Bitmob.com

Bizarre Creations developers Geb Talbot and Garreth Wilson join Dan Hsu, Demian Linn, and Brett Bates on this week's show, which kicks off Bitmob's "3 Great Prizes, 3 Ways to Win" giveaway. 

The group recalls their favorite racing games, pit Bad Company 2 against Modern Warfare 2, suggest N64 games that need to be re-released, and discuss just how aware game reviewers need to be about other forms of media.

Have a question you want answered? Want to share some important insight with the world? E-mail the crew at letters@bitmob.com.

Click here to find out how you can get in on the "3 Great Prizes, 3 Ways to Win" giveaway.

27

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

True story: When I interviewed to work at the Apple store last week, they asked what I thought of gaming on the Mac. I lamented that not having Steam sets it behind the PC, so in a way, I called this.

News Blips:

Valve announces plans to bring the popular digital distribution platform Steam to the Mac. In a press-release, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell stated that the Steam Play feature "allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge." Furthermore, the company plans to have players on both platforms "share the same multiplayer universe" (servers, lobbies, etc.). Hurray -- soon the stigma of being a Mac gamer will (hopefully) be erased! 

Yesterday, a group of hackers attacked Ubisoft's DRM servers that players use to access the single-player campaigns of Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 for PC. The company confirmed (via a tweet) that the attack on their servers resulted in "limited service" for a small group of players trying to access said titles for a period of six and a half hours. Today Ubisoft tweets that their servers are on the defense again and "some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in." How nice it sounds to be one of Ubisoft's paying customers. 

3

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

At the risk of being publicly flogged for making an outdated Xzibit reference, I'm happy to announce that all you folks who (I've heard) like Bitmob can now have "Bitmob in your Bitmob," as it were, on your browser.

Simply click on the links below to install a Bitmob theme on your preferred browser. Note that you'll need to be on Firefox 3.6+ to install Personas (fancy Firefox lingo for "themes") and on Chrome 3.0+ to install the theme.

Enjoy -- and I would love any feedback or suggestions for future Bitmob-related stuff!

• Personas for Firefox | Bitmob 1.1
  
• Bitmob.com Theme - Google Chrome Extensions
  

17

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Editor’s note: Part of my love for video games is dissecting their inner parts, which means breaking down the systems that govern play. Suriel makes a strong case that players will be more satisfied with their victories when they understand exactly how a game's design works. -Rob

In December of 2009, Steve Horvath, vice president of marketing and communications for board- and card-game publisher Fantasy Flight Games, announced that the company would no longer continue to support the Universal Fighting System (UFS), a card game based on fighting franchises such as Street Fighter, Soulcalibur, and Tekken.

As huge fan of UFS (though, I had stopped playing in May of last year), I decided to revisit what cards I had left and mess around with some new decks. I quit because of the money-sink that any collectible-card game eventually becomes, not because I had fallen out of love with it.

UFS was complex even by its peers’ standards. The game was governed by a set of rules that define how play unfolds, but its design was based directly on fighting games. Players controlled one character and performed and blocked attacks through control checks. Rules consisted of symbols, card difficulties, effects, and phases that took place in set orders¹ -- all things that intimidated casual players.

A recent mantra of many developers and publishers today is that simpler is better -- that complexity is off-putting to key demographics who just want to enjoy a game. It's certainly easy to connect complexity with difficulty because an increased number of limits can seem restrictive, and therefore, more burdensome to manage.

But like harder video games, the sense of accomplishment that comes from achieving victory under such restrictions and obstacles can be far more satisfying than a system without any sort of limits or rules.

3

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

This week on Hit or Miss: The industry goes flippin' nuts. Seriously, you know it was an interesting week when the word "apocalypse" was bandied and it was only slightly an exaggeration. Add to the Great Global PS3 Fail the insanity that went down at Infinity Ward, and it was as though the Great Reckoning of Our Time was finally upon us. Luckily for me, I love reckonings.

Oh, also this week: Portal 2 was announced and people were allowed to be gay on Xbox Live.

3

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

 I take a break from the tedium of midterm exams to bring you this fine edition of the Community Spotlight. I don't suppose any of you would like to take my Japanese exam for me? I can pay you absolutely nothing for your trouble and may resent you if you tarnish my precious 100 percent in the class. But if you're game, the offer stands.

Jeffery Michael Grubb starts with the results of his Frogger high score challenge, which weren't easy to collect thanks to my ever-so-helpful recommendation of a version of Frogger that erases its scoreboards every day. Chris Cosmo Ross is next with a horrifying depiction of a sociopathic game store owner's assault of a minor and slobbering lunacy about Final Fantasy 13 on the 360. Mohammad AlHuraiz keeps the bad decision train a-rolling with his account of gaming in the United Arab Emirates.

Patrick Ryan Gan examines why certain styles of gameplay eventually fade from popular gaming, and shows how the days of JRPGs as we know them may be numbered. Finally, Derek Lavigne calls upon the Bitmob community to help him choose a game to play. Lie to him, it's the only way to force him to make the right decision....

Bitmob High Score Challenge: Frogger Results
By Jeffrey Michael Grubb
If you're on edge about the results of Jeff's recent Frogger high score challenge, you can relax. The numbers are in, and despite my best efforts, I didn't even rank. You can check out who scored the best and get in your late entries for the next contest: the Facebook game Word Challenge. You can tell I had no part in the game selection process this time, because, unlike Frogger, scores are easy to report and save!

1

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Quick show of hands: How many Bitmob community members will be able to make the nerd comedy show/Bitmob Meet-Up tonight in San Francisco, CA? Please let us know in the comments below.

I need to know how many free gifts I should attempt to bring to hand out to you guys. But I have a feeling we won't have as good of a turnout due to timing, spring break, and lighter-than-usual wallets (don't forget our discount Bitmob promo code, though) -- which means those that do show up will have a better chance at getting something cool!

6

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Editor's Note: Frank again reminds us that video games can have a positive influence on the world. I agree with him, and I hope he continues this series. - Jay

If you asked most people to write down their opinions of the average gamer, the word charitable would probably not be on that list. However, this perception may soon change. Video-game  charities pop up every day, and the amount of money they donate is far from insignificant.

For an idea of how widespread video-game charities are becoming, all you need to do is head towards Google. A search for the phrase 'video game charity' currently shows 19,100,000 results. While many of these hits point to articles such as this one, you don't need to look much further than this very site to see solid evidence that game charities have become pervasive.

4

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Editor's note: Daniel's walk down memory lane is a brilliant beginning to a new meme on Bitmob. To join in the fun, write about your own gaming decade and tag it "My Gaming Decade." I'll collect them all in a future post. -Brett 

If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I had a great decade. Each year of the 2000s ended better than the last. I was reminded of this when I read Stephen Totilo’s brief recap of his “gaming decade” on Kotaku. Inspired, I present to you a summary of my gaming decade:

2000: I discovered the magic of console modding. My modded NeoGeo was largely a novelty, allowing me to access the DIP switches and uncensor certain fighting games, but my modded Dreamcast became my gateway to imported games from Japan. I’m certain this prolonged exposure to a language I couldn’t understand piqued my interest in Japanese, convincing me to take a night class that fall.

2001: Those lessons inspired me to visit Japan for the first time, where I fell in love with...a Golgo 13 sniper arcade game. Whereas most gun games cast you as a cop, giving you an implicit mandate that your on-screen targets are dangerous criminals, Golgo 13 -- Japan’s favorite professional hitman -- has no such ethical considerations. When the game asked me to snipe a woman’s high-heeled shoe so she’d fall down a stairway to her death, I didn’t even blink. I had never played such an amoral game before.

15

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Gaijin Games should sponsor a marathon to promote Bit.Trip Runner...and put all sorts of obstacles on the course for people avoid.

Video Blips:

2

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Editor's note: Phew! Just made it.... What's the point in having a monthly breakdown of a laundry list of releases if we don't post it until the second week in? Anyway, Jeremy takes the mounds of press and hype surrounding March's RPG releases and cuts them down to easily digestible -- and informational -- morsels. -James

Role-playing-game fans live in a wealth of riches these days. The genre receives entries from all corners of the world and with different styles. This can make it hard for gamers to makes sense of the multitude of releases. But take heart! This monthly column breaks down each month's RPG releases, including gameplay descriptions and word on the street about a game's quality.

It seems March is the new November, especially for RPGs. A ton of significant releases are hitting store shelves this month, not the least of which are new entries into two long-running franchises. It certainly is an exciting time to be an RPG fan, so let’s have at it!

The Main Event:
Final Fantasy 13 (PS3/360)
Release Date: March 9

Let’s face it: The release of a new mainline Final Fantasy is essentially a national holiday for JRPG fans. North America’s most beloved and progressive franchise in the genre always attempts to be at the forefront of narrative and gameplay trends, and this entry is no different. Fans are already hotly debating the way the title streamlines many RPG tropes. The game is extremely linear both figuratively and literally. Square has scrapped traditional towns for the most part and have completely excised seemly sacred elements that don’t fit in to the game. While many see this shakeup of traditional JRPG values as blasphemous, it also illustrates how stuck in a rut the genre is. Besides, streamlining worked wonders for Mass Effect 2, so why not here? Add that to what is said to be the most exciting Final Fantasy battle system yet, and we have may have yet another fresh take on the genre from the industry leader. That said, fans haven’t historically taken to drastic changes in the franchise. Final Fantasy 12 was another fresh take on the formula, and that installment polarized fans. Will 13 do the same?

3

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Editor's note: Inspired by used books, Chase has an interesting idea on his hands. But I fear that it's implementation wouldn't unfold exactly as he imagines. The hint system of Demon's Souls generally works because all available messages consist of preset text. Left to their own devices, I think too many players would succumb to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Despite Demon's Souls safeguard, the misuse of "sticky white stuff" is evidence enough for me. -Rob

I like to read books. I don’t do it often enough -- as evidenced by Atlas Shrugged, a collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories, The Basic Kafka, and plenty more titles all gathering dust on my shelf -- but I try.

My favorite things about books -- that are, sadly, fading away due to devices like the Apple iPhone and Amazon Kindle -- are the abilities to write in the margins and look through the footnotes.

I love to pick up an old, dusty book and see into someone else’s mind by reading his comments. It’s like a mini time capsule. Unfortunately, this is a feature games haven’t really incorporated.

9

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody: