Welcome back to Bitmob's Hit or Miss Weekend Recap, where I'll take an opinionated look at a few of the biggest stories of the week. Or the silliest. Or the stories that I just happen to have something to say about. It's a surprise every weekend!
This week: Activision acknowledges reality and accepts that Brütal Legend is not a Guitar Hero clone; Activision bewilders reality and announces a port of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Wii; a surprisingly dexterous kid figures out the only possible thing more impressive than Spock playing 3D chess; and at least one humble argument for why Atomic Game's Six Days in Fallujah deserves to be made.
Welcome to the inaugural installment of a new Bitmob weekend roundup column, Hit or Miss, where I'll take an opinionated look at stories from the past week that either pissed me off or made my day.
Hit or Miss is simple: Stories that I like get the honor of a fancy little Space Invaders "hit" icon, and stories that I hate get the eternal shame of getting smacked with a "miss" icon, which is just as fancy as the "hit" icon. So I'm not exactly sure why a "miss" is a shame. I am, by the way, uniquely qualified to make such opinionated decisions, in that I am alive, and I also have an Internet connection.
(So in other words, I'm basically trying to rip off Stephen Colbert's "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" bit, without it looking like I completely ripped off Stephen Colbert's "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" bit. In my defense, we're all basically ripping off TV Guide's "Cheers and Jeers" section, anyway.)
Let's begin!
Editor's Note: I tried my best to get through The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but I couldn't. I stopped halfway through. I'm tired of the same Zelda formula, and so is Kris -- and he's got some ways to make it better. -Jason
Recently, Shigeru Miyamoto said that he does not think that the upcoming Zelda game for the Wii will be "that radically different." I hope that changes by the time Nintendo releases the game.
This may sound blasphemous, but as a man who has loved this series from the very first game on the NES, I feel that it must be said: The Legend of Zelda franchise needs a massive overhaul. I enjoyed Twilight Princess well enough, but by the end of the game, it started feeling like a chore -- another dungeon here, another series of increasingly convoluted puzzles there, yet one more annoying method of making magical music, and more banal dialogue to slowly trudge through. The series has, as movie critic Roger Ebert has grown fond of saying recently, become much of a muchness.
But I still love Zelda. In fact, I've been revisiting a number of the older games, including A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Wind Waker. And if you would forgive the presumption, I've identified six ways to make Zelda feel fresh again. Miyamoto, you better be reading this right now. (And if you are, feel free to join everyone else who will no doubt comment below just to tell me what a gigantic idiot and ass I am.)
Editor's Note: Today, we give a big "f-u" to all other gaming websites. Who needs Kotaku when Bitmob's armed with a time-travelling news correspondent? We're not sure why Kris Pigna's powers didn't materialize until after he left 1UP, but whatever...our gain. -Shoe
LOS ANGELES, Ca. (BNS News) - E3 2010 has come and gone, answering many lingering questions from last year's show while providing a few new surprises of its own. As expected, Microsoft and Sony revealed new details on their respective motion-control devices due out later this year, while Nintendo finally explained the true origins of the Vitality Sensor.
Editor's Note: Had enough Muscle March yet? If yes, keep reading anyway -- Kris is using the bodybuilders-in-hot-pursuit game as a jumping-off point for something bigger. And if Kris's name seems familiar, you may have seen his work on 1UP and GreenPixels. -Demian
As the screaming maniac Marcus Wright from Terminator Salvation recently taught us, the difference between man and machine is the power of the human heart.
OK, there are a few other differences between man and machine, like man can't make photocopies and machines can't ride unicycles while juggling (yet?), but the heart is probably the most important. Because while a day may come when every baseball team has been replaced by soulless mechano overlords, we can find comfort in knowing machines will need to keep us alive for at least one reason: No artificial intelligence could ever be human enough to think of something as blisteringly deranged as Muscle March.
How does this game play? Is it even fun? I don't know, and I don't care. Watching YouTube videos of this lunacy is reason enough for it to exist. There's a lot about the human species that makes me less than a fan (see: callous destruction of the environment, insatiable greed, macaroni and cheese pizza), but when something like Muscle March comes around, it warms my heart. Show me the man whose mind was damaged enough to create a game where bodybuilders strike the correct poses to fit through holes busted in walls by other bodybuilders, and I will show you the cockeyed genius that makes humanity the great miracle of known creation.
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