Some of my earliest -- and favorite -- gaming memories involve the role-playing adventures of the '80s, games such as The Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, and Wizardry. My memories of playing The Bard's Tale on my Mom's Apple IIGS, mapping Mangar's Tower on a pad of graph paper while stealing a glimpse of my middle school crush as she walked by my house on her way to visit a friend after school, are fond indeed.

I miss those days.

Two years ago, Etrian Odyssey stoked those memories. The game's design, a purposefully throwback approach, was a delight, and I spent many commutes to work and late nights in my recliner exploring the labyrinth. The same sense of glee accompanied the game's second outing. Mega Man 9 and 1942: Joint Strike hit my retro sweetspot as well. (I apparently enjoy living in the past; I even wrote this commentary with the swingin' sounds of Les Brown and the Band of Renown in the background.)

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Nintendo has cooked up some pretty innovative ideas the past few years, no doubt. But the Wii Vitality Sensor isn't exactly making our hearts burn with desire. More like murmur with apathy.

News Blips:

• New knowledge of Wii Vitality Sensor causes excitement flatline. A trickle of info has come out on Nintendo's wacky new peripheral that will likely do little to get your heart pumped. Turns out the finger condom has a small light inside that will measure various things going down in your body (duh!). In one demo, you're tasked with the exhilarating act of breathing in time to a metronome. And, in another, it times how quickly you fall asleep due to utter boredom. Yawn... [Kotaku]

• Well, that's nice: Black people can play Project Natal, too. Seems Shoe's Project Natal impressions caused quite an Internet tizzy when he observed that dark-skinned game consultant N'Gai Croal had difficulty air-steering his virtual car during his demo. Well, it appears that Microsoft's new motion-control gizmo loves all races, as the company released a video of several famous African American sports stars pantomiming like pros. Support for Klingons? Now that's another story. [Kotaku]

• Crackdown 2 looks to encourage four-way orb-grabbing. The product page-searching sleuths over at VG247 discovered that Crackdown 2's official page reveals the game might include 4-player co-op and 16-player multiplayer matches. If this doesn't pan out, we're totally suing Microsoft for false advertising. [VG247]

• Clutter your apartment with plastic crap for cheap. GameStop is slashing the prices on all versions of Rock Band and Guitar Hero in case you haven't annoyed your neighbors yet. [Kotaku]

• Armageddon is upon us: Dynasty Warriors spin-off canceled for America. It turns out that Warriors Orochi Z, a spin-off that combines both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, is not coming to America. God help us all! [Kotaku]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including a World War 2 zombies, picture-perfect African animals, Tetris porn, and...more.

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Editor's Note: Check out Suniel's wrap-up of E3 2009's biggest suprises and disappointments. In particular, the "disappointment" label on some hotly anticipated games will undoubtedly take some of you by surprise. -Greg

Doing lists is always fun, and with E3 over now, the "Game of Show" lists and the like will soon be popping up on websites everywhere. The thing is, it can be hard to judge the quality of a game just playing a small portion of it (or watching, for those of us who were at home). Most of us do that anyway, but instead of judging the quality of the games, this list is based primarily on the impression that the games made on me, be it good or bad.

Five Games That Surprised Me:

The Beatles: Rock Band: Since the wonderful cinematic trailer was shown at Microsoft's press conference on Monday, I've been tracking this game, looking at all of the songs being performed, watching demonstrations of the game, and looking at a digital version of Paul McCartney more than I should have any right to.

It's funny, really, because I thought of myself as someone who was past all of this rhythm-game nonsense, and maybe I am since I'm not excited for most other musical offerings and I didn't get Rock Band 2 or anything past Guitar Hero 3. Something about the Beatles as a band speaks to me, though. I've never considered myself a fan of them before, yet I'm liking what I'm hearing.

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We've got first-hand E3 stories, how Microsoft can 'win Japan' with Project Natal, Metal Gear Solid: Rising conspiracy theories, and other can't-miss posts from around the Bitmob community....

The More You Know: Overheard at a Game Store
I love this collection of misinformed quotes collected by Jasmine Maleficent Rea during the course of employment at various game shops. "Final Fantasy 7 is actually the first Final Fantasy. 'All them others is nonsense.'"

What Can We Expect From Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Matthew Floratos does some in-depth hypothesizing about Hideo Kojima's MGS: Rising, cyborg ninjas, and Crystal Pepsi product placement.

Open Source Natal Concept 1: Rhythm Game
Inspired by David Costellos's post about how Project Natal could work with existing franchises, Alexei GB (GB? That's a last name now?) wants you to brainstorm Project Natal game concepts with him. So far, he's got Saturday Night Fever. I offer Being Ernest, a Hemingway-themed game with bullfighting, deep sea/fly fishing, big game hunting, boxing, ambulance driving, and heroic drinking.

Project Natal and Lilo: How Microsoft Can Sell Millions to Japan
Thomas Lin has the solution to Microsoft's sales problem in Japan. Hint: It has turquoise pigtails and anime eyes.

(E3, MAG, motion controllers, LittleBigPlanet, Stubbs the Zombie, E3, Left 4 Dead 2, more E3...and more, after the jump.)

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Editor's Note: Feeling a little jaded? Nick Dee shows why he's hopeful for the future. -Shoe

So I recently posted an article about the failure of the videogame medium to address certain key aspects of the human experience with an emphasis on its general denial that homosexuality exists in unstereotypical forms.

In response, fellow Bitmobber Brett Bates brought up this point: “With the explosion of more personal and boundary-pushing indie and downloadable games, I'm surprised we haven't seen more gay characters.”

And I could not agree more, but I’d like to take that idea a step further and hypothesize that the next generation of gaming is going to come from a boom of new innovation from independent developers.

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Sure, it takes two to tango, but it only takes one gun to kill both dancers. Add in another gun and, well, it's overkill (sorry, dancers!). But for the purpose of taking down multiple enemies (say vengeful family members of said dead dancers), having a co-op partner is definitely handy.

Army of Two: The 40th Day is all about that -- having a bud by your side during the heat of battle. But it seems like EA is trying to make killing dudes with your friend mean something more. In fact, in a game where you play as two badass mercenaries, they're trying to incorporate something seemingly ridiculous in the killing trade: morals.

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Throughout most of this year's E3, the Bitmob crew got pulled in every different direction trying to cover the show with our shorthanded staff. But The Beatles: Rock Band was the one time (well, outside of the requisite Big Three conferences) that most of us came together to enjoy a game. It's definitely my Game of the Show -- I already gushed about it over at 1UP (warning: obsessive Beatles fan mode ahead), but I made a return trip to MTV Games' booth when I heard Bitmob managing editor Greg Ford, staff writer Michael Donahoe, and Mobcast contributor Robert Ashley would be there. After all, while it was great to impersonate John Lennon with a few strangers, I knew the experience would be that much better with Robert as Paul McCartney, Greg as George Harrison, and Donahoe as Ringo Starr.

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This really was the best E3 in recent memory. The spectacle of the big show returned while being workable enough to allow us time to see nearly all our favorites on the show floor. The big publishers had decked out their booths with almost all playable games. The main complaint heard around the show floor this year: "How am I gonna afford all this shit?"

Before meandering our way up the desolate (and yet amazingly beautiful) 5 freeway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we had one, final, incredible day at E3. Getting to play some Left 4 Dead 2 was certainly a highlight, but the impromptu Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins hands-on experiences pretty much blew our pants off. Yes, we were pants-less in front of Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the two heads of BioWare that, prior to inviting us to come spend time with ME2 and DA:O graced us with a solid interview surrounding both those products and their upcomming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Tony Hawk: Ride introduced yet another plastic peripheral you'll likely have to find storage space for, and a couple of Xbox Live games -- Shadow Complex and 'Splosion Man -- surprised us with strong showings from out of nowhere.

Next week's show will be a compilation of some of the best moments from the live streams we had at E3 -- which will be in SD since our live streams were in SD -- and then the following week we'll be back with our premiere of Season 02! Hard to believe we've already gone through a complete season of CO-OP. We couldn't have done it without you! Come chat with us on our blog at http://area5.tv!

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You wouldn't be able to tell it from looking at her, but my girlfriend's tougher -- and more disturbed -- than most.

She cheered during Sony's E3 press conference when Kratos gutted open a centaur in God of War 3. She sits through disturbing foreign movies like Irreversible and Frontiers (American films are almost too tame for her) as if she's watching the latest from Pixar. And she shows her affection toward me not with random kisses, but with a series of pretend punches to my face, complete with sound effects.

She's tough -- I've never seen a violent videogame that she couldn't handle. She's even a Manhunt fan. Yet, when it came to the Overlord 2 demo, she turned into a total girlie girl, whimpering and almost crying because she reached a point where she couldn't continue any further....

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Trying to keep up with all of the downloadable games and content that's out there these days is enough to make a person cry. But cry no more, because Download Lowdown is here to help. Each week I'll sift through the good, the bad, and the weird to help you get the most from your game system of choice without leaving your house.

This week I relive the "Great Final Fantasy Heist of '97," crash and burn in Flight Control, save you $5 on Wolfenstein 3D, enjoy dying in Bango, type the name "Blue Suede Goo," and become hopelessly addicted to Star Defense.

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We spent time with dozens and dozens of games at last week's E3, from your Gods of Wars to a fishing game. Some were good, some weren't -- and some good ones may have seemed bad (or vice versa) because of how they were shown. And so, forthwith, we present the best and worst demos of E3 2009. (Many more after the jump.)

The Best:

The Beatles: Rock Band
"Two things make up a good demo: 1) A game that obviously shows well to an audience, and 2) A presenter who is every bit as entertaining as the game. The former is fairly easy to accomplish, but it's very rare when these two factors come together, like they did for The Beatles: Rock Band demo.

You've got the iconic songs of the Fab Four for starters, but it's also weirdly fun just to watch people play Rock Band (especially folks who obviously have a good time doing it, like the ones in our demo). Couple this with a witty presenter who wasn't afraid to make fun of himself (or the game) and an amazing room constructed to look like a recording studio and you have one damn good demo." -Michael Donahoe

RUSE
"This is a bit unfair to all those boring videogames being played on plain ol' HDTVs (how 2008 of them), but Ubisoft showed off real-time-strategy game RUSE on a giant, tabletop touch screen in their booth. The demo driver looked like a DJ from the future (or a tiny person playing on a giant iPhone) as his fingers swept, swooped, and danced all around the screen while he effortlessly and elegantly moved his units and panned the camera from sky down to street-level view." -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

Dance Dance Revolution Wii
"Last year, Konami badly botched their Rock Revolution E3 presentation when they shoved a marketing rep onstage to handle the plastic guitar -- in retrospect, we should've realized it was a portent of disastrous things to come.

This year, they took no such risks. Flamboyant, charismatic producer Naoki Maeda is DDR to many fans, and his flowing, dyed-brown locks took center stage in demonstrating the first major DDR revolution in a decade -- taking the series from the dancepad to the Balance Board. With his Elvis-style hip swiveling, Maeda's boundless enthusiasm infected the crowd and really showcased how the series will change on the Wii. And even communicating in broken English, the DDR legend proved that at E3, it's really all about enthusiasm, spirit, and evidence that you actually care about your product." -Andrew Fitch

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Although we think the World of WarCraft soda below is silly, it's not nearly as bad as the official WoW elf ears you can buy. Or good depending on which side on the irony line you're on.

News Blips:

• Personify a videogame stereotype by drinking World of WarCraft-branded Mountain Dew. In case you need to level up your nerd cred, Mountain Dew is releasing special WoW-themed beverages for you to sip on while you loot orcs with your guild. But, then again, if you're regularly playing WoW, your nerd cred is likely maxed out at level 80 already. [Joystiq]

• Valve finds chill pills in abandoned bathroom, hands to boycotters. Yesterday, we talked about how some angry Left 4 Dead fans are protesting the recently announced Left 4 Dead 2. Today, developer Valve responds saying their game is awesome. Tomorrow, nothing is resolved. [1UP]

• Sony thinks PSP is a loser, will not give it trophies. We (more like Shoe) love bragging about our in-game accomplishments, but if you're expecting the PS3's Achievement-like Trophies to eventually appear on the PSP, you're going to have wait the unbearably long time of never. Seems like the easily hackable ways of the PSP is keeping Sony from including the accomplishment trackers. You can always create your own trophies, though: Public Reputation Suicide -- Purchase Hanna Montana PSP bundle. [Joystiq]

• Koei Tecmo encourage employees to pop out human "sequels." The folks behind Dynasty Warriors and Dead or Alive are actually giving paid bonuses to workers who have multiple children, the biggest being $20,300 for those who have their third kid. Bet Octomom is pissed she didn't know about this sooner. [Kotaku]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including a Brutal Legend trailer, wacky Just Cause 2 antics, the secret to Space Invaders tactics, and...more.

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Rebel FM E3 Christmas Special

It's a very special Rebel FM Christmas! OK, so it's not really Christmas, but it's still a special show. Arthur, Anthony, and Tyler got together at a San Francisco IHOP to discuss (most) of the happenings of E3. Covering everything from the floor to the press conferences to Tyler's flight mishaps, the crew gets pretty deep as they chow down on some of the unhealthiest food imaginable. Stay tuned for another podcast later this week where they get deep into discussion about the various new interfaces that debuted at E3.

Zune link

Direct Download (right click save as)

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Thanks everyone for their questions. Let's get started.

Dear Dr. Baby,

In the event that one would want to create a game using the likeness and mass brainwashing abilities of Oprah, what would advice such a gamemaker to do? Gameplay ideas would be well appreciated so that the Oprah empire can continue its march towards global domination.

Somewhat Sincerely,
Matthew Moore

You sort of turned Yoda at the tail end of that first sentence, but I think I see what you're getting at. You want me to design an Oprah videogame. OK. NINJA CRIME IS RAMPANT IN US. OPRAH IS NO EXCEPTION. ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO OPRAH?

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Editor's note: Andrew's Nintendo conference post (linked below) caused a bit of a ruckus on the Internet, and we asked him to do a couple more. Click on that graph to see a larger version. -Demian

Click here for the full-sized graph (or here for a mirrored version)

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I talked about Modern Warfare 2 recently, but Activision had a lot more going on behind closed doors at E3. In particular, it continued to march its Hero brand forward in the form of Guitar Hero 5 and DJ Hero.

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Unless you're talking techie-geek stuff -- bits, bytes, and all that -- 256 isn't a very practical number. Yet that's the magical number of players that MAG (which previously stood for "Massive Action Game") supports. With each match lasting 20 minutes or longer, it seems that "practical" is an impossible concept with so many people playing this shooter at once.

Can it work? We had a ton of questions and concerns...and we found the answers at this past E3....

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Hmm, not a lot of news today. It's almost as if some big videogame convention happened last week. Nah. That's almost as silly as Microsoft and Sony both announcing motion-control devices to combat the Wii. That would never happen...

News Blips:

• Miyamoto flattered by Wii-nis envy. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto told BBC that he was flattered by Microsoft and Sony's new motion-control peripherals announced at last week's E3. Still, he claims both are still early and don't look to possess the same amount of depth as the Wii Motion Plus. Of course, he could have said this before he had a chance to preview Microsoft's Project Natal himself and experience the euphoric joy of spastic arm and leg flailing. Not any depth, huh? Sorry, Shiggy, but just flailing your arms is sooooo 2006. [1UP]

• Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters want to pick the brain of developer Valve, possibly eat it. Wow, these guys are pissed -- a bunch of angry Left 4 Dead fans are boycotting the recently announced sequel giving a slew of reasons why Valve should apologize for their nefarious sequel-making ways. We hate when companies make sequels, too! Don't get us started about how pissed we are about having to play another Super Mario Galaxy game. Ugh! [Kotaku]

• Internet meme put in Scribblenauts for teh lulz. In case you doubted how many random words/phrases can be conjured up in the innovative DS game Scribblenauts, the folks over at Joystiq discovered the Internet meme play him off, keyboard cat is officially in the game. Pretty cool. Though, sadly, we discovered another popular meme, 2 girls 1 cup, wasn't included. That stinks! [Joystiq]

• Perfect Dark XBLA screenshots look best in the light. Man, these shots look like ass. Oh, yeah -- this is a port of developer Rare's last first-person shooter for the Nintendo 64. So if we were to rewind our brains back to the year 2000 when this game came out, we're sure we'd compare these shots to a different body part. Elbow, maybe? [1UP]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including more Project Natal pimping, Shoe talks about the E3 press conferences, Conan O'Brien addresses his Mario-inspired set, and...more.

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Editor's note: Rock Band's (and Guitar Hero's) PR army loves to trickle out new track lists, but Benjamin may have gotten the jump on the PR drip feed with his analysis of the amazing The Beatles: Rock Band intro trailer. Check the jump for full details.... -Demian

Microsoft's E3 2009 press conference revealed ten songs from The Beatles: Rock Band. The final game will contain 45, and developer Harmonix is clearly planning to tease the rest for quite a while -- the game won't be out until 9.09.09.

The title's showcase at E3 also included the release of two videos; one of gameplay and one of the game's beautifully animated opening cinematic, directed by Paul Candeland of Passion Pictures. In preparation for a more general article on the game, I watched this cinematic for maybe the fifth time in the last four days when I began noticing some of the finer details. Now, many eager Beatles fans have already noticed that the video features three songs that weren't included in the original list of ten: "A Hard Day's Night," "Paperback Writer," and less prominently, "Twist and Shout." There's not a doubt in my mind that these songs will be included in the game.

However, there are several subtle references to Beatles songs hidden throughout the video. While it might be a stretch to assume that any of them will be playable, it's sure amusing to geek out about.

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