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 I take a break from the tedium of midterm exams to bring you this fine edition of the Community Spotlight. I don't suppose any of you would like to take my Japanese exam for me? I can pay you absolutely nothing for your trouble and may resent you if you tarnish my precious 100 percent in the class. But if you're game, the offer stands.

Jeffery Michael Grubb starts with the results of his Frogger high score challenge, which weren't easy to collect thanks to my ever-so-helpful recommendation of a version of Frogger that erases its scoreboards every day. Chris Cosmo Ross is next with a horrifying depiction of a sociopathic game store owner's assault of a minor and slobbering lunacy about Final Fantasy 13 on the 360. Mohammad AlHuraiz keeps the bad decision train a-rolling with his account of gaming in the United Arab Emirates.

Patrick Ryan Gan examines why certain styles of gameplay eventually fade from popular gaming, and shows how the days of JRPGs as we know them may be numbered. Finally, Derek Lavigne calls upon the Bitmob community to help him choose a game to play. Lie to him, it's the only way to force him to make the right decision....

Bitmob High Score Challenge: Frogger Results
By Jeffrey Michael Grubb
If you're on edge about the results of Jeff's recent Frogger high score challenge, you can relax. The numbers are in, and despite my best efforts, I didn't even rank. You can check out who scored the best and get in your late entries for the next contest: the Facebook game Word Challenge. You can tell I had no part in the game selection process this time, because, unlike Frogger, scores are easy to report and save!

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Quick show of hands: How many Bitmob community members will be able to make the nerd comedy show/Bitmob Meet-Up tonight in San Francisco, CA? Please let us know in the comments below.

I need to know how many free gifts I should attempt to bring to hand out to you guys. But I have a feeling we won't have as good of a turnout due to timing, spring break, and lighter-than-usual wallets (don't forget our discount Bitmob promo code, though) -- which means those that do show up will have a better chance at getting something cool!

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Editor's Note: Frank again reminds us that video games can have a positive influence on the world. I agree with him, and I hope he continues this series. - Jay

If you asked most people to write down their opinions of the average gamer, the word charitable would probably not be on that list. However, this perception may soon change. Video-game  charities pop up every day, and the amount of money they donate is far from insignificant.

For an idea of how widespread video-game charities are becoming, all you need to do is head towards Google. A search for the phrase 'video game charity' currently shows 19,100,000 results. While many of these hits point to articles such as this one, you don't need to look much further than this very site to see solid evidence that game charities have become pervasive.

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Editor's note: Daniel's walk down memory lane is a brilliant beginning to a new meme on Bitmob. To join in the fun, write about your own gaming decade and tag it "My Gaming Decade." I'll collect them all in a future post. -Brett 

If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I had a great decade. Each year of the 2000s ended better than the last. I was reminded of this when I read Stephen Totilo’s brief recap of his “gaming decade” on Kotaku. Inspired, I present to you a summary of my gaming decade:

2000: I discovered the magic of console modding. My modded NeoGeo was largely a novelty, allowing me to access the DIP switches and uncensor certain fighting games, but my modded Dreamcast became my gateway to imported games from Japan. I’m certain this prolonged exposure to a language I couldn’t understand piqued my interest in Japanese, convincing me to take a night class that fall.

2001: Those lessons inspired me to visit Japan for the first time, where I fell in love with...a Golgo 13 sniper arcade game. Whereas most gun games cast you as a cop, giving you an implicit mandate that your on-screen targets are dangerous criminals, Golgo 13 -- Japan’s favorite professional hitman -- has no such ethical considerations. When the game asked me to snipe a woman’s high-heeled shoe so she’d fall down a stairway to her death, I didn’t even blink. I had never played such an amoral game before.

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Gaijin Games should sponsor a marathon to promote Bit.Trip Runner...and put all sorts of obstacles on the course for people avoid.

Video Blips:

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Editor's note: Phew! Just made it.... What's the point in having a monthly breakdown of a laundry list of releases if we don't post it until the second week in? Anyway, Jeremy takes the mounds of press and hype surrounding March's RPG releases and cuts them down to easily digestible -- and informational -- morsels. -James

Role-playing-game fans live in a wealth of riches these days. The genre receives entries from all corners of the world and with different styles. This can make it hard for gamers to makes sense of the multitude of releases. But take heart! This monthly column breaks down each month's RPG releases, including gameplay descriptions and word on the street about a game's quality.

It seems March is the new November, especially for RPGs. A ton of significant releases are hitting store shelves this month, not the least of which are new entries into two long-running franchises. It certainly is an exciting time to be an RPG fan, so let’s have at it!

The Main Event:
Final Fantasy 13 (PS3/360)
Release Date: March 9

Let’s face it: The release of a new mainline Final Fantasy is essentially a national holiday for JRPG fans. North America’s most beloved and progressive franchise in the genre always attempts to be at the forefront of narrative and gameplay trends, and this entry is no different. Fans are already hotly debating the way the title streamlines many RPG tropes. The game is extremely linear both figuratively and literally. Square has scrapped traditional towns for the most part and have completely excised seemly sacred elements that don’t fit in to the game. While many see this shakeup of traditional JRPG values as blasphemous, it also illustrates how stuck in a rut the genre is. Besides, streamlining worked wonders for Mass Effect 2, so why not here? Add that to what is said to be the most exciting Final Fantasy battle system yet, and we have may have yet another fresh take on the genre from the industry leader. That said, fans haven’t historically taken to drastic changes in the franchise. Final Fantasy 12 was another fresh take on the formula, and that installment polarized fans. Will 13 do the same?

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Brawl in the Family is one of the funniest comics on the web, but these "blueprints" -- drawn by Dr. Wily himself --  are on a whole new level of hilarity. Click the image to see the whole, much longer comic:

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One thing stood out to me while I was attending the Nintendo Media Summit this past week: Metroid: Other M sure has a lot of talky talky. That isn't so much a problem for a video game -- it's just a little unusual for a classic Nintendo franchise, especially one that used to star a silent protagonist.

But yes, you'll hear a lot of talking in Other M, which is due out June 27 for the Wii. Samus Aran talking to other characters. Other characters talking to each other. Samus talking in her head. Talking everywhere. It's all a part of the developer's goal to humanize this robotic personality.

We sat down with Nintendo of America's localization producer Nate Bihldorff to learn more about this more realistic Samus, why they wouldn't give the same treatment to Link or Mario, and whether we'll see our star in a wii bikini. (You do know who's developing this game, don't you?)

Bitmob:  Why Samus? Relatively few Nintendo characters are made to be "real." You don't hear Link talking about Ganondorf or Mario wondering what Bowser is up to...yet you hear Samus talking about the Mother Brain, Ridley....

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Editor's note: Too many titles are content rest on their laurels when it comes to character development. Daniel argues that instead of constantly shuffling us from action scene to action scene, developers should spend more time giving us intimate depictions of the characters they present. -James

I opened my Heavy Rain review by noting that one of my favorite parts of the game is something that would be completely boring under normal circumstances. Despite that (or maybe because of it), it’s a thing that is sorely missing in games.

The scene in question occurs right after the prologue. In it, the main character, Ethan Mars, spends an evening with his son. You can let him sit there and watch TV while you have a beer, or you can look at a schedule of tasks and set him to dinner, homework, and bed.

This is exactly the kind of situation that I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t want to see in games, but I think it’s necessary -- when it's done right.

One of Heavy Rain’s biggest assets over the usual game narrative is how it doesn’t hesitate to put players through the mundane parts of everyday life. While an NPC washes up in your apartment, you might fry her some eggs. Maybe mother is resting in bed for a minute, so you put the baby to sleep.

None of this stuff actually adds to the gameplay or the major parts of the storyline. All it does is help better illustrate the characters and their world. By spending a day in his home with his family, you get a better picture of who Ethan is, which hopefully makes it easier for you to connect with him. Try to count how many video games you can name that have protagonists you actually empathized with. Probably not too many.

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Editor's Note: I thought that I already held video games to high standards. After reading Cameron's article, I looked at some of my own work and realized I was guilty of using the "for a video game" qualifier too. I agree with this premise; we should start examining video games critically and not just in comparison to other games. - Jay

Video games comprise the only medium which serves as its own caveat. It's rare that critics explicitly qualify their praise with “...for a video game,” but they imply it whenever they let games off the hook for failures that would be inexcusable in other media. We have to stop doing this if we want games to get better. Video games don't exist in a vacuum. When we act as if they do, we perpetuate the myth that they're intrinsically inferior to other art forms. By refusing to raise our standards, we reinforce the worst stereotypes about video games and the people who play them.

As technology makes it possible to do more and more with games, their artistic deficiencies become increasingly evident. It's kind of like the uncanny valley effect, only for aesthetics. Back in the days when it was amazing that a programmer could get two little guys to run around a screen and shoot at each other, nobody was too concerned about the moral dilemmas those characters might be facing. In the rush to make the guys look more and more realistic, very few designers stopped to think about whether it might be more interesting if, for example, they looked like something out of a Paul Klee drawing. These days, programmers prove to us that they can render people shooting each other in amazing, lifelike detail. From a technological standpoint, that's truly impressive. However, if games can achieve that level of visual realism, there's no reason they can't push themselves in other directions.

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I say the following with the utmost sincerity and with no hint of irony whatsoever: I love the chicken wings at Hooters. And apparently, so does at least one jokester....

On this week's Mobcast, comedian and former 3DO/Sega/Sony PR dude Dave Karraker expressed his similar love for those hot wings, so we decided that we'd make Hooters the destination for Saturday night's Bitmob Meet-Up, right after the geek comedy show -- Cross Platform Comedy 3.0 -- down the street.

This is your last reminder to come join us for some nerd-humor laughs, a few drinks, and a few thousand pieces of meat that happen to be the same color as the waitresses' short shorts. Also: free stuff.

Update: Yes, we'll be giving away free stuff at the after-party. My apartment is overflowing with goodies (games, t-shirts, posters, etc.) that we've been saving for our fans, and I need to unload. East coasters, don't worry -- our own Brett Bates has you covered as well at our meet-up at PAX East. Uh, sorry middle-of-the-country people...but here's a bone for you:

If you help us promote the last two Mobcasts (which featured the comics from Cross Platform), you could win a download code for Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx or a free, random game from our pile, which we'll send to you.

Details on the contest and this Saturday night's events (including a promo code for a discount off the show) below.

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Something's wrong with Master Chief's auto-aim, because he can't seem to get his eyes off of this Stormtrooper. Well at the very least, they're both wearing protection [via Kotaku]!

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