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Bitmob community member Daniel Castro's article  about developer Rocksteady's Batman titles (which is immediately below this one on our front page feed) provides valuable commentary on how "branded" games need not be awful. But while it's great to talk about games made right, we can also gain a lot of insight from a series of dismal, catastrophic failures.

To that end, I think it would be a good idea to look at another superhero's attempts to cross over into the game world and what they tell us about this hobby we spend so much time writing and talking about.

Let's see what Superman has brought to the table, other than sadness and buyer's remorse.

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Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2 are just around the corner. Maybe I don't keep an eye on the right media outlets anymore, but somehow, I've missed out on the hype train for these releases. I thought now might be a good time to get informed, so I headed over to the official Pokémon site to get the company line.

I came away with this.

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Thanks to technological advancements and society's great need for high-definition televisions, you can't use old school light guns anymore.

Since the world now has a bunch of useless Nintendo Zappers, it only makes sense that people would mod them to shoot lasers. The dangerous minds at North Street Labs took the idea one step further by building a laser that can set matches on fire [via Engaget]:

 

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It's incredibly easy to forget that most games start as any other product -- with a sales pitch. Sure, people sometimes make these wonderful things because they love the craft, but they also want to profit from them.

Heck, even the seemingly humble Tim Schafer (Brütal Legend) jokes about never quite striking oil with most of his projects and makes tongue-in-cheek statements about the success of his Kickstarter campaign.

One money centric aspect of the industry that has stood out to me: Publishers, marketers, financers (whatever you want to call them) seem to pull more of the production strings than most like to acknowledge. Not only can this negatively affect the development process, but it sometimes actively dictates it. Many artists would agree that this is not ideal.

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If you’re playing Resident Evil 6, BioShock, or any Modern Warfare title, stop and pause the game for a second.

Do you feel someone holding your hand? Does it seem like that person is pushing you toward your goal?

Hit start and return to the game. Take a look around as you battle your way to your objective.

You see it? That big arrow? That target?

Yeah, it’s that reoccurring and seemingly in-demand destination pointer.

I’ve seen them in in the Call of Duty franchise. And that was OK. I didn’t mind being told where the goal was. The games presented straightforward campaigns.

BioShock featured something similar. The arrow, working like a compass, helped me figure out where to go next, but at the same time, it didn’t help me get past the threats that plagued me along the way.

Recently, I took a stab at the Resident Evil 6 public demo. And once again, this GPS thingy was lurking around in Capcom’s latest survival-horror adventure.

Why is it needed?

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we look at the future of The Secret World, admire the beauty of accidental narratives, give a shout-out to turtling, and more. Join us!

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The Secret World could be free-to-play
By Alexander Kraus

You already know how I feel about conspiracy-driven MMO The Secret World; I don't think going free-to-play would change my mind about the game, but Alexander's analysis is astute. Good point about Age of Conan, too.

Why turtling is awesome
By Trevor Hinkle

Turtling, in case you don't know, is the art of playing defensively in a strategy game and waiting for the right time to strike. I'm horrible at it. (I'm horrible at most strategy games.) But Trevor extols the tactic's virtues here. "There’s a certain gratification found in surviving a seemingly endless onslaught of enemies and be rescued by an evacuation shuttle or a friendly ship, and it never gets old," he writes.

The beauty of unintended stories
By Maciej Peterson

I enjoy a good linear narrative, but sometimes, the best stories are the ones you make yourself. Maciej supports this in his description of his adventures in Skyrim. "This is a simple story, but what makes it special is that it's unlikely that Bethesda intended for it to exis," he says.

Upgrading the upgrades genre
By Alexander Kraus

Alexander's second contribution this week describes a type of casual game I hadn't heard of, which he calls the "upgrades genre." He writes: "I like RPGs for the purpose of developing a character through time, so upgrade genres appeal to me. However, the game designer part of me thinks that this genre is more tedious work than engaging gameplay found in other grind-heavy games like Torchlight." Interesting.

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Like many of you, I'm playing Borderlands 2 right now (and hey, look, I'm writing about it! You should, too!). And while the action's great and the loot is addictive, what I really love about the game is its space-Western vibe.

The first Borderlands title was the same way. Despite all the high-tech trappings and ridiculous guns, Borderlands retains a certain grounding in the real world. And its country-style characters and music are big reasons for that.

The Western genre is underused in games, both thematically and musically, but those who choose to focus on it often come up with some unique, memorable experiences. Here are five musical examples I've chosen in that vein; feel free to add yours in the comments. 

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Every year at every convention, seemingly every member of the press reminds his small percentage of the community that this has been a great year for gaming, with many anticipated titles on the horizon.

They're not lying. But that's because the video game industry is a great one that pumps out certifiable masterpieces with all the regularity of other mediums. Sure, it's rare that any of them are actually new ideas, but now with Kickstarter crowdfunding the fifth Broken Sword and the possibility of tax relief looking slightly more feasible, it seems that we're in no danger of not hearing about how swimmingly everything's going in the world of games development (apart from the continued existence of Electronic Arts and paid downloadable content) for some time.

But something, somewhere in the dark recesses of my caffeine-soaked mind, has clicked, and now I don't care ... not about Assassin's Creed 3, the bulked up PC port of Dark Souls, nor even the concept of The World Ends With You coming to iOS (and I've wanted that game since I realized everything about Japan is awesome and/or clinically batshit).

I can't seem to care. Because I am entranced by the prospect of Gunzerkin' Super Badass Skags and backstabbing PWR Loaders.

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October is coming.

No, that's not a line from my terrible A Song of Ice and Fire spin-off fan fiction, "A Shitload of Shields." It's basically just a fact. October will bring with it tiny candy bars, "sexy" versions of characters for which such costumes should not exist (I'm looking at you, Sexy SpongeBob Squarepants), and the Extra Life 24-hour charity gaming marathon.

Gaming-fan blog Sarcastic Gamer founded Extra Life back in 2008, and the event has gotten bigger every year. Last year alone, the event raised $1.2 million dollars for Children's Miracle Network (CMN) hospitals all over the country. How it works is that on October 20, participants will play video games for 24 hours straight. Between now and then -- or even during the event, if they're feeling ambitious -- they will ask their friends, family, co-workers, or complete strangers* to sponsor their marathons with cash moneys.

Because the CMN has partner hospitals all over the world, participating gamers can decide where the money they raise will go. Every dollar people donate will go to support these institutions and help them to continue providing life-saving care for children all over the world and fund research to cure diseases like cancer and diabetes.

Bitmob has had teams the past couple of years, but we have a new home at GamesBeat, and we're setting up shop under the GB banner this time. If you'd like to see how things went for the group last year, check out this post.

If you've heard enough, and you want to know how to get in on this, here's what you do:

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It’s hard to believe that Kirby is 20 years old now. The deceptively cute puffball brought a tremendous amount of whimsy to 8-and-16-bit consoles in the early ‘90s, and despite his games coming off as somewhat simple, the series has a strong following. But his career hasn’t been an easy one, and unfortunately the anniversary compilation Nintendo released to celebrate Kirby’s impressive lifespan highlights perhaps the lowest point for the pre-GameCube franchise: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.

The Nintendo 64 is my least favorite system to date, so that likely colors my opinion of Kirby 64. I feel it was an ambitious console for Nintendo, but the company’s refusal to abandon the cartridge format was a detriment to the hardware’s capabilities.

Kirby 64’s biggest problems aren’t hardware related, though. Between the Super Nintendo and the 64, Kirby underwent a horrible transformation. The whimsy in Dreamland was stripped down to base components and flat textures, and Kirby no longer put on adorable hats whenever he swallowed enemies to emulate their abilities. Instead, Kirby turns into a legless fireball and even rips off his own face to throw it like a boomerang.

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I’m quite happy that the Public Broadcasting System’s group of YouTube partners caters to my nerdy interests. This week, Mike Rugnetta of the PBS Idea Channel touches on what role the sale of digital items in Diablo III and other video games plays in real-world economies. Fun stuff, right?

I actually wish he went into greater detail about the impact these emerging economies have in the marketplace instead of just glancing over the subject. I'm also not a fan of Rugnetta using leading questions as titles for his videos. Nevertheless, I find it fantastic that PBS is promoting these kinds of digital, 21st century ideas and discourse.  

Rugnetta has another video that explores the cross section of the pixelated, Lego-style game Minecraft, a 3D printer, and a post-scarcity economy. Essentially, he imagines a world where people could create an unlimited number of physical objects. He also believes that Super Mario Bros. is the ultimate piece of surrealist art.

For more PBS-supported video game content, check out the Off Book channel. It features a couple of mini-documentaries on glitch art and the nostalgic aesthetics of 8-bit graphics. 

Obviously, these topics are all pretty niche and not very marketable to mainstream audiences, but isn't that what the spirit of public broadcasting is all about? Documenting and dissecting video game and Internet culture is tremendously important since everything moves so quickly. So kudos, PBS. Keep up the great work. 

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I recently attended a preview event for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and played two matches of the game's one-vs.-one multiplayer mode. I lost both of them.

So here I am, still stewing over the embarrassing beat-downs with no chance for redemption anytime soon because the final retail release of this strategy game (based on 1994's fan-favorite X-COM: UFO Defense) is still a few weeks away (October 9).

So I decided to enlist the help of Jake Solomon, lead designer of Enemy Unknown at developer Firaxis. If he can't help me put together the perfect squad of customizable soldiers and aliens (who are invasive foes in the normal single-player campaign but mixed-team allies in multiplayer), then no one can.

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