Bitmob.com

Full disclaimer: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures flew me out and put me up in a hotel to see an early screening of this motion picture.

I'm not a movie critic, and I wouldn't do their craft injustice by attempting to do a full, proper review of Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Not that it would be of any use to anyone right now anyway -- the film doesn't even come out until May 28. But after a flurry of Tweets where I talked about the bizarre circumstances surrounding my 1.5-minute interview with Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the number-one thing my Twitter followers wanted to know was: How was the movie? Perhaps followed closely by: How many explosions were there?

Here is my quick and simple take from a gamer's point of view. And "quick and simple take" means I'm going to interview myself....

Does the movie do the game license justice?

42

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

The Escapist's Russ Pitts, GameXplain.com's Andre Segers, and ex-journalist-turned-indie-dev Shanker Srinivasan join Bitmob's Aaron Thomas on this week's show. 

The group remembers lost game saves, questions the importance of story over gameplay, ponders a one-console future, debates in-browser 3D gaming, and recalls their most epic gaming binges.

They also complain about getting old, mock Shanker for wasting hundreds of hours on one (broken) game, and alienate anyone who has ever played Farmville. Good times!

Have a question you want answered? Want to share some important insight with the world? E-mail the crew at letters@bitmob.com.

Click here to find out how you can get in on the "3 Great Prizes, 3 Ways to Win" giveaway.

15

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Silly laws of physics -- your powers mean nothing in the Crackdown universe.

Video Blips:

0

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Welcome back for another week of community-submitted video game tunes!

For those of you who aren't aware, a car struck me while I was riding my bike the other day. It was a hit and run, and I'm currently recovering from a broken clavicle. On that note, I've decided to keep my selections upbeat this week -- collarbone be damned!

The community busted out with a pretty awesome selection of songs, too. Contributor Alex R. Cronk-Young jumped in with the main theme from an uber-popular Internet meme called Robot Unicorn Attack. Jukebox regulars Jimmy Flores and Ryan Conway represent Sonic two-fold -- maybe they are gearing up for Sonic 4. And Bitmob's resident RPG guru, Brian Shirk, suggests a great tune from yet another re-release of the original Lunar.

Want to know how to get your song on the list? Hit the jump and find out how.

14

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

A couple of months ago, I stumbled across a weird Nintendo Entertainment System demake of the original Resident Evil. While that was an interesting re-imagining of the PS1 classic, this downgraded version of Final Fantasy 4 is nothing but an eye sore [via GameSniped]:

The music is tinny and terrible, the graphics blurred and painful to behold.... Sometimes, piracy yields interesting products, but I think it is high time the Chinese learn to properly bootleg Super Nintendo titles for the benefit of their video game culture. 

7

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Developers have attempted to imitate Mega Man endlessly, trying to capture the little blue guy's magic. At the same time, those of us who grew up with the game never get tired of reminding younger gamers how much the series rocks. The maker of this exceptionally well-done video obviously wanted to accomplish all of the above. Rick Mann is looking for a raise, but to get it he has to defeat the evil Boss Man [via Capcom Unity]:

Kind of anticlimactic that Boss Man's own greed was the weapon Rick uses to defeat him. Then again, that's what Mega Man was always about -- using the bosses' weapons against each other. And the encounter did give our hero a red-tie power-up.

0

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

The Bitmob Reviews Spotlight is a weekly feature which endeavors to bring attention to the website's most capable writers. While most of your are still enmeshed in the stockpile of recently released titles, these community members have been glued to their keyboards, writing until their extremities grew numb.

A curt shout out was the least we could do for these devoted community members. Here is the fruit of their labor:

Jack Morphy gives his index finger a break and decides to share his opinions on Torchlight, a Diablo-esque role-playing game. Anticipate spellcasting pets and furious mouse clicking.

Sage Knox follows suit with his impressions of The Saboteur. If you're a fan of trippy color transitions and snarky Irish men, be sure to check it out. But if you're not into that sort of thing, Ariel Feist has you covered with an article about Demon's Souls -- a game which has achieved more accolades than I care to count.

For those of you who've missed out on the Blur beta, Garret Staus provides his thoughts on this newcomer to the "battle-racing" genre. Apparently, you haven't missed too much.

Dana Laratta returns with another inspiring Haiku. This time, he directs his poetic prowess toward Double Fine's latest production, Brütal Legend. Remember: Never be ashamed of crying over poetry.  Stay on your toes, because once you've wiped away your tears, Ryan Conway will inundate you with yet another Mega Man review.

Lastly, Chris Whitehead makes the case for Assassin's Creed 2, a game whose intrusive DRM and unnecessarily high price point have concerned many PC gamers.

Torchlight Review
By Jack Morphy
The appeal of Diablo 2's elegantly conceived dungeons and deluge of mana potions overwhelmed any pain which the constant mouse clicking may have procured. Jack Morphy explains how Torchlight capitalizes on that masochistic pleasure. Prepare to sacrifice entire days to this game.

10

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Presumably you are a gamer. Well, so am I. But does that fact alone connect us?

Computer and video games have captivated a majority of the world's population. Modern studies estimate that approximately 40% of the planet maintains some monthly interaction with video games. With so many gamers, it's difficult to parse the industry's world-wide community and find a concrete, anthropological culture beneath all the button mashing and mouse clicking.

While the gaming audience continually expands, we have to ask ourselves if an 18-year-old World of Warcraft raid leader shares any common values or attitudes with a middle-aged housewife who casually plays Peggle. In this three-part feature, I'll try to find out whether gamers have transcended the loose, insecure bonds of tribalism, and if they have gained a substantial cultural body. I'll admit that I'm skeptical about the complexity of the gaming community, but I could be wrong -- I usually am.

5

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

Full disclaimer: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures flew me out and put me up in a hotel to see an early screening of the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and to do this interview.

They said I had 15 minutes with Jerry Bruckheimer at 3:30 pm -- right before the premiere screening of this summer’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time at the 2010 ShoWest conference in Las Vegas, NV. But what Hollywood wants to do and what Hollywood can do are two different things. After several reschedulings and waiting for TV interviews, photo ops, and other interviews to wrap up, I finally got to meet the famed (and busy!) movie producer around 7:30 pm.

I had a bunch of questions for Bruckheimer about his new game studio, mixing the worlds of motion pictures and electronic entertainment, and, of course, his new film based on the long-running Prince of Persia series. Only one problem: One of the publicists told me my 15 minutes would have to be five. Hey, he has Extra, People magazine, and Robin Leach waiting to talk to him still -- I was amazed he was going to take time to chat with a gaming-enthusiast outlet at all.

That's a lot of pressure, conducting a full Q&A in under five minutes. But amazingly enough, that turned out to be more than enough time. I only needed one minute and 30 seconds to finish up with the most succinct guy I’ve ever interviewed….

Bitmob: So...what does Jerry Bruckheimer know about video games?

15

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

You have a flag. Someone else wants that flag. They're coming for it. Are you going to abandon that flag? Hell, no. You're going to guard that thing. This is called camping.

But is camping only as old as online shooters? What if I told you its origins go back further -- back to the golden age of arcades [via Halolz]:

3

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody:

What a gamer sees in a game doesn't always jive with what the developer intended. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- as long as the gamer likes what he ends up with, of course.

We recently saw a demo of Hunted: The Demon's Forge, a third-person...well...on the product sheet, publisher Bethesda is calling it a third-person co-op action game for the 360, PS3, and PC -- that much we can all agree on. But it's when the developers at inXile Entertainment start describing their baby that we start seeing things differently.

Before the demo started, they summoned a few great names in dungeon-crawling gaming to set things up for the audience: Baldur's Gate, The Bard's Tale...even Dragon Age: Origins. But we saw something decidedly different in Hunted....

4

Tweet

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell everybody: