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Part of what makes a video game great is how it teaches the player. Even difficult games like La-Mulana and Dark Souls teach you how to overcome deadly challenges. Both are equally hard and rewarding to explore, yet Dark Souls is more punishing in death while La-Mulana retains the fun of exploring after death.

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Last month, I asked the community to examine the controls of their games and their effectiveness for the Total Control Bitmob Writing Challenge. Four writers submitted their takes on both classic and modern titles, and all of these pieces made the front page of the website. This is the final prompt I'm hosting for now, so put down your gamepads and check out these great entries.

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The perfect controls of Assassins Creed
By Jonathon Oyama

I can’t think of anyone other than myself who has participated in more writing challenges than Jonathon, so it makes sense to start this farewell off with him. While modern action games like Bayonetta feel like you need a cheat sheet to remember all the combos, Assassins Creed’s simple scheme felt just right.   

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Once again, it's time to get the spin from our unelected representatives!

Obama vs. Romney -- Fight! Now that almost all of us can watch the presidential debates live on Xbox live, it's our duty as carbon-based lifeforms to do so. Unless you're poor and don't have a Gold membership. Or an internet connection. Or an Xbox. Those people aren't supposed to vote, anyway.

Never mind that their first presidential debate turned out to be a snoozer. We live in a world where Vice President Joe Biden and Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan spent 90 minutes beating each other with rakes. That put us one-all in terms of debates wins so far (Romney: 1, Biden: 1), and that makes tonight's town-hall-format match the official tiebreaker!

So, panel of experts ... what can we expect from tonight's slugfest?

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"Like Caesar presiding over the gladiators, I don't care who wins. I'm just there for the blood and glistening man-flesh."

- Isaac Clarke, Dead Space 3

 

 

 

 

 

"The Americans would save so much time and money if Obama just imposed tyranny on the land and ruthlessly crushed the faintest whisper of opposition to his iron rule. Then I could go back to watching Dancing with the Stars."

- M. Bison, Street Fighter X Tekken

 

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I like blood and guts. Part of that, I have no shame in admitting, comes from my gib-tastic experiences playing Quake and Half-Life as a kid. Another part of me isn't quite as juvenile, however. It yearns for maturity in video games and to see them taken more seriously as an artistic medium, but it still wants more pixilated viscera.

For example, games like Half-Life 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV reward you with a humorous display of ragdoll physics after you shoot a baddie with a rocket launcher. The recently deceased goes flying across the terrain, but where’s the meat? A guy who’s just been hit square in the chest with a rocket launcher should have his entrails strewn all over the place, an arm here and a leg there, and a severed head in the gutter.

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Apparently, a few of my tips from last time didn’t work out so well. Something about readers being sent to prison, hoping that I die in a fire, and some nonsense about "dropping the soap" or whatever. On the positive side, I’ve received a few letters from gracious fans that detail how much they’ve learned in prison and exactly what they want to do to my genitalia once they get out. You know, they actually seem kind of hostile now that I think about it.

But fear not (incarcerated) fans, for I have not forsaken you! I bring good news; I have taken pity upon your pathetic state and have decided to help you out once again. Aren’t I just the nicest person? Anyway, let The Gaming School of Prison Survival commence.

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I noticed the dancing bear warrior appeared to be ... ahem, flopping around. I easily defeated the Grizzled Boor in Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, the point-and-click adventure game for iPad. But I was definitely distracted during our battle.

I couldn’t help but stare at his crotch. I thought, “Dude, that’s totally his junk hanging out.” To be sure, I asked Nathan Vella, co-founder and president of developer CAPY Games, and he confirmed my suspicion.

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we move on from a venerable series, wonder if Halo 4 is in the right developers' hands, promote people, and more. Mix your herbs and read on.

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Why I'm moving on from Resident Evil games
By Avery Tingle

After playing the demo of Resident Evil 6, Avery was less than impressed. "Resident Evil is starting to feel like the Madden version of the survival horror genre," Avery writes, "a series of just-enough small tweaks and minor improvements with a new number slapped on."

Falling into the wrong hands (possibly)
By Jesse Meixsell

No, this isn't about the news of a Halo 4 leak. Jesse's concerned that Halo 4 was in trouble much earlier, when original developers Bungie handed the reins over to 343 Industries. Jesse looks at similar circumstances in other series...and their mixed results.

People promotion in a faceless world
By Aaron Davies

"Does gaming have a face?" Aaron asks. "Who are the people that most video game fans recognize and relate to?" Aaron argues that it's important for gaming fans to have a real person to identify and associate with a brand. Do you agree?

Microsoft doesn't want free advertising for Halo 4
By Alexander Kraus

Microsoft has rolled out new content policies that prevent fans from uploading their in-game creations to websites like YouTube. And that doesn't make sense to Alexander. "I'm sure the numerous content creators out there will be glad to not give you any free advertising for your games, Microsoft," he writes.

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Resident Evil 6 makes me weep. The series that used to haunt my dreams as a kid is long gone, and something sort of like Gears of War took its place. Amusingly, I’ve tried forcing my way through RE6’s campaigns at least six times at this point, but I always throw my controller aside in frustration.

Why? Because the series gave up on trapping players in labyrinthian monster factories and started imprisoning them in unskippable cinematic sequences and perpetual quick-time events. The scary’s gone, and the disjointed action game that remains just isn’t cutting it.

You can blame several factors for this, like the creator of the original game (Shinji Mikami) leaving Capcom, the fact that over 20 different studios worked on this project, or you can adhere to the misguided belief that Japanese developers just don’t get Western audiences. The real reason is that the franchise is too old and too nebulous to support itself anymore.

We need a reboot, preferably one that breaks away from all the crap mechanics recent developers have “expanded” since Resident Evil 4. Ideally, the team that made Resident Evil: Revelations would take over the series, drop the numbers and home console support, and evolve RE into a portable horror experience.

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Make no mistake, this is a rant article. Many of my arguments are commonly discussed, but I feel the need to wrap it all up in one nice package to properly present the results of purposefully unbalanced game design. 

The danger of unbalanced design first came to my attention while in a public development discussion in my America's Army days. We were having a standard back-and-forth about feature ideas and requests, but one guy was obviously going on a "We should make it like Counter Strike" rant, so I served him up a rant in return about why that is a great example of unbalanced design. Now, before I lose you, I fully understand why people play Counter Strike and have a jolly ol' time with it. Even I blew many hours on it when I was in college.

But that doesn't make it a balanced game. For one, the team that wins the starting match has a large advantage since winning teams get more money each round and can afford better weapons, giving them better chances of winning again. The guy's response to that was something along the lines of, “Well, you shouldn't lose the first match.” 

Before that, I had taken all of his comments as fair opinion, but that is where the realization came in that not only did he actually prefer an unbalanced and not particularly "fair" game, but also that he had no idea why.

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If something goes wrong with a baby product, the company issues a recall. Food producers list the ingredients that might cause an allergic reaction. But video games, on the other hand, have turned out differently. While a game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or PC receiving patches to fix bugs is nothing new, developers should know that it still needs to be a complete package.

What happens when a publisher releases a broken game with no plans to fix it? Not only does that company have consumers' money but it isn't going to use that money to fix the problem. This is where things get interesting.

Now, let's have a look at what is loved and what gets the shaft. Patches are just patches. Downloadable content given to one version of a game and not the others? Then that’s when the "mommy loves me more" argument comes into play.

PS3 owners won't be getting Skyrim’s latest content. Let’s think about it.

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On October 5, 1962, Sean Connery introduced himself to audiences in the UK for the first time as James Bond in Dr. No.

Since then, Bond has gone up against murderous megavillains lounging around titanic secret hideouts and an array of equally wicked minions ranging from the metal-mouthed Jaws to Bambi and Thumper.

There are a lot things I find irresistible about the films, whether it's the thrill of Bond's brilliantly narrow escapes, the bizarre plots the villains dream up, or the lovely women that can also turn the tables on expectations by being as tough as he is.

Bond started out in books written by author Ian Fleming, whose experiences in British Naval Intelligence during WW2 provided a healthy diet for Bond's fiction. As the books later became inspiration for the films, the franchise exploded into everything imaginable. Comics, new novels, and kid's cartoon James Bond Jr. made their way down the pipe from new writers in the decades since Bond boiled Dr. No like a lobster. And then came games as varied as Q's gadgets. From board games in the '60s to video games from the '80s, England's gentleman spy has made a place for himself in living rooms and man caves everywhere.

To help celebrate 50 years of Bond, I thought it would be fun to take a brief look on Bond's digital career. Kicking things off, let's head into the era of big hair bands and arcades: the '80s.

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Is it already October? Yes, it is. And do you know how I can tell? Because my wallet's already lighter as the rush of holiday game releases begins. (Hang in there, buddy. It's gonna get worse for you before it gets better.)

Fortunately, our loyal Bitmob community churns out great content no matter the time of year. This month's list has includes analyses, apologies, and anecdotes galore. But sometimes, you've just gotta give it up for Master Chief dancing Gangnam Style. Congrats to everyone!

Here are the most-read community articles for September 2012:

10. Fan-made HD Arwing shows what Star Fox might be like on Wii U by Jan Neves

9. Nudity in gaming shouldn't be a bigger taboo than violence by Mark Willette

8. Why the reaction to Bayonetta 2's Wii U exclusivity is annoying by Ryan Conway

7. Why Borderlands 2 is more exciting than Diablo 3 by William Franklin

6. The Wii U is a stopgap at best by Ethan Clevenger

5. L.A. Noire: A case for the future of gaming by Chris Sampson

4. An open apology to associates and influences by Ryan Perez

3. Papo & Yo: A mirror of my childhood by Louis Garcia

2. Why Portal 2 should really get us excited for the next Half-Life by Justin Raymond

1. Halo's Master Chief puts down his rifle and jams to Gangnam Style by Jan Neves

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Do you want to be on next month's list? Here are some tips:

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