over at DelSquacho. I can’t say all the ideas apply to every style of game, but there are certainly some good points that developers would do well to respond to.

That fine chap Jason O from Unfettered Blather is next, busting Another gaming myth – converting the pirates. Taking a logical and well-reasoned look at the notion pirates simply choose not to pay for games, this is an excellent article that debunks a long-held myth.

Time for my favourite posts of this month now, all from the excellent Ryan Rigney at SlapStic.com. His first post, Why Pokémon is the Bane of America is a genuinely funny article that, judging from the comments, some people have taken far too seriously!

His second post Top 5 Upcoming Gaming Sites contains some very familiar faces, including regular Carnival supporter Old-Wizard.com! He just ranks in above my good friend Damien McFerran‘s excellent VC-Reviews site, although curiously I’m nowhere to be seen. Maybe next time..?

Despite my praise for Mr Rigney, he still feels the need to justify himself, explaining to us all “Why I Own an Ugly Xbox 360“. There’s no need, Ryan – we love you just the same. Seriously, relax.

Last from Mr Rigney is his letter to Natsume, entitled Dear Natsume, How to Make Harvest Moon Great Again. As a big Harvest Moon fan I have to say I was massively disappointed with HM: Magical Melody on Wii, which was excruciatingly slow and repetitive even by Harvest Moon standards. Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon on PSP broke the mould with some superb ideas, but if Marvelous implement just a few ideas from this post they’ll be onto a winner.

Eclipse is our penultimate Carnival patron this month, with two posts at his site Gaming My Way. His first, Gaming for Perfects, tries to break out of the mentality that playing defensively in a fighting game is the best way to humiliate your opponent. When you put it like that, Eclipse, you’re absolutely right!

Afterwards he looks at the company we all love to hate, EA! Electronic Arts Still Doesn’t Get It tackles the sticky subject of Digital Rights Management, which made me realise something: this page is currently the only one on the whole Internet that doesn’t mention Spore’s piracy problems! Amazing.

Wrapping up with Vishal k Bharadwaj and his post Prince of Persia Revisited, over at his homepage allVishal.com. He has this to say: as we eagerly await the next-gen Prince of Persia, I take a little look back at the game that started it all. Having recently rediscovered the genius of Prince of Persia on my Mega CD, I really enjoyed reading this post and I have to say I’m quite looking forward to the next-gen PoP title, even though I’ve never played a 3D entry in the series. I also recommend a look at his design and illustration page, which contains some superb stuff!

Well, I hope you all agree that was a fantastic edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers! It’s very rewarding to see a mix of new faces with my favourite writers each month, and I hope you agree. Please post a link to the Carnival on your website, and if you’d like to enter next month’s then head over to the Blog Carnival submissions form. Next month’s edition is on Monday, October 21st, so don’t miss out!

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