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The Bitmob Featured Community Writer series focuses on you, the Bitmob community member. We dust off a writer's old articles and give them their just reward: more eyeballs. We're featuring some of your favorite contributors, some you may have overlooked, and maybe even you!
Matt Polen has been sharing his wit and wisdom with Bitmob since October 2010, and he has a post-to-front-page ratio that any Bitmobber would be proud of. That's how good his stuff has been. Matt has covered a wide variety of gaming topics, including the politics of Fallout, the artistic value of games, and a series of Hunter S. Thompson-esque Pokemon articles that simply demand to be read.
Learn a bit more about Matt with his Meet the Mob post, then check out excerpts from a few of his front-page articles and Mobfeed posts.
Front page highlights
Nintendo's glacial eStore and Virtual Console release schedule actually encourages piracy: "Let’s get this straight first: I don’t advocate piracy. I pay for my entertainment. So when I tell you that, after experiencing and reading about Nintendo's most recent corporate blunder, I wouldn’t scold you for sailing out for international cyber-waters, you had better believe I’m going to make my case."
Pokemon trainers are disturbed and depraved: "I turned back towards Surge, but he had completely transformed into the fierce soldier I had heard about. His small yellow rat -- and one that looked like its older brother -- circled me slowly. The air began to stink of ozone once again. This was not going well."
Stumping in the wasteland: On the politics of Fallout: "It is entirely possible to analyze the politics of the Fallout series by examining numerous aspects that don't depend on player interaction. When we do so, we find a political philosophy that is grim, cynical, and yet hopeful at the same time."
Mobfeed highlights
Prelude: The straw that breaks the camel's back: "Picture this: You're playing a game. Maybe it's an RPG, but it's just as likely that it's a shooter or a platformer. The environments are well done, the cinematics are crisp and engaging, and the story is pulling you inexorably towards a climax. There's only one problem: The gameplay is unforgivably bad."
10 viscerally satisfying gaming experiences and what they say about us: "Video games do have a tendency to be rather intense, physical, and downright satisfying. How many times have you beaten a particularly difficult level or mission and sighed with relief, noticing how fast your heart was beating?"
WAR!: "We need to look at how popular games are portraying war. I'm not saying that independent games shouldn't tackle the issue, but rather that popular games reach more people and therefore have a better chance of getting their message out."
Want to be a Featured Community Writer? Then register with Bitmob and start contributing! You need to use your real name, and it wouldn't hurt to write a Meet the Mob post about yourself and tag it with "Meet the Mob." If you have a favorite Bitmob community writer and want to nominate him or her, send me an e-mail at layton.shumway@bitmob.com.
