Video Blips: Old-School Pixelated Goodness, Sub(ject) Zero, Birth By Sleep Intro, and More

It looks like 3D Dot Game Heroes might have some competition for "best pixelated old-school throwback" game of 2010.

Video Blips:

â€¢ This gameplay video for XBLA Indie title Arkedo Series 003: Pixel! looks really effing sweet.Â Who cares if you can't tell what the main character is -- it's all about the gameplay. [GameTrailers]

Continue after the break for the introduction to Mass Effect 2's Subject Zero, the intro Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and a trailer for the anime video game (or is it a video game anime) Infinite Space.

â€¢ The sexy Subject Zero does some reflecting in this Mass Effect 2 vignette. Drama students, take note for the next time you need a monologue. [GameTrailers]

â€¢ I haven't played a Kingdom Hearts game since the original, so it's a bit difficult to figure out what's going on in the intro for Birth by Sleep.Â Why do I get the feeling that a lot has happened since the first game? [GameVideos]

â€¢ Are these attractive anime scenes actually featured in the Infinite Space Nintendo DS game, or are they just for the trailer? Something doesn't quite add up here. [GameVideos]

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Allistair Everett

January 11, 2010

Arkedo Series 003: Pixel has been out for a while now. Lame. Once again, I think the homepage should be saved for articles not this stuff. Imagine if every Bitmob user was able to post news stories instantly to the front page.

Alejandro Quan-Madrid

January 12, 2010

@Allistair, The point of the video blips is to compile some of the recently released gameplay/trailer videos into a short post that Bitmob users might want to check out. It's also a good way to draw attention to indie games that people might have overlooked. My bad on being a little late to the party with Arkedo Series 003: Pixel!

We strive to not be the same as other game websites and that's why we compile news and video blips into daily summaries, as one post each, as opposed to say Kotaku where every story/video they post gets its own spot.

If you really don't like the blips, that's fine, don't read them.

Also, Shoe already addressed this issue from your Top 5 Ways to Improve Bitmob.com article in the comments section:

...sometimes, we need a shorter, lighter story to help break up the bigger, heavier ones. If all we ran are our long-form stories, Bitmob would be very dense, heavy reading and would turn off a lot of people. So we put in these quick newsy or video things to help with the pacing.

Do you disagree?

Nevermind. Sorry about that. I thought this was "news blips" and you were reporting on some game that came out a week ago because you saw a video of it--a sort of laziest I can't willfully accept on a site full of people pouring their time and effort into articles that often get buried in a matter of hours. I didn't even know their was a "video blips" feature, I just saw "blips" and jumped to assumptions. I feel stupid.

With that said, I think the videos blips seems a bit excessive on top of news blips. If a video is especially noteworthy can't it fit under news?

Also, for anyone wondering Pixel isn't all that great; more style over substance, but it controls well and looks fantastic. I say it's not great but it's the best XBLA indie I've played, which says more about the quality of the other games, I suppose. In fact, it's what inspired me to write my "Game Over: Retro-revival" article. Ah, remember that one! No? Ok...:whimpers:

@Allistair, for sure. Don't trip. Typically, for the news blips, I try to focus on just the big or interesting/off beat stories and try to find a way to deliver them in a Bitmob type of way, not just "this is what happened, period."

Again, for the blips, as Shoe put it, it's about mixing up the pacing of the content so not everything is just articles and adding videos to news might make the post so big, it exceeds the blip threshold.

Good looking out about Pixel! as well.

James Helferty

Uncanny valley alert; Subject Zero needs to breathe. Otherwise, that's a pretty amazing bit of animation/mo-cap.

@James, isn't it?

Spencer Gregory

That's the coolest Tamagotchi I've ever seen. Except it has an annoying voice when it says "Ow!"