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Today on the Community Spotlight we’ve got: badly planned tribute albums, memes, tricky puzzles, a personal account of why gaming is beneficial, and further Street Fighter coverage.

Sega Celebrates 32X Anniversary With Music CD
By Jonathan Ore
Oh the 32X, you poor and much-maligned add-on for the Sega Genesis…. I recently added a 32X to my console collection, one that surprisingly was in perfect working order and in a box!  Jonathan does have a point here, though. Sega releasing a 15th anniversary soundtrack isn’t really the most joyous of celebrations for this short-lived and under-supported peripheral -- with such a limited library to draw from, the best highlights from just about every non-sports-game soundtrack should've been the focus. Is this tribute a sad reminder of the terribly expensive paperweight of the mid-90s?

Final Fantasy 13: Hope’s Mom Begins Next Meme
By Chris Cosmo Ross
Chris makes it possible to launch a new meme on the Internet as he explains the ironically hilarious death of a Final Fantasy 13 character’s mother. Help him transform this badly timed and repeated line into the next Internet sensation. But you don't need to specifically tag your entries "moms are tough." A simple Final Fantasy 13 tag will do. 

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By the time you read this, PAX East will have officially begun -- and if the guest list to Bitmob's meet-up is any indication, plenty of you will be in Boston with me, Mike Minotti, and Pixel Revolt hosts Derek Lavigne and Jeff Grubb.

While you're waiting for the next panel to start or waiting in an epic line for five minutes with an upcoming game, why not write an article for Bitmob? Over the weekend and into the next week, we'll be collecting all of the PAX-related stories in this content hub.

So to find out the latest and greatest goings-on of the Bitmob community at PAX East, this is your place. Check back often!

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Editor's note: Michael is definitely on to something here: About a year ago, I went back and played a game called Kangaroo that I loved as kid. What a stinker! -James.

A few days before Microsoft released Perfect Dark on Xbox Live Arcade, the game had already become the sixth-highest-rated game on the service with a score of four-and-a-half stars out of five.  Obviously, Xbox Live users weren’t judging the remake since it hadn't been released yet. So what were they rating? Was it the original N64 game? Or were they rating their memories? My guess would be the latter, and though the enhanced version turned out pretty well, gamers need to be aware of something I like to call “nostalgia burn.”

Many lists and conversations about the greatest games of all time include Perfect Dark’s predecessor, GoldenEye 007. But ask a fan to play it now, and their reaction may be somewhat different.  Aside from its incredibly dated graphics, the gameplay is very primitive for a console first-person shooter. It broke ground at the time -- especially for a genre that was a dud on the TV -- but playing it now is quite shocking.

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What's Cosplay Friday? Why, it's a thing I just made up. It's a day for sharing pictures of normal people, like you and me, dressed as video game characters. Oh, the novelty!

GamingBolt put together a collection of 25 awesome gaming cosplayers. Two of my favorites were tributes to Assassin's Creed 2's Ezio and Shadow of the Colossus' Wander:

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Last month, I promoted a video directed by Brian Schmoyer, an aspiring flash filmmaker. Entitled "The Only Thing I Know," Brian's film used anecdotal and circumstantial evidence to deliver a clear yet misguided message: Don't let video games ruin your life.

As expected, the online gaming community came out in droves to call attention to the inaccuracies and generalizations that plagued Brian's five-minute lecture. Instead of acknowledging and rectifying his own lack of willpower, the director blamed video games for his poor health, failed marriage, and loneliness.

Well, Brian's back! But instead of shoving our faces in his new and improved lifestyle, he hopes to clarify some misconceptions about his video, respond to his supporters, and speak to his detractors.

While Brian doesn't address most of our concerns with his original film, I'll admit that his concluding remarks hit home. For what it's worth, Brian seems like a nice guy, and I sincerely hope he's met with success in his filmmaking career.

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With all the hype about the Halo: Reach beta, sometimes I almost forget that Bungie's making an actual game.

News Blips:

Bungie plans to release new Halo: Reach info, images, and video every Friday until the game's debut in April. Interested parties should keep an eye on Bungie.net beginning tomorrow for new details about the game's different features and multiplayer experience. I think they should do this on Mondays instead, so people could be more excited to start the week. 

Speaking to Now Gamer, Infinity Ward Community Manager Robert Bowling feels that the $15 Stimulus Package maps for Modern Warfare 2 are worth the cost. Bowling has "no doubt that anyone who downloads this map pack is going to get their money's worth," as he argues that the extra levels will add plenty of replay value to the game for those who play multiplayer every night, like he does. I could make fun of the absurdity of the comment, but really, what's he supposed to say? Yeah, I know charging that much money for maps is kind of a rip-off, but you know you're going to buy it, anyway. 

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Have you ever wondered what really goes on at game conferences? Sure, you read the previews hurriedly put up by the major game sites, but what about the show itself? What stories are hidden there?

A year ago, I was just another guy who loved games. Now, after rising through the ranks from community member to staff member at Bitmob, I got to attend the 2010 Game Developers Conference -- my first conference ever as press. Read on for my tale of life behind the velvet rope.

Behind the Velvet Rope: My First Game Conference as Press (Part 1)
Behind the Velvet Rope: My First Game Conference as Press (Part 2) -- You are here

Day 3

The show floor -- the mecca of any game convention. The place where anything goes as long as it draws attention to a product...booth babes taking photos with clammy nerds, fistfuls of tchotchkes shoved in your face at every opportunity, or, in the case of the Game Developers Conference, showing off a giant virtual reality hamster ball.

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Hey, did you read Dan Hsu's article on the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack maps? Well, check out the video blips first, and then go read it. 

Video Blips:

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Welcome to the Community Spotlight, slightly revised format edition (I cut down on the fluff and get to the stories faster than ever before). Today we’re covering Final Fantasy 13 and it's place in the world of RPGs, amazing fan art, excellent multiplayer racing games, and one man’s annoyance with snipers in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Searching For the Crystals: My 20 Years With Final Fantasy
By Chris Scott
While waiting for his copy of Final Fantasy 13 to arrive, Chris decided to take a look back at the last 20 years of Final Fantasy. His love is not blind, but his account of child-like wonder to deep disappointment with the series captures how I feel about these games, and likely how many others do as well. Of course, this is only further proof that I’m the only person who loved Final Fantasy 12 from the moment it launched up through the present day....

Sketching Game Characters
By Cody Winn
Passible sketching skills indeed, Cody! When he isn’t writing about games, Cody creates these amazing sketches of video game characters. Once only viewable if you followed NintendoTheory on twitter, you can now browse through his stunning little gallery on Bitmob. Keep 'em coming, Cody!

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Apparently an evening spent playing Modern Warfare 2 won't prepare you for real combat. Regardless of their realism or level of violence, video games do not produce competent soldiers. On the contrary, they create weak ones -- at least, that's what the U.S. Army thinks.

For the first time in 30 years, the Army is seriously adjusting its basic training practices in order to cope with a "softer" generation raised on video games and the Internet. The overhauled boot camps will emphasize physical strength, disciple, and melee combat -- traits often ignored by today's generation of recruits.

With all the unmanned aerial vehicles soaring over Afghanistan, it's all too easy to think of war as a photo-realistic video game. But Lt. General Mark Hertling made it clear in an NPR interview, "It's just a softer generation." 

So the next time you load up Bad Company 2, drop and give yourself 50 push-ups [Switched via NPR].

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I thought I knew what to expect from my first Game Developers Conference -- after all, last year I had borrowed my friend's expo pass to sneak onto the show floor for a morning -- but the difference between being a wide-eyed gate-crasher and a member of the media is the difference between attending a formal in a staid black jacket and a sequined blazer rimmed with foot-long tassels: You're a bit more noticeable.

I felt this acutely when, as I munched innocently on a dry sandwich at a communal table in the lunch room, a green-shirted staff member turned to me and asked me to please not write about their discussion of how they got into the industry. Despite the ridiculousness of the comment -- did this guy really think his run-of-the-mill tale warranted discretion? -- the point hit home. I wouldn't be a mere observer this time around.

Because even though the Game Developers Conference is ostensibly for game developers, the press plays a vital role in bringing attention to their games, middleware, audio equipment, and giant virtual-reality hamster balls. And that attention, they hope, will eventually reward them with large piles of money.

Behind the Velvet Rope: My First Game Conference as Press (Part 1) -- You are here
Behind the Velvet Rope: My First Game Conference as Press (Part 2)

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Editor's note: Suriel asks a difficult question about the limits of a video game as an expressive experience. I'm not sold on the idea that a first-person shooter can provide the deft touch that a topic like genocide requires. Perhaps it's possible in another genre, but even then, I have my doubts. It seems Suriel agrees. -James

Watching the movie Hotel Rwanda in my AP English class over the last couple of days, I began to take interest in the Interahamwe Hutu tribe soldiers -- more interest, in fact, than the Tutsi refugees they were attempting to kill. I'm not callous to the plight of the Tutsi, and I'm not siding with the Hutu. I just had a morbid curiosity about the convictions of the soldiers and the conditions of a nation that could lead to the genocide of over 100,000 people.

As many of you likely know, the reasons for the genocide are complex and would take too much time to detail here. What's important for the sake of this article -- and how it relates to video games -- is the way that the Interahamwe serve as the villain in Hotel Rwanda: In many respects, they are an enemy more dangerous and unnerving than any of the zombies, armored soldiers, or monsters that serve as cannon fodder in many titles.

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