PixlBit

Eesh, you called out the local Sega fanboy?  This should be interesting.  

So, My take on Journey.  Just so you know, I do not own a PS3 and am going on a let's play I saw of the game.  Short answer; As interactive art, it's pretty good, but as a game, it's not very interesting to me.  I was much happier watching someone else play it than I think I would be if I had played it myself.

As far as reviews go, I may be a little odd.  I typically go after the lowest review score I can find and read that in detail.  I want to know of any flaws someone may encounter playing a game.  If this deters me, than I avoid the game, but if the flaws are something I can live with, I pick it up.  I read the good reviews as well, but I specifically hunt for someone who wants to lay out every thing wrong with whatever game I'm interested in.  

Whenever I do aim to check reviews, I do about the same as you. Be they product reviews, game reviews, movie reviews, or whatever. The difference for me is that I look for the lowest review in which the review isn't a raving lunatic. Sometimes some of the bottom-raters are just insane. I also tend to look for a single well-written higher review, to try to find the balance. It works well when it comes to techie things and such. The lower-rated reviews often mention issues with matters like DRM, and such, that can cause serious inconvenience that higher reviews tend to look over.

With Journey, I have to ask, what made you say "This is art!"? I look at it, and I see an artistic style, and I see a focus on a few concepts, but to me, the game doesn't really do much of a job expressing any deep or meaningful point. It could easily be my limited understanding, but any case where I've read someone suggesting the ideas and concepts which Journey relays, I find myself thinking that if the thatgamecompany really wanted to create a deeper piece of work, these suggested themes could have been established much more strongly than they were. The main theme I noticed when Chris played the game was the concept of rebirth, which, to me, is such a common art theme that for the game to take said concept doesn't impress me by itself, and unfortunately, Journey doesn't venture to any sort of interesting territory with the idea, either. 

Anyway, the point still stands that Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse was a great game.

Well I do look for rationality in my reviews as well, and I always avoid stupid user reviews.  A good baseline is to avoid any score of 0.  That's pretty much just trolling.  I just mean that I really appreciate when critics are, well, critical, and try to hunt down reviews like that.

As far as Journey goes, it struck me more as visual art than anything deeper.  If anything, it's an exercise in simplicity.  Simple game mechanics, simple, but polished art style, even the music isn't all that elaborate, but it is beautiful.  I think that's the message I walked away with, if you can call it a message.  Journey was a lesson on appreciating beauty in simplicity.

Just got around to listening to the podcast.

FYI, I've played Magical Quest and it's a good game. I don't like it as much as the Genesis games but it's a good game. I would say though that Magical Quest had sequels already, each worse than the last. So while I would be open to a Magical Quest sequel, I want a Castle of Illusion sequel more. Hell, I want a World of Illusion sequel even more since that had Donald Duck and he needs some love. I've played Epic Mickey 1 and after being thouroughly bored, I no longer am hyped for Epic Mickey 2 but, as you said, Power of Illusion is being developed by another developer so I'm still keep that game on my radar.

Really, the only disagreement here is not whether we want a Mickey Mouse game, but which we want it based on. Magical Quest and the Mickey Illusion games are both from our childhood and we'd like to see them resurrected.

Oh and Angelo, I know it seems like I'm a Sega fanboy and I guess I am, but (and I've mentioned this before) back in the day, I championed SNES as the better console rather than the Genesis. This is despite my love for the Mickey Mouse games or niche Sega titles like ToeJam and Earl and Eternal Champions or even Sonic. Even my favorite video game mascot ever Sonic the Hedgehog couldn't convince me that his console was better. Back then.