New Games Journalism and the trip to ..... somewhere?

So I'm hiding, hoping I'll get through the next assault and survive, having been beaten ten times and thankful for game saves. Anyway, I've read the walkthrough and the trick is to hide behind some barrels and use the grav-gun to manipulate the turrets when they fall over . Here they come, from all directions. The turrets take care of the squaddies, but what about those flying circular saw things? Then I realise that I can use the grav gun to grab them and throw them at someone. Oh yes!! Now we're cooking!! ..... Ok, I am not a game journalist, new or old but, given the choice, I prefer to read the new stuff. Like Ian Shanahan's Bow Nigger (no date given), which describes the experiences of a duellist in Jedi Knight 2 . Another piece by the same author is Possessing Barbie (December 2004), which describes the player's experiences while online in Second Life. Both of these pieces are more focussed on the interaction between the author and another online player of the game, rather than the technical aspects of the game itself. In fact, in the Possessing Barbie piece there is no actual mention of the game itself at all, with the exception of one reference to a the more adult-themed version which is due for release.
I read a few other pieces for comparison.
Tom Chick, in Saving Private Donny, ( November 2004) discribes the interaction between a group of friends trying to play Manhunt while protecting the youngest of the group from it's more violent effects. (Turns out to be a waste of time as the kid is better at the game than they are, which is useful when they go up against other teams.)
Miyuki Jane Pinkard, in Sex in Games: Rez + Vibrator ( July 2002) describes the experiences of a female player holding a vibrating control while her boyfriend plays the game, complete with pictures!!!! I have no idea what the game was about but I imagine it became popular with female readers of the piece!
The thing about all of these examples is that they all give a first person-view of a players experiences while playing the games, while not actually focussing on the games themselves.
The journalist Kieron Gillen first coined the phrase New Games journalism in his blog in March 2004, in which he describes the writers as "travel journalists to imaginary places". well, certainly two of the above pieces fit that description. The other two I'm not sure, since the authors aren't really anywhere except their apartments, and the interaction is between people in the same room.
For small difference I read A Rape in Cyberspace by Julian Dibble ( December 1993), which refers to a series of events that took place on an online text-based game called LambdaMOO. Here, the style was that of a passive observer who took no part in the events themselves, but merely recorded them. There is also a piece called A Corporate Murder which reviews Eve-Online, but I could't find any more information on where it came from. Pity, because it is a good piece.
Some things I note about the examples of NGJ that I read:
1: they are all subjective.
2: choice of language in some is er.... choice!
3: there are no screenshots!
4: they don't tell you that you need a Crays2 to run the games, in fact they tell you no technical stuff at all.
5: they don't give marks out of ten!
6: they don't try to sell the game, but end up doing so.
7: they are written with the emphasis on the player, not the game.