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Amateur ghost hunters take notice. You can use the Kinect for Xbox 360 to detect spirits. Well, my girlfriend, her cousins, and I did once. 

We were getting our groove on with Dance Central back when Microsoft's motion-controlled camera device was still fresh on the market.

During one particular session, we noticed something abnormal. Midway through a psychedelic freestyle interlude -- where the player takes a creative break from mimicking the in-game dancers -- we noticed an extra person on the screen ... who was not in the room. The infrared camera inside the Kinect appeared to detect an energy source in the shape of a small child.

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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 examine how PlayStation All-Stars tries to shed the "Smash Bros. clone" tag, discuss David Jaffe's thoughts on video-game storytelling, and wonder why we still get so many sequels. Join us!

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is trying to separate itself
By Ethan Clevenger

"If you were hoping to play Smash Bros. with PlayStation characters," Ethan writes, "you'll be sorely disappointed. While the general concept is there, the game as a whole is far from a carbon copy, which may be a good or bad thing." I do love some Smash, but I'm looking forward to trying a different style of fight.

Jaffe, you so crazy (or not): Storytelling in video games
By Javy Gwaltney

Javy breaks down Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe's comments on how storytelling "stunts the growth of video games." Javy writes: "What Jaffe is missing out on is the fact that games aren’t trying to be movies but are instead trying to achieve a happy medium that offers interactivity and a cinematic experience." What do you think?

The never-ending year of sequels
By Thomas Bobyn

If it seems like every year could be called the "year of sequels," well, Thomas says you're probably right. He says that sequels are safe bets for publishers trying to turn a profit. But that doesn't mean we have to complain, Thomas argues: "Rather than fighting the barrage of sequels that comes at us 12 months a year, we as a gaming community should learn to minimize the pre-determined bias we have about sequels."

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I teach a freshman-level composition course at a state university in Georgia as part of fulfilling my graduate assistantship. The focus of this course is primarily rhetoric.

There was a day on the syllabus calendar this semester I intentionally left blank because it was the day one of my students' term papers was due. I decided I would come up with a relatively easy activity that wouldn’t overtax their poor brains. They had, after all, been writing about David Foster Wallace's famous commencement speech. (I'm both merciful and cruel like that.)

It wasn’t until two days before "lax day" that I decided what I was going to do, and it had started out as a joke with a colleague. He was a fellow gamer who I had just introduced to the delightfully hilarious package of meta-jokes known as The Stanley Parable.

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Recently, one of my biggest fears came to fruition: Games journalists admitted to -- and defended -- promoting video games to win free stuff. I take this issue to heart, not because I'm also a games journalist, but because I'm a regular gamer who wants to trust the things I read and use that information to make decisions about which games I play. This isn't about people getting perks because they're in the industry, this is an issue of integrity.

How am I supposed to trust a journalist when they've accepted freebies from game companies (and no, I don’t count a game for review as a freebie), or actively try to get free things by promoting a product? The obvious answer is that I can't trust them, not anymore. Perhaps they’ll say that they don’t care if I trust them, but I’m their readership. They write so I can read it, plain and simple. When the readership doesn't trust the writer, the writer's words are meaningless. Site traffic goes down, and a black mark is put on that writer in the eyes of gamers.

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We're about to enter the crazy period of time in our industry known as the holidays, but check out these reviews for some classic titles and recent releases that you might have missed before all of those triple-A experiences swamp your gaming collection.

Gravity Rush: More, please
By Billy Guinigundo

Gravity Rush is my game of the year so far. I don't think Billy is quite as enthusiastic as I am, but he still has a lot of nice things to say about this PlayStation Vita exclusive. "The gravity-shifting mechanic created a vertical dimensionality to the play space that was parts disorienting, creative, and, ultimately, exhilirating."

The best of gaming horror: Evil comes to Raccoon City
By Stan Rezaee

Stan looks back at Resident Evil 2, one of the most popular survival-horror games for the original PlayStation. "Despite its now obvious plot holes and anomalies, Resident Evil 2 still remains a classic example of a good horror game and a sequel that successfully improved over its predecessor."

Holding up in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
By Javy Gwaltney

Let's keep the classic vibe going with Javy's review of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. How does it hold up? Pretty well, according to Javy. "The graphics haven’t aged well, sure, but everything else is just as superb as it was a decade ago."

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According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, to glorify something is to make it “glorious by bestowing honor, praise, and admiration.”

One of the charges that has always been levied at controversial video games is that many of them glorify violence. Now, there are certain games that I would be hard-pressed to make a compelling defense for, such as Postal; however, there have been certain games that have successfully sidestepped that criticism by giving the player the choice to commit or refrain from violence.

Think about Grand Theft Auto III. To progress through the game, you must kill mafia members and other undesirables, but the game never requires that you to progress through the story to play it. Think about it. You can play taxi driver or cruise around town blasting the radio or just walk about, observing the denizens of Liberty City as they go about their lives. It may be boring as hell, but the option to play the game without maiming a single person is there.

And then we have the middle ground: Hotline Miami. I’m not going to waste time reviewing the game as there are plenty of fantastic reviews out there. I do, however, want to focus on the violence in this game since it’s clearly been one of its selling points.

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Yeah, the game doesn't come out until the 30th. But we just can't wait.

The Assassin's Creed series is finally getting a new numbered entry, and we want you, the noble Bitmob community, to write about it.

The usual rules apply: You're welcome to write up a simple review if you like, but we'd love to see you tap into that famous Bitmob creativity, too. It doesn't have to be long or fancy...anything that tells us how you feel about the game is fine by us.

If you do need a few ideas, feel free to use any of these:

• How does AC3's colonial-America setting change the fundamental gameplay, if at all?
• As new protagonist Connor Kenway, you'll fight foes from both sides of the American Revolution. How does that affect your motivation as a player?
• You'll meet more recognizable historical figures in AC3. How accurately are they portrayed?

Ready to write? Here's how to participate:

1. Write any article related to Assassin's Creed 3. A few hundred words will suffice, although you can go longer if you'd like.

2. Make sure you put Assassin's Creed 3 (note: not III) in the tags for your article -- and don't forget to tag any other games you mention.

3. Submit your articles to the Mobfeed by Wednesday, November 7. We'll publish the collected works the following day.

Sound good? Then grab your gear, Assassin, and get going.

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Developer Capcom unleashed Resident Evil 6, the latest installment in its survival-ish horror-y franchise a couple of weeks ago. I'm almost done with series...favorite(?) Leon Kennedy's campaign (one of three in the game), and while I'm not quite as down on this title as Bitmob and GamesBeat writer Jasmine Rea is, I have spent a lot of my time playing it scratching my head. I assume the head-scratching is out of confusion, but I guess I wouldn't rule out Zombie Flu (which is just like the regular flu, but with zombies).

Regardless, here are a few questions I have about Leon's latest adventures in babysitting. Because escort missions, am I right?

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No respect, I'm telling ya ... the Wii U gets no respect at all.

Sure, retail preorders for Nintendo's new console (releasing November 18 in the U.S.) sold out and now the grey market's gouging a few suckers for all they can, but I just don't sense much excitement around the Wii U. Nobody I personally know burns to possess one for anything other than business purposes. That's not a commentary on the quality of Nintendo's new machine, either. I've logged plenty of hours on a Wii U, and I know it's a solid platform with real potential for creating amazing experiences. But in a rapid-fire release season -- new Halo, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, and Call of Duty titles all drop within weeks or days of each other -- nobody's focused too hard on hardware.

And that's the thing. Some of those games arrive on the Wii U, too, but that's largely an afterthought. Call of Duty: Black Ops II releases on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 ... oh, and Wii U. A few days later. If you don't mind waiting.

That's fairly standard for Wii U releases. If feels like second-class treatment, and I suspect that's led to a (likely undeserved) second-class perception. Why aren't more people frothing at the mouth for a Wii U? What must the Wii U do to be the hardcore platform it wants to be and get the respect back?

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Gaming is huge for Apple. It represents a large chunk of its revenue from the App Store and a significant driver of sales for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch product lines. So it should be no surprise that Apple built the iPad mini for gaming. The mini fills an important niche between the pseudo-desktop, full-tablet iPad experience and the portable, but often-congested iPhone environment.

When it comes to gaming, the iPad is great because it offers a full-screen domain that rivals browser-based titles. Releases like Need for Speed Shift and Final Fantasy III can be displayed in beautiful high definition with plenty of real estate for interface elements or large battlefields. The problem, however, is that the iPad is too big for truly portable gaming. Its 9.7-inch screen is impossible to fully use with one hand and difficult to hold comfortably while standing on the subway. This led to the iPad being the device of choice for full-featured mobile games that are most commonly played at home in long sessions.

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Homebrew programmer Dennis Debro wanted to make a version of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 that was more faithful to the arcade original, and that's exactly what he did with Pac-Man 4K.

Using the same memory constraints as the underwhelming 2600 port, Debro managed to not only make a much more arcade-true maze layout and color scheme, but also drastically improve how the ghost AI works. He even added in extra fruit!

I wonder what it would have taken for programmers in 1982 to make a game anywhere near this accurate, or if this is a product of better tools. Either way, Pac-Man 4K looks pretty great and is available on Atari Age for $25. If you pick a copy, you also get a free magnet.

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I cleared a huge hurdle. I managed to produce a second episode of my video-game-culture webshow, One Million Hit Points. Actually, this is the premiere since the last one (with the senior citizens playing Wii Sports bowling) was technically the pilot. I’m confident that episode one is at least seven times better than episode zero. Wait….

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