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Battle-hardened soldiers march across war-torn combat zones. Machines of impossibly awesome, destructive capabilities scatter enemy units and turn the tide of conflict.

My attention darts back-and-forth in all directions -- the enemy assaults my resource collection through the backdoor, all the while heavy resistance stalls my efforts on the front lines! Scouts report that the enemy set up an expanded base of operations!

Whoever said real-time strategy is a dead genre hasn’t been paying attention. Supreme Commander 2 is out. Dawn of War 2’s first expansion, Chaos Rising, is on the way. And two other upcoming titles -- both continuations of RTS stalwarts -- are running betas to polish their gameplay: Starcraft 2 and Command & Conquer 4.

I’ve had some time with each, which has revealed that these games are walking down wildly different paths. My impressions are by no means a complete commentary on either game (since these are just betas at the moment), and Blizzard or EA LA could alter anything by the time of this writing.

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I never find puzzle games that grab me until the second installment is out, but I think Blosics 2 stands in its own world of crazy-hard time wasters with physics mechanics. 

Unlike most of the puzzles I've featured, Blosics requires you to carefully angle shots with a variety of shot sizes. Each shot costs points, and the goal of each level isn't to clear the screen of green blocks, but to earn and maintain a score of 100. Sounds simple enough, right? This game is driving me mad. 

The example I've given in the picture is easy enough to solve; however, as you progress, you have to angle shots through mazes of score-destroying red blocks and skillfully bounce them off rubber bumpers. I may have met my puzzly match in this. 

Play Blosics 2 here -- if you dare. 

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I should've known that something weird was going on today when my bowl of alphabet cereal spelled out "those Framerated guys will confuse the hell out of you". Yep, it said all of that.

Video Blips:

• The zany bunch at Framerated throws us in a loop by playing through the first 30 (yes, 30!) minutes of Final Fantasy 13. I feel like I'm in a time paradox -- where's my Delorean when I need it?

Continue after the break for a return to the world of Zenozoik in Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition, some timely saves by the goalies of FIFA World Cup: South Africa, and a reminder of the inherent dangers in owning a Portal gun.

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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.

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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. 

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Editor's note: Did last week's PS3 debacle leave you staring blankly at your TV screen, slack-jawed and unsure what to do with your life? Check out Alex's list of similar game company screw-ups for some solace. -Brett

Sony did its best to ruin St. David's Day (Monday, March 1) for Welsh gamers with the "ApocalyPS3" -- clearly an anti-Celt effort to overshadow Wales's national day. While the problem -- due to faulty internal clocks on older PS3s -- fixed itself in the end, it got me thinking: How have other game companies dropped the ball in the past?

The World of Warcraft "Corrupted Blood" Plague (Blizzard)

This one was actually fun to watch. A glitch caused a disease intended to be confined to only one area to spread to the entire world of the World of Warcraft. It gradually reduced players' health -- not a big problem for higher-level players, but it killed others in seconds flat. Good Samaritans spent their time setting up virtual clinics and directing people away from infected areas, while pranksters (or assholes, depending on your point of view) deliberately spread the disease until Blizzard reset the servers.

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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
  

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Looks like EGM[i]: The Digital Magazine will animate in ways that were previously only achievable while reading the EGM print magazine under the influence of mind-altering hallucinogens...I imagine.

Video Blips:

• In case you were wondering, here's a glimpse at how EGM[i] is set to work. It's pretty cool, even though I was hoping for some kind of crazy LCD-screen/magazine-paper hybrid. Sigh. I can only dream. [EGMNOW]

Continue after the break for some Super Street Fighter 4 training from fighting-game guru Justin Wong, the gangstalicious Mafia 2 trailer, and a mini-documentary on NASCAR in Gran Turismo 5.

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It is finally time for our hero to confront his evil cousin, Arthas. This comic is sure to be epic! Well, maybe. I won't make any promises.

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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.

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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.

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If it hasn't already, Doom 2 should win the award for the most modified (and still played) video game ever made. Quite a few of the player-created levels are impressive and fun to play, but not many are made by a lead programmer of another popular game series. Instead of taking a well-deserved rest after the release of Bioshock 2, JP LeBreton (creative force behind the Arcadia and the Farmer's Market areas of the second installment of Bioshock) has re-created Rapture's Arcadia in an impressive level of the ancient Id shooter.

LeBreton used a modern-day Doom 2 editor called SLADE to "demake" this level. You can download this great tribute to two familiar game franchises here for free.

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