If Kratos's weapons are all available at the same time, that means he must store them somewhere on his half-naked body. But where?

Video Blips:

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Editor’s note: When I was younger, "children's games" never earned a spot in my collection simply because they were usually poorly executed. I suspect those experiences have carried over with journalists reviewing games today. And I fear that I won't have the same patience as Matthew to sit through Bakugan with my own son when he's older. I can only hope to instill a decent sense of taste.... -Rob

When I read reviews that are meant for a younger mindset, I cringe. No matter how many times the reviewer says that he’s doing so with respect to the game’s audience, you can tell that just isn’t true. I don’t know whether it’s because reviewers can’t think like a 9-year-old or that they’re just afraid of losing their “hardcore” cred in whatever culture they wrap themselves, but they miss the point every time.

Want to know how to review a game with adorable woodland creatures sporting googly eyes or whatever flavor-of-the-week cartoon character happens to be the current fad? You play the game with a kid.

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This week on Hit or Miss: Nintendo announces some release dates or something (is that a big deal?); Doritos tries to convince us that lending their brand to a "Pro-Gamer Combine" can make the idea of a "Pro-Gamer Combine" not-absurd; Tecmo tries to convince us any pornographic undertones in Dead or Alive: Paradise were totally "unintentional" (large, obvious wink); and Electronic Arts suggests the new Medal of Honor may -- gasp! -- actually be a thoughtful and empathetic examination of real-life combat in a big-budget shooter.

Where the hell do they get off, right?

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We've seen some amazing BioShock artwork and cosplay, but nothing says "I love Bioshock" like taking a chainsaw and carving a Big Daddy out of a tree. Something about the dedication Jason (hockey mask -- get it?) gives making this statue is equally inspiring and disturbing. [via Geekologie]:

Unless he gets paid for sculpturing wood, this guy is wasting his time in whatever profession he is currently employed in. History Channel's Ax Men needs to swoop down and sign this guy up immediately!

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Look alive, private! The week's over and we're buggin' out. You know what that means? That's right -- the Bitmob Reviews Spotlight!

Kevin Zhang-Xing steps front and center like a good soldier with his review of Aliens vs. Predator 2. What's the game like? FUBAR! The online servers are offline, the graphics are old, and the game's no longer scary. But how's the nostalgia factor? Scroll down to find out, son.

Thomas Johnson chimes in with another celebrated rivalry. But instead of predatory aliens battling it out, it's Plants vs. Zombies!

Have you ever been bullied in the past? I bet you have, you nerd! Well, now's your chance to get back at the high school jocks who tortured you, because in Bully, you play as one. Richard Moss fills us in.

According to Alex Martin, Kana: Little Sister will blow you mind. Short of being trippy, the Japanese visual novel follows a young girl who is hospitalized for renal failure. Sounds weird, doesn't it?

Lastly, Ben Maltz-Jones shares his opinions on Comet Crash, a downloadable game available on the PlayStation Network.

So square yourselves, gear up, and get to the choppa -- you're now entering the Spotlight!

Aliens vs. Predator 2 - 9 Years Later
By Kevin Zhang-Xing
Almost a decade has passed since most of us last occupied the blood-soaked boots of Corporal Harrison. Without a functional multiplayer component or the same graphical awe, how does Aliens vs. Predator 2 fare after so many years?

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Having this fancy new article editor has doubled the number of posts I've seen in the Mobfeed compared to recent months. Glad to see so many people are taking advantage of this opportunity and cranking out intriguing stories.

Jeremy Sigor starts with his stance on Darwinia+, and how developers could learn a thing or two about porting RTS games from PC to console based on Darwinia's XBLA release. Next, B.J. Saricks is fed up with 1-10 review systems that refuse to accept five as their average score. It's in the middle, what's the problem?

Fred Olson II finds comfort in assuming a decisive role in games, finding the ability to make world-changing decisions and to do the right thing in situations empowering. Finally, Chas Guidry tackles the latest news on a remake of Final Fantasy 7, and why an HD version of the game may not be the best option.

Three Simple Ways Darwinia+ Teaches Us How RTS Games Can Work on Consoles
By Jeremy Sigor
Fans of the strategy game Darwinia were concerned at how it would fair when ported to Xbox Live. While many RTS titles don't stand up when brought over to consoles, Jeremy feels Darwinia+ not only works, but sets the bar for future games making the jump between platforms.

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Editor's Note: I've honestly never understood the appeal of achievements. With so many people seemingly addicted to them, this vision of the future terrifies me. - Jay

About a month ago I decided to start taking the steps, instead of the elevator, to reach my third story office every morning and today -- when I reached the top -- my phone dinged. I checked the message as I sat down in my cozy office chair and read "Life Achievement Unlocked - Stair A Habit - 400 Points." I clicked on the message to check the info, and it explained that I earned the achievement for taking the stairs to my office 30 days in a row. 

That evening on the drive home, I received another ding, and I checked it while cruising down I-70. It read: "Life Achievement Unlocked - Cautious Driver - 100 Points." This time, the details explained that I drove at or under the speed limit for 10 miles straight. 

At home I received an email explaining all the opportunities I missed to earn more "Life Achievements." I lost 50 points by not waiting until the car was stopped to check my message on the drive home. The message also said I was placed on my Family, Local, and Nationwide leaderboards, and it gave me a rundown of the "Achievements" that other people in my network earned. My wife was barely beating me, little Jeffrey earned 100 points for getting an A on his math test, and little Stephanie earned 150 points for practicing her dance routine after school. 

At this point I am used to my wife having a higher score than me. It doesn't really bother me because, if I can get my entire family up to a collective 10,000 points this month, we will get a discount on our insurance plan. 

Obviously, this is not my life, but it could be according to Shoe's recent post: The Future of Everything.

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Editor's note: Like his former Crispy Gamer cohort John Keefer, Kyle Orland has stuff to write for Bitmob because "it doesn't fit anywhere else." Glad to be home to to your "alternative" content, guys! -Shoe

A recent MTV Multiplayer report says that Project Natal demos include a tenth-of-a-second delay between real-world and on-screen movement. How bad is that delay in terms we can really understand? We need some context....

• Average delay between real-world movement and on-screen movement for Project Natal demos: 100 milliseconds (ms) (source)
   
• Average time for a college-aged individual to react to a visual stimulus: 190ms (source)
   
• Duration of a human blink: 267 - 400ms (source)
   
• Approximate time for a 100 mph fastball to reach home plate: 412ms (source)
   
• Average delay between fret press and on-screen display in the PS3 version of Guitar Hero 3: 50ms (source)
  
  

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Editor's note: Jeff's history lesson provides a sobering -- and hilarious -- look at the history of gaming peripherals. It's a must-read for anyone excited about Project Natal or Sony's wand controllers. -Brett

Maybe you've seen them at your local video game shop: piles of odd looking plug-ins, add-ons, and thingamajiggers in the corner collecting dust, over-excited proclamations screaming from their worn boxes -- "FULL BODY ACTION!" "Everything else is child's play!" "Now nothing comes between you and the game!" 

What are they? Gaming's forgotten history, that's what. A history that could possibly repeat itself with the heaps of futuristic peripherals coming out from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

Not that I blame them for trying to sell gamers on the future. The positive perception of any video game company is fueled by technophiles in lust. However, if the technophiles would stuff their e-boners back into their file and think back a decade or two, they might remember that while the tech has improved, the promises haven't changed much.

And if they don't remember, I'm here to help: Here are five gaming technologies that were ahead of their time -- and the lessons companies can learn from them today.

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I recently starting playing Dante's Inferno with the intention of reviewing it. Despite my displeasure with the marketing campaigns surrounding this game, the lure of exploring a digital version of hell was too tempting to pass up.

I am a very cautious and methodical gamer, and I typically use as many save slots as the game will allow. After about two hours, I realized that this game was very linear, with not much room for choice or exploration. Consequently, I broke with my usual tradition as I did not see much point in cluttering up my limited storage space with useless saves. I didn't realize at the time how much of a mistake this would be.

I continued playing the game at what I thought was a decent pace. After five hours or so, I judged that I was roughly 30% finished with the game based on my knowledge of the original literary source. Then I came upon the puzzle that would soon be my undoing.

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Editor's note: Joshua's editorial on gaming priorities struck a chord with me. With my hectic schedule, I don't want to waste my time playing bad games. If that means I have a low Gamerscore, so be it. Genuinely enjoying my time gaming is my primary concern. -Brett

Writer's note:  Bitmob for posting this piece on its main page took its usual liberties and altered what I had originally wrote.  Though this is not anything drastically different from the original, some of this stuff I have no frame of reference of and this is not my complete writing style.  This is more accurately a piece by Joshua Garcia & Brett Bates.

After reading the interesting Bitmob Splitscreen conversation on Xbox 360 Achievements, I began thinking about what our greedy quest for Achievement points truly means. I came to the conclusion that Achievements aren't the cultural behemoth people claim them to be -- and I don't think they add to the quality of our gaming experiences, either.

Maybe my idea of playing games is a bit half baked, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I find playing games strictly for Achievement points to be utterly pointless. We play video games for their unrivaled entertainment value. The interactivity of video gaming is one of the purest forms of entertainment ever created, and I cannot see this Achievement collecting trend as anything but harmful to the way we experience games. The way most people accumulate a massive Achievement score is by plowing through lackluster games over and over and over again -- games so awful they make your teeth bleed.

Is there any real value to playing so many mediocre games?

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Little Sisters are creepy. We can all agree on that. But what about a grown person in a Little Sister costume? Yep, it’s still very creepy [via PlayStation University]:

This is what I imagine Alice looks like in Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland movie. Also, I love that she went to an aquarium dressed like that. I'm surprised they let her in with that giant needle thing. She must have told them it was for science or something.

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Editor's note: Sometimes, it's not just a rushed release that hurts a licensed product. Kevin takes a look at all the factors that were working againt Avatar: The Game from the very start. -Shoe

Ubisoft loses money on an Avatar gamble and now says it will reduce its investment in movie licenses because AAA films' stringent release schedules do not mesh with the needs of AAA game titles.

But it wasn't a single factor that saw Avatar: The Game fail. Mismatched media goals, technology, and game identity all had a hand in its demise.

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Editor's note: Although Borderlands was one of my favorite games of last year, I haven't tried any of the DLC yet, partly due to developer Gearbox's sub-par PC support and glacier-inspired approach to bug fixing. According to Michael, I can skip Mad Moxxi. But that General Knoxx trailer looks kind of amazing. I may need to re-up. -Demian

Dear Gearbox Software,

I want to start off by saying congratulations on the release of the latest Borderlands DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. I’ve been following the coverage, and so far, I’m impressed. From new vehicles and enemy types, to a raised level cap and even more ridiculous guns, General Knoxx looks extremely promising.

However, I should note that I was one of the people who bought Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot on day one, and the coverage on that expansion looked compelling as well. It’s a little late to say this, considering General Knoxx is complete, but I wanted you to know how important this DLC is to the fans, and how thin the ice you’re walking on may be.

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Let's hope this General Knoxx thing turns out better than Mad Moxxi....

Video Blips:

• Those Geabox guys sure know how to make a trailer. I have no idea what that narrator lady was even talking about in this Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC teaser, but I am in. [GameVideos]

Continue after the break for an iPhone-ified Street Fighter 4, a Metal Gear: Arcade trailer, a peak at some of the more cunning moves in Red Steel 2, and a preview of the new Army of Two: The 40th Day DLC.

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Maybe saying that Final Fantasy 7 remake is "unrealistic" is Square Enix's way of challenging fans to write them even more letters demanding that they do it. At least, that's how it'll probably be interpreted.

News Blips:

Speaking to TechDigest, Final Fantasy 13 Producer Yoshinori Kitase recently commented that a Final Fantasy 7 remake looks "pretty unrealistic." If conditions were such that Square Enix could make the game within a year -- with graphics akin to the latest release in the series -- then "we'd very much like a go at it!" says Kitase. He estimates, however, that it would take "three or four times longer than the three and a half years it has taken to put this Final Fantasy [13] together." OK, so probably no fancy FF7 remake -- but how about a portable version? Please?

If you didn't get into the Starcraft 2 beta, Kotaku reports that there's still hope! Several hustlers who attended Blizzcon 2008 are currently auctioning off their Starcraft 2 beta key cards (plus a code for a polar bear mount in World of Warcraft) that they obtained from the event for an average of $300 on eBay. Yikes! If you still just have to play, might I suggest collecting donations from around the office/dorm, and then everyone can take turns playing?

The Game Developers Choice Awards at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is set to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to John Carmack of id Software. The game programmer is most famous his role in popularizing the first-person-shooter genre in the 1990s with titles such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. Previous winners of the award include Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Will Wright. I would like to personally thank Mr. Carmack and id for playing a hand in desensitizing me to virtual violence early on in my youth. [Destructoid]

Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC drops this Tuesday for Xbox Live Arcade (Thursday for PlayStation Network/PC). Fans can expect to find a huge new area (almost two times the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned); new, ultra-rare weapons; and a level cap that now sits at 61. Damn, I remember when back in the day, if you wanted to max out a character to level 99 in your game, it didn't cost you anything extra. Crazy huh? 

GameStop is having their "biggest trade event ever," offering customers an extra whopping 50% on "every trade." Normally I'm not one to encourage trading in video games to GameStop for chump change, but if you must, now would be the best time to do so. At least with this promotion, the return you get on the games you relinquish won't be super depressing but actually almost fair. [Joystiq] 

Got any hot news tips? Send 'em over to tips@bitmob.com.

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We all love Mass Effect 2, right? 

It's considered by many to be one of the greatest role-playing games the western hemisphere has ever produced. Its exhaustive, detailed galaxy, convincing character portrayals, and improved combat system unified to create an absolutely invigorating experience. 

But Bioware's space opera isn't without its flaws. The most commonly mentioned issue is the mining system. If you haven't played the game, Mass Effect 2 forces the player to scan, probe, and mine unexplored planets in the hopes of gathering minerals and discovering anomalies. While the mechanic serves a purpose in the lore and game progression, its tedious as hell. Beyond ironically probing Uranus, there is very little to make the mining more tolerable.

Kabuto the Python sought to liven up the proceedings by writing a song, entitled "Those Minerals." Sonically superior to the in-game track, Kabuto's rap faithfully articulates what it's like to be a space-faring gangsta.

Click here to listen.

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Editor's note: Brian shares with us how he gained confidence as a writer. It's a moving piece, and I hope it inspires those of you who may have doubts about your own writing prowess. It's hard to improve if you don't actually write, after all. -Jason

Nine years ago, when I was 8 inches shorter, I received a paper from an imposing figure. This piece of paper -- my first essay of the year -- was on the transition from nomadic to agrarian societies. Despite my best efforts, I received a D on my 10th grade history paper. At the time, I thought my writing career was over.

I'd grown accustomed to receiving As before that point -- in part because I went to a low-income middle school that didn't value its students. At my school, we didn't receive instruction in elementary grammar; we were left to fend for ourselves in a brutal world of paper and pens. Sadly, my math education wasn't any better.

During the sixth grade, I was one of the four students in prealgebra because I excelled in arithmetic while in elementary school. The teachers didn't have room for us, however, so we were left to study on our own in the hallway. As you can imagine, we got nothing done, but somehow we passed despite not knowing the fundamentals.

Unfortunately, this caused me to miss out on a number of important algebraic techniques, so I didn't understand certain concepts in future classes. I went from being someone who was extremely confident with math to someone who absolutely hated it. The reason I mention this is because my writing experience was similar.

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After this especially shameful death, it would surprise me if "Scorpio2468" ever plays a game of World at War again.

I'll admit it: I have a habit of becoming very upset whenever a burst of enemy fire deprives me of an AC-130 or a care package. Sometimes, I'll even hit my keyboard or mumble something profane. Regardless of all my previous fits of nerd rage, I think that if I suffered the same degree of humiliation as this Call of Duty player, I'd probably take a step back and admire the skill of my enemy, instead of lambasting him.

At any rate, this is one for the books. "TheTrout91" clearly defines the word "pwn" for those of us who haven't been paying attention in class [via Today's Big Thing].

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