We mentioned that this was coming up yesterday, but, just in case you missed it, here's Persuasive Games author and game designer Ian Bogost fighting the good fight for gaming with bastion of truth and light, Stephen Colbert. We're glad to see it, and not just to watch Colbert wonder aloud if hours of World of Warcraft (or Colbertcraft) will prepare him for when our world becomes Warcraft.

We're also glad to see it because Bogost is undeniably a good egg. Instead of just cursing the darkness and hoping to convince a fairly skeptical mainstream media that games aren't necessarily without merit, he's out there actually proving it. In our opinion, we could use a few more Ian Bogosts.

Solar plexus! Now that Viacom's gotten the lawyers involved, it's become increasingly difficult for us to track down our favorite Tek Jansen clips on YouTube. Sure, we can always go to Viacom's own iFilm property and watch the preroll ad (and they still can't be embedded in our posts).

As Microsoft looks for more ways to fill those 120GB hard drives they want you to buy, they're enlisting the help of Stephen Colbert Presents: Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7 -- Tek Jansen the New Adventures. Available this week, the first short will be free while future installments will cost an unspecified amount. Our favorite? Operation Dragontongue: Chocolate Blades of Thunder. But hurry! If you don't click this link and watch the video immediately, you risk opening a chrono-rift in the space-time continuum and may miss important life lessons (hint: DON'T GO IN CAVES!).

[Via Arrogantics]

Stephen Colbert. LEGO. Star Wars. It's truly a lethal combination. Thanks, Dunechaser; check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Karaoke Revolution vs. SingStar: Which is tougher?
Playing Dirty: Lady, get off the road
Today's most patriotic dancing video: Stephen Colbert meets DDR

News
Sam & Max Episode 5: Reality 2.0 released on GameTap
Nintendo Wii offered on cruise ships, old people finally stop playing shuffleboard
Nintendo signs on as "flagship" for E for All Expo
SKUpidity: When did SKU become gamer parlance?
Sony files for 80GB PS3, says there are no current plans
Core Metal Gear Solid 4 cast announced: Hayter's a player again
Indie Mac title Return to Dark Castle still hasn't returned
Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo hitting Japanese PSN in April
New Xbox 360 HDD comes overloaded with content
Ken Kutaragi insisted on Spider-Man font for PS3
Gamefly opening East Coast distribution center ... finally!
Final Fight and Street Fighter II Turbo coming to Virtual Console
Nintendo announces Picross DS for Europe
New actors, director targeted for 'Hitman' film
The Grand Theft Auto IV trailer
Take-Two and Rockstar on the Road To Ruin
Sony, Vivendi sued after 'infant' suffers seizure
Japanese viral Gears of War videos are chainsaw-less
Time to reinvent Sonic the Hedgehog, says Sega

Culture & Community
Students get their lessons from a PSP
Ultima marathon: the employed need not apply
Are random battles more annoying than useful?
Brain-melting box art
Game Boy sound comparison delights musicians, confuses others

Or: Colbert + DDR + video - the pulse pounding techno = hilarity

You have a problem. You've got some downtime, need a quick break from the routine, but aren't sure where to turn. Do you browse your RSS feeds for a distraction? Head to the water cooler and try to join in on the insane banter about what reality show contestant was the biz-omb last night?

Well, we've got the answer. Just keep yourself parked here and check out Stephen Colbert in a DDR-style dance game, with slightly less than Tron quality graphics. It's amusing, brief, and worth a watch. Then you can return to your previously put-on-pause lifestyle.

Legendary game designer Will Wright visited The Colbert Report last night. Surrounded by a nativity scene and lacking his standard comfort mustache, Wright and Stephen Colbert philosophized on why anyone would want to, as Colbert put it, "go into another world to live a life that is just as mundane."

About four minutes into the interview, the discussion transitions into Spore, which Wright describes as a "spreadsheet for God." This brings up a debate on Evolution versus Intelligent Design, which should not come as a surprise for anyone familiar with the show. Wright notes that it is a hybrid between the two theories, though "the designers aren't necessarily that intelligent." The evolution aspect, Wright explains, comes with the online world where your creations are pitted against everyone else's -- it's like "competing gods on the playing field of the world," they conclude.

Watch near the end where Wright almost gets Colbert to break character by "confessing" he is almost fluent in Sim-lish, the language of The Sims.

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, who described the designer as polymathic (that means he's edumucated), followed Wright to the set to get some behind-the-scenes perspective of the interview and reveals some insight into Wright's gaming habits, like that he doesn't like MMOs because of the "rote treadmill" of leveling characters.

Spore, according to Wright, is on track for a release the second half of 2007 and is currently in Pre-Alpha Five phase, which means five months until alpha phase, which means there are some lucky EA employees playing the full version of Spore right now. The full Colbert Report interview is embedded after the break.

Last night, Stephen Colbert announced the winner of his Green Screen Challenge. The champion entry was "Freedom Fighter," a video game where Colbert had to save patriotic eagles from the evil bullets of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Continue reading for the winning video, as well as a runner-up that struck a chord in our hearts. While not on YouTube, we suggest you check out this video (.mov file) from "George L." It's a great idea, but pretty amateurish in execution, if you ask us.

Steven Johnson, author of the excellent book Everything Bad is Good for You, made an appearance on Stephen Colbert's faux-news show last night to talk about "how today's popular culture is actually making us smarter." Johnson writes on his blog:

"... [Colbert] wasn't too over-the-top with his O'Reilly imitation in our chat last night. He played it a bit straighter than I had expected, which made the conversation a little easier. The interesting twist was that he chose not to do the 'you're destroying the youth of America' rant that you might have expected him to do; in fact, his major in character joke was that he agreed with my argument that books are a waste of time. (By the way, if you're just coming to the site for the first time, that's not my argument at all, of course.)"

Almost one year ago (to the day!) Johnson appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (video) pushing the same book and the same message. We're suckers for his argument (not that books are a waste of time, the other one: that video games aren't a waste of time), so we don't mind one bit. He name drops games like Civilization IV and Spore as games that are emblematic of his thesis that today's games are increasingly complicated. I don't know about you, Steven, but I can't stop playing UNO on Xbox Live Arcade. Not sure that counts though ...

More on Steven Johnson:
Why we should take games seriously
An open letter to senator Clinton
Video Games Are Good for You, Except When They're Just Bad

(Update: video is embedded after the break. Thanks, daneo!)