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Punch-Out!!, the classic NES game, has a rather clear narrative theme. The player is the underdog.

It's the classic sort of David-vs.-Goliath story -- someone small can defeat someone that is much larger. But it also shares another theme with the Biblical tale: Intelligence trumps physical strength.

What is interesting about this concept is how the entire presentation of Punch-Out!! is based around reiterating it. Nearly every visual aspect of the game is about making the player feel small and making the player’s opponents feel larger than life.

This is not just due to the size of Little Mac’s sprite compared to the sprite of the other boxers. It also shows in the amount of space they are able to move in. The visual language, along with the game-design decisions for Little Mac’s movement, are about making players feel confined -- almost claustrophobically so -- in order to make them feel smaller and weaker compared to their opponents.

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The Xbox 360 is turning seven this year, and the PlayStation 3 and Wii are going to be six. Going by history, we should have had new consoles by now, yet the big three are still going strong with these old boxes. That's not to say there haven’t been rumors because, my God, you can't go on NeoGAF now without drowning in threads about the Wii U, the Xbox 720, and the PlayStation 4.

An announcement has to be coming soon, and it's a lock that we are going to hear about at least one new box (the Wii U) at this year's E3. In turn, by December 2012, we will have at least one new console. But my question is whether or not we really need new hardware. Is shelling out cash for new tech really worth it?

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Am I the only one who's noticed that the action in video-game cinematics is usually better than the generic scenes coming out of Hollywood?

Video Blips:

• I saw this at a press event earlier this week and couldn't wait to post it. It's like The Witcher 2 meets 300.

Continue past the break to see a teaser for Aliens: Colonial Marines, Crytek's upcoming Warface, and more.

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Full disclosure: Tetris Link and Tetris: The Card Game were provided to me free for this article.

I always thought I was good at Tetris. 

No, that doesn’t properly capture my arrogance. I always thought I was amazing at it. 

At least until I started dating a girl named Samantha...who is better at it than I am. I don’t want anyone to think this is one of those stupid “let the girl win” situations, either. As much as we may like each other, we get mean when we play Tetris. We yell, we swear, we cheat, and she always beats me. 

Anyway, I came up with a plan. She is (sort of not really) better than me at video-game Tetris, but maybe I can beat her if we play something slightly different, like, say, card-game Tetris or some kind of Connect Four-esque real-life version of it. If only such things existed....

How serendipitous then, that not only do these games exist, but I had a chance to play them against her!

Let’s take a look at Tetris: The Card Game and Tetris Link -- and see if I was finally able to dethrone my evil nemesis lovely girlfriend.

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This week's Reviews Spotlight features an underwhelming sequel, a more recent disappointment, a game that lets you whack pedestrians with a dildo, inconsequential role-playing, and one of the best DS titles you probably didn't play. Surely, I have something for everyone.

Chrono Cross: A mess of unimpressive gameplay and laughably bad storytelling
By Carlos Alexandre

Carlos unapologetically tears Chrono Cross apart in this review and specifically targets the role-playing game's overly complicated plot. If you were as disappointed with this sequel to the beloved Chrono Trigger as I was, I'm sure you'll enjoy his scathing breakdown of the title's many failures.

The Old Republic: Move along, these aren't the droids we're looking for
By Ben Freund

Lots of people praise The Old Republic's story-driven experience, but Ben thinks his decisions in the MMO do little to change the world around him. I guess that's a problem you'll have when every player needs to hit the same plot points and do most of the same quests.

Why L.A. Noire was a colossal failure
By Kevin Murphy

L.A. Noire was one of the most anticipated games of 2011, but as Kevin show us, the open-world title was full of problems. One that Kevin specifically points out, the inability to charge the actual guilty criminal in many cases, really damaged my experience.

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This morning, I Tweeted out a picture of this typo that I found on the spine of the Resident Evil Revelations box:

I thought I'd share it here on Bitmob as well.

User Jimb0 on the Capcom Unity forums asked about this error, and Christian Svensson, Capcom's corporate officer and senior vice-president, responded with this:

We're aware that this has affected a portion of the production run. There's likely to be some news to follow closer to launch on this topic.

Perhaps we now own a soon-to-be-rare, collector's version of this 3DS game? It is due out in stores Feb. 7.

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I don't think anything involving the words "next" and "generation" gives me a stronger swelling of euphoria than the theme song for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Well, apart from falling into a pit of cocaine, I suppose.

News Blips:

The Wii U arrives this holiday season. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata briefly paused while showering investors with dire financial reports to affirm the console's launch before the end of the year. The gaming community subsequently prepared a massive air intake for a collective exhale of "duh."

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings cuts into your Xbox 360's disc tray on April 17. Developer CD Projekt Red said the successful role-playing title's import onto the console brings "no quality compromise" -- presumably including its popularization of regicide before HBO turned it into a fad.

Developer Insomniac bows out from the Resistance. In an interview with VG247, Insomniac Chief Executive Officer Ted Price bluntly stated the company "won't be making any more Resistances." Focus is instead shifting towards upcoming squad-based co-op shooter Overstrike and its potential for harboring similarly zany weapons.

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

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Once again, it’s time for our democratically elected panel of experts to hand down their unfunded mandates!

Did you know you can get music, movies, and games for free until they catch you? Well, not anymore! A bunch of old white men who can barely use their Blackberrys came up with a plan: Nuke the Internet to save it. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) sought -- without due-process hassles -- to lock down any website where pirated (or merely borrowed) images/files/ideas lived, along with any site that linked to them. Which only covered every website that exists.

A popular uprising made the bills’ proponents spray their pants brown in girly fear withdraw support. But the Entertainment Software Association hung on until long after the Internet feasted on SOPA’s rotting corpse.

What have we learned from all this, panel of experts?

"Ha HA! Those fools be underestimatin' the popularity and multifaceted smells of yer modern-day pirate! Now I’ll sail me dread ship into Chinese waters and pick up the complete series of Mad Men on bootleg DVDs for three dollars!"

- LeChuck, The Secret of Monkey Island

"The complete annihilation of the largest, most useful information network in human history is a small price to pay to destroy a few pirates. I feel the same way about Australia and South America. And three or four other continents."

- Ryu Hayabusa, Ninja Gaiden 3

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I wonder how humanity constantly falls for the "hidden android" motif in science-fiction stories. Robots tend to paint a giant bullseye on their backs with their fits of the crazy.

Video Blips:

• Binary Domain's perception of starting the workweek involves someone shredding his face amid the opulence of a corporate lobby. It's like a microcosm of the relationship between plastic surgeons and dissatisfied customers.

Continue after the break for the multiplayer mechanical mayhem of Armored Core 5, the lavishly detailed timesinks of Final Fantasy 13-2, and toying with Darth Vader's patience in Kinect Star Wars.

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And just like that, I decided to quit playing The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim cold turkey.

At the end of a throwaway side quest where I was supposed to have a drinking contest with so-and-so, I’m thrust, in an apparently drunken stupor, into the middle of Markarth. This is a place I have recently been driven out of, due to yet another mundane side quest. Enemies are pursuing me, naturally, and evidently, the magic that allows for in-game fast travel does not work when one is in a hurry. Without that ability, I am stuck in the labyrinthine staircases of Markarth until I stumble upon a door to Skyrim by accident.

Once outside, I decide to kill everyone I see. I’m angry at this turn of events, maddened by the dead end of side quests I’ve found myself in, yet again.

Loose-end quests that won’t close themselves out. Missions that occur in places I can’t go without fear of reprisal (like Markarth). Markers that lead me to the ends of dungeons, rather than the beginnings. A companion who will not leave me alone when I’m around, constantly causing an unwanted, impromptu dead-end conversation tree to occur that can only be cured by fast traveling. 

My quest log is a bastion for unpredictability.

I kill every living thing I see as I run into the wilderness, directionless. I kill and kill and kill until nothing is left but snow and my bloodied blades. Shiftless, I find my home in Whiterun on the map. I lope towards it, go to my digital bed, and I sleep forever.

I am done here.

Why?

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I’ve seen countless naysayers (myself included) who thought Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventures would be an affront to gaming change their tune the moment they played it. Beyond the seemingly prohibitive cost, Skylanders is a truly well-made dungeon crawler combined with the obsessive “gotta catch ‘em all” structure found in Pokémon. Only this time, the trainable monsters are a set of toys -- most of which are sold separately. 

Unfortunately, collecting all the Skylander figures, extra levels, and bonus items pushes the game’s initial price ($79) to well over $300. While that does seem astronomical, it doesn’t turn Skylanders into a carcinogenic marketing scheme.

Did you ever play Magic: the Gathering, or even the Pokémon trading card game? Consider how much you spent on $5-20 packs of lifeless card stock. It’s likely a hell of a lot more than $300 if you really kept track.

The difference with video games is the notion that everything on the disc should immediately belong to you. Every Skylander is on the disc. They have to be if players can instantly swap characters in and out. But if Activision was being fair and not just wanting all your money, you wouldn’t have to buy and manipulate little toys, right?

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After the incredible success of Street Fighter 2, many developers released one-on-one fighters using Capcom's flagship series as a model.

Over the years, gamemakers added their own innovations to the genre, but never strayed too far from Capcom's winning formula. Let's take a look at eight common features found in many popular fighting games.

Projectiles:

Ki blasts are a perfect way of hitting your opponent from a safe distance. Projectiles like Ryu's hadouken function as a flying punch to the face, but other types of "fireballs" may stun, hold, or incapacitate your foes. Noob Saibot's is especially annoying.

This is not the game of "crossfire" the Servbot had in mind.

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