I'm about to give the Bitmob community some homework. Sorry.

One of my interests in games isn't about what's new and flashy; I care more about what people are doing with their existing games and how they are modifying and extending the experiences of those games. I'm talking about mods. And I'd like to extend that interest to the Bitmob community.

Art Siriwatt has already written a community review of Neotokyo, a Half-Life 2 mod that's a tactical urban-combat first-person shooter (think Counter-Strike) set in a futuristic Japan and partly inspired by the creators of Ghost in the Shell and Akira. I'm interested in seeing what the rest of the community has to say about it.

Download it here, give it a try (you need Half-Life 2 or Source and Steam to run it), and write about it. I'll take the most interesting posts and package them in a story next Wednesday, July 22 -- along with the next assignment (I encourage you to e-mail mod suggestions to me at [email protected]). This will be the first what I hope will be a weekly series on mod discussion.

Here's a little about the mod, which was made by Studio Radi-8. Neotoyko takes place amid unsettled times and in the wake of a failed military coup attempt. The Japanese government creates a security team to prevent future efforts to overthrow the government. And a second coup appears to be in the works....