Aww, we just want to punch artist Eidson Yan in the face. The talented scribbler has been doodling up cutified versions of almost every Street Fighter character, similar to the other Scribblenauts-related art we posted a while back. Just check out the original World Warriors from Street Fighter 2 [via Tiny Cartridge]:
If you think men in karate guis are OK, but fancy something a wee bit more fashionable, say, characters sporting bracelets, belt buckles, and horn-tooting cats, why, you're in luck! Here's the Final Fantasy 7 cast:
And if this still isn't enough, there's even more cuteness after the break. But, just to entice you, here's a taste:
We know there are a few technical issues with Bitmob here and there -- we recently updated our publishing platform software, and naturally, it introduced a few minor new problems. It doesn't help that new browser updates (Firefox 3.5) raise new issues. How come everyone just can't make things easy for us and stick with Netscape?
Please be patient with us as we work through these. We're relying on volunteer help from developers, and they're working hard to fix and update Bitmob when they can.
We're still in Bitmob 1.0, but soon, we'll be introducing a ton of fixes as well as a few new features. Thanks for sticking with us, and don't forget you can help us with the bug-testing via our Contact page.
Editor's Note: I'm promoting this story not because Omar refers to me as some sort of voice of God in it, but because he brings up some great points on the subject of death in videogames. Check it out. -Greg.
It was July 1. It was a Wednesday. It was 2 p.m., and as I had come to expect, I faced some early-afternoon downtime at work. Fighting boredom, I glanced over the usual gauntlet of websites and updated my Facebook status. By the time Episode 21 of The Geekbox had completed its download, my stomach's groaning couldn't be ignored any longer. I got up, threw on my jacket, grabbed my wallet, and headed out.
I found myself instinctively walking toward the food court at the mall, so I stopped myself. I turned and walked in the other direction, toward the grocery store, figuring I had indulged in enough milkshakes for one week. Walking awkwardly through the crowded sidewalks, I had my headphones wrapped around my head, with the comforting tones of Jake Jensen's opening Geekbox theme playing at the highest volume.
World of WarCraft is noticeably intelligent in the way it deals with death. It is impermanent and fair, yet the punishment is severe enought to constitute a "learning experience."
This week, reader Thomas Lin heeded our call and gave us a letter we could sink our teeth into. If you'd also love to feel this glory, hit us up at
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. Now it's time to crack open that bag...
Hey Bitmob,
Just a question and over/under time again because after last week's mailbag, there needs to be some more excitement.
Question: Is Demian ever going to bring back Legendary Thread?
Over/Under
Times Wii Sports Resort will be sitting at No. 1 in the NPDs for the next year: 4.5
Millions of copies of Modern Warfare 2 sold in the first week without "Call of Duty" being anywhere on the box: 3.5
Millions of copies of Modern Warfare 2 sold in the first week with "Call of Duty" being somewhere on the box: 3.5
Reluctant Top 10 lists from Dan Hsu by the end of the year because he has good business sense (love ya, Shoe!): 6.5
Months from now before consumers see a real PS3 price cut: 4.5 Years when a public "OnLive-like" device hits the market: .5
Editor's Note: A great look at a variety of titles a lot of you probably haven't heard of before. Reid also gives his perspective on why downloadable games are becoming so huge. If you're into this stuff, don't miss Aaron Thomas' Download Lowdown series on Bitmob, too. -Shoe
A landscape of odd shapes and multicolored blocks litter the area. I hear screams in the background and the sound of flying projectiles hitting the ground. Taking a survey of the carnage that lies before me, only one thought goes through my head: I guess there's no time for Fallout 3 tonight.
After many long days of work and coming home to my messy two-year old, an odd trend has started in my gaming habits. I used to stay in my room for hours playing the latest console RPG, never thinking a simple game like Peggle would be my game of choice in the future.
Downloadable games have lately become the new trend in gaming, with the iPhone leading the charge and DSi and PSPgo doing their best to keep up. Some people say because of the economy and the low barrier of entry, with cheaper prices than their console counterparts, short casual games have become more popular. Others would say that technology has finally caught up to allow for these services. While both of those are definite factors, I think that simple time management is the biggest selling point.
Editor's Note: A bunch of us will be there, and we hope you all will as well! -Shoe
Bitmob community: This is your final reminder for the Bay Area Bitmob Meet-Up, happening Friday night in San Francisco. If you're in the area, come and shoot the breeze with Bitmob editors, community members, and other affiliated riffraff. If you're not, don't worry: fellow Pixel Revolters Derek Lavigne and Jeff Grubb will be diligently recording the goings-on for your enjoyment. We'll have that content up next week.
Gaming sales are pretty great, right? Of course. Though we've noticed big titles that don't sell get their price dropped later on. So if you kids are smart, you won't buy any game you want until it goes on sale 6-12 months down the line. Yeah, we're money-saving geniuses.
News Blips:
• Buy crappy and overstocked games for cheap. Gaming retailer GameStop is putting on a small, no, sorry, HUGE, sale for the summer. How big? Well, you can get games like this for 20 bones. Yeah, huge. [Joystiq]
• New Mortal Kombat movie proves there is a god. We were afraid the long-rumored third Mortal Kombat movie would never come out, but the actor (who we refuse to believe is playing a part) portraying Scorpion says the flick will start filming this September. Maestro, cue that infectious techno beat. [GameSpot]
• Germans are gonna love this one: Carcassonne coming to DS. Popular German board game Carcassonne is on its way to the DS later this year. Oh, and in case you haven't played the real version (don't tell the Germans!), it's also on Xbox Live Arcade. Now if only someone would make a DS version of this board game. [Kotaku]
• Fighting Fantasy is neither a fighting game nor a fighting Final Fantasy game. But in the DS first-person role-playing game Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain there is, uh, fantasy fighting (why the hell didn't they just call it that?). It's apprently based on a book series in England, too. But we're not British nor do we know what a "book" is, so how would we know? [1UP]
Hit the jump for some video blips, including more WW2 fighting in Battlefield: 1943, Spartan-like warriors in Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hello Kitty Mario and Luigi, and...more.
I couldn't resist grabbing Heroes of Might and Magic 5 and its expansions when the games went on sale recently on Steam. While I enjoy strategy-role-playing games, I foolishly held a grudge toward Heroes of Might and Magic. This had nothing to do with the game itself; I sadly admit that my grudge is much pettier than that. I loved the original Might and Magic series of role-playing games, but I felt that they got progressively worse as the franchise expanded into other genres. So I boycotted Heroes of Might and Magic as the original series floundered and faded from the role-playing landscape.
I realize that I was being a fool -- especially once I played King's Bounty: The Legend after my first layoff of the year. It didn't take long for King's Bounty to dominate my gaming time, and I played through it with each of its characters before setting it aside 2 months later.
Although the Heroes series lacks some of King's Bounty's goofy charm, it's still a fun, compelling game. Or maybe I should say compulsive. One of the problems that I have with RPGs -- and especially with strategy-RPGs -- is the desire to travel to every portion of the map, find every creature in the scenario, and claim as much of the loot as possible. And the compulsion was winning....
Editor's Note: If you think Xbox Live hooligans are rough, you should read this fascinating piece from Reggie Carolipio about how one professor decided to play by one online game's rules...and got slapped by the game's community for doing so. -Jason
According to this New Orleans Times-Picayune article from Nola.com, Loyola University media professor David Myers took it upon himself to run a social experiment over a couple of years in City of Heroes/City of Villains to discover and document what would happen if he played by the rules as the designers had intended and not by the customs and taboos accepted among its player population. Twixt, his heroic avatar in the game, was a well-established character by the time Myers decided to embark on this quest.
See, Myers actually plays video games and is one of the first university-level professors to examine games from an academic perspective. That's right -- he plays and condenses what he learns into papers that his peers read and evaluate on an academic level. Instead of simply nodding at a piece of negativity that we might hear on Xbox Live, people like Myers are trying to find out why that's the case and how games have affected us on the social level (among other things).
As much as your opinion or mine are treated as nothing to be surprised about when we use the mute button on Live, lending a kind of scholarly legitimacy to this is something of a vindication. The proof has always been out there, but to see it being taken as seriously as this is an encouraging, if not surprising, indication that our favorite pastime is maturing in other ways outside of the ESRB label.
Portal on consoles/PC isn't all that impressive anymore. Nor is Portal made in Flash. But Portal made entirely with text? Yawn...
Just kidding! More like: OMGWTFBBQPORKBUNS. Seriously, developer Joe Larson's version of Portal made entirely in ASCII is pretty darn impressive. And he knows it -- just listen to how giddy he is showing it off [via Offworld]:
OK, this week I made use of the excellent Indie Game Database to find a couple games, and followed up on a recommendation that didn't quite work for me. Read all about my breakneck adventures in the Land of D after the jump.
Rebel FM's Game Club for Hitman: Blood Money rolls on. The gang seems to get a thrill through comparing the ways they kill and playing their own brand of "Shovin' Buddies" on a riverboat. Helpful video after the jump!
Game Club: Hitman: Blood Money -- Episode 2
This week, we cover Death on the Mississippi, Til Death Do Us Part, and House of Cards, which you'll find recapped in the video below. Post your comments for the rest of the game below, and be sure to post any questions you might have for the developers below or email us at letters(at)eat-sleep-game.com.
One of the biggest criticisms levied against the Nintendo Wii is that it's not capable of displaying games in high-definition -- something that even the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox could do. As a result of this glaring shortcoming, rumors of an HD Wii have been bouncing around the Internet for years.
I think there's absolutely no chance that were going to see a Wii HD. The system's doing just fine from a sales standpoint, and it seems that the only people that have a real issue with the console's graphics capabilities are hardcore gamers, all of which bought the system anyway.
But just because Nintendo isn't coming out with a new Wii with dazzling visuals, doesn't mean we'll never get to experience the Wii in high-def. Quite the contrary, actually. Check out these screens of Super Mario Galaxy running in 720p on the Dolphin emulator. (Screens from NeoGaf):
Editor's Note: Here's another in Andrew Hiscock's fictional (we think it's fictional, anyways) series where game characters come to life for behind-the-scenes interviews. In this episode, the men under the Spartan armor talk about life in multiplayer Halo. Hit the "read more" for the full funny. -Shoe
I am standing in a large empty white space. The only suggestion that the ether is contained is that my feet rest on solid ground, and a gigantic billboard filled with text hangs on what is presumably a wall.
Surrounding me are featureless masses of polygons, all in humanoid shape -- or at least what passes as humanoid in the Halo franchise. My dumpy physique is emphasized next to their Spartan shapes. And as they are little more than shape, I am even more aware of my physical shortcomings.
This is the Halo multiplayer lobby. No, not the user interface that every 14- to 28-year-old male can navigate with an analog stick with remarkable speed but the actual lobby where character models wait to attire in a player's chosen armor and head out for a fight in videogames' most popular multiplayer game, Halo 3.
It's hard to actually identify these golems. They are all nearly identical, and until I am able to develop a sense of personality of any particular one, I am constantly confusing them, should my attention be distracted for a second. As for names, they are all identified by a seemingly random series of zeroes and ones...because when you get as little respect as these guys do, it's hard to come up with names more complicated than binary.
"Eddie," as I've come to know him, is one of the faceless multitude.
"It's like any job," he states. "You come in punch your time; you go home. Sometimes we have good days, like getting paired up on a really good Oddball team. Other days, you're teabagging everyone and calling them 'fag.'"
If he had eyes, he would have rolled them. "I mean, seriously, it takes a serious lack of irony to get away with that."
The iPhone has a lot of games. Just thought we'd tell you.
News Blips:
• iPhone offers 13,000 ways to procrastinate. Apple announced that the iPhone currently has a whopping 13,000 games in its App Store. We want to play more, but we're still stuck on the "Woo" game -- any help? [Joystiq]
• PS3 games too fat, get stuck in the Intertubes. At this year's E3, Microsoft announced that it will be releasing full downloadable Xbox 360 games through Xbox Live. Sony, however, won't be doing the same with the PS3 just yet. Mostly because of the bloated size of Blu-ray. We have a solution, though. [IndustryGamers]
• Square Enix Europe is like Eidos without the Eidos. Role-playing game pros Square Enix bought Tomb Raider publisher Eidos earlier this year. Only now Eidos is no longer. Instead, it will now be named Square Enix Europe. Square Enix Antarctica still under negotiations. [MCV]
• Future music games may not need consoles; TV still important, though. Rock Band makers Harmonix imagine a future where music games can simply plug into TVs and play. Hopefully in this same future Triangle Hero exists. [VideoGamer]
Hit the jump for some video blips, including a Assassin's Creed 2 video doc, space battles of the gratuitous nature, Mega Man vs. Metroid, and...more.
All you have to do is comment below (previous entries don't count!), and we'll pick out a random winner in a week. You must be registered on Bitmob with your real, full name and real email address (we're not going to spam you, but that's how we'll get in touch if you win). And sorry...after having to send out the EA Sports Active prize to Michael Burridge in Canada, we're now limiting our contest winners to the continental U.S. Shipping Michael's prize out cost half as much as the game itself!
UPDATE: Now open to all of North America. Community member Toby Davis offered to cover shipping for the prize if it's outside of the Union. Thanks Toby! And sorry we had to be so cheap to begin with.
Here's a description of the BioShock book from the Take-Two Store:
This 174 page, 8"x10" limited run soft cover artbook, available only on the Take-Two Store, features never-before seen art from BioShock 1, stories about the game's journey through its years of development, commentary from the team, an introduction by 2K Marin's Executive Producer Alyssa Finley, several new sections, and much more.
Hey everyone,
After many long days of work and coming home to my messy two-year old, an odd trend has started in my gaming habits. I used to stay in my room for hours playing the latest console RPG, never thinking a simple game like 
Rebel FM's Game Club for Hitman: Blood Money rolls on. The gang seems to get a thrill through comparing the ways they kill and playing their own brand of "Shovin' Buddies" on a riverboat. Helpful video after the jump!
Editor's Note: Here's another in Andrew Hiscock's fictional (we think it's fictional, anyways) series where game characters come to life for behind-the-scenes interviews. In this episode, the men under the Spartan armor talk about life in multiplayer Halo. Hit the "read more" for the full funny. -Shoe
