Back in the day (err… 2006) on her old radio show, Annie Mac used to play a listener’s 5-minute mini-mix at the end – a lighthearted mashup track made from as many different tunes as possible, played over, under and after each other in interesting and amusing ways.

I made one a while back, and sent it in but it never got played. Boooo.
You can download it here: Anniemix Six.mp3 [4.2 mb]

And here’s the playlist:

01. Wham – Last Christmas
02. New Order – Blue Monday
03. Grand Popo Football Club – Men Are Not Nice Guys
04. Chemical Brothers – Chemical Beats
05. Junior Senior – Move Your Feet
06. Prefuse 73 – Cliche Intro
07. Dj Gregory – Don’t Know Malendro
08. Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side
09. Spandau Ballet – True
10. Felix da Housecat and Miss Kittin – Silver Screen Shower Scene
11. Dj Shadow – The Right Thing
12. Luke Vibert – Realistique
13. Aphex Twin – Come to Daddy [Little Lord Faulteroy Mix]
14. The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar
15. The Chemical Brothers – It Began in Afrika
16. The Beegees – You Should Be Dancing
17. Unkle – Guns Blazing
18. Luke Vibert – I Love Acid
19. The Chemical Brothers [Feat. Beth Orton] – The State We’re In
20. Orbital – Belfast
21. Sigur Ros – Svefn G Englar
22. Underworld – Jumbo [Future Shock Worlds Apart vox]

For a while now, I’ve had a little dichotomy of ideas in my head, related to the general perception of videogames, that I’ve been meaning to explain in a neat little diagram. This is it:

(Some of these distinctions are a little fuzzy and crap – for example, Technology can be considered a subset of Culture, as opposed to an opposite – but hopefully the overall point I’m trying to make still stands.)

The left and right ends of the scale represent different schools of thought on what games are about. Note that it’s a scale, and therefore not binary.

The left side views games as products – technological products that can be reviewed quantitively and objectively, stating whether or not they are value for money and worth buying, according to how well they perform their function (the general consensus being that games exist solely to be “fun”).

Conversely, the right side views games as (potential) art – cultural experiences that can only be critiqued, based on the effective expression of ideas. The function and experience of games, from this perspective, is considered very subjective, and the merit of the work can therefore only be (adequately) described qualitatively.

I’m not condemning either perspective – I think different games (and consequently, our ideas about them) should cover the whole spectrum – but my own taste and interest in games leans towards the poncy stuff on the right. I don’t really care that much about games as demos of fancy (physics, graphics, destruction, animation) technology; I don’t think games should be summed with up by an X out of 10 review score; and I don’t think all games exist to perform a single function. I also don’t think the length of a game, or how much it costs to buy, is at all relevent to how “good” or interesting it is.

I think the common perception, however – among many gamers, journalists and developers alike – either leans strongly towards the left side, or sits unknowingly muddled between the two. I frequently wish the right side was a little more recognised in games than it currently is. It kind of riles me up a little sometimes. Sometimes it makes me growl.

*Growl*