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I've just finished killing all of my friends.  

Ragdoll physics make for entertaining conclusions to their brief lives. They'll get over the ass-kicking that I have just delivered, I'm sure, but not before I'm able to enjoy it.  

I'm at a LAN party. We have sixteen players shooting at each other between four Xboxes, and tonight I'm wielding the Duke as if it's a seamless extension of my mind. Halo 2's shrink wrap has only been off for a few hours, but I've established a clear dominance among my competition. My sensitivity is cranked up to a billion, and I've turned on my ADD; Twitch-Gaming is the only thing keeping me alive. 

 Well, that and a badass energy sword. 

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I mostly remember Descent for making me sick, but a lot of fans look back fondly on the PC shooter series. We havn't seen a new release in the franchise since 1999's Descent 3, but one enthusiast, going by Mad Max, is trying to re-create the original inside the modern Unreal Engine 3, which powers games like Gears of War and Infinity Blade.

The video after the jump shows off his work, which is enough to make any lover of the classic series yearn for a playable version. You can find out more about Mad Max's project at his website.

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I downloaded Corpse Party for the Sony PlayStation Portable to prepare myself for Halloween. Anything with gothic violence and cute anime girls wins in my book.

The Corpse Party narrative soon gripped me with more scares than many other horror games ever threw at me.

Corpse Party is an unusual indie throwback to old text-based horror games. It focuses more on the visceral horror setting rather than relying on intense action. The nasty deaths in the game shocked me with agonizing screams and detailed, bloody descriptions. Although the characters could literally talk for hours on end, I enjoyed every second of the experience.

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To many gamers, the soundtracks of the Final Fantasy series are holy writ. Er, holy music. Whatever.

But Square Enix hasn't been afraid to let remixers try their hands at composer Nobuo Uematsu's classic creations. Last year, they released the album SQ Chips, which took classic tunes from across the Squeenix pantheon and added all the bleeps, bloops, and 8-bit sounds you could wish for.

Based on the success of SQ Chips, the Japanese RPG giant has issued a whole series of chiptune albums centered on the post-SNES-era Final Fantasy titles.

Check out this well-known opening track from Final Fantasy 7, newly chip-ified, after the jump. And if you want to purchase these discs, they're not for sale to us Yanks yet, so you'll have to import.

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Brentalfloss, who makes a career out of writing and singing gaming parodies, teamed up with retro-gaming video blogger Pat the NES Punk to create "Nintendohemian Rhapsody," a spoof of the famous Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody."

I especially like the NES cartridge puppets, pictured above. You can see the video for yourself after the jump. It's even better than the original!

OK, that's a lie, but you should listen to it anyway.

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The Games Media Awards held in London last month caused quite a stir when the public found out journalists were tweeting PR-prompted hashtags in return for a chance to win free gear.

The news got out of hand quickly, and video-game journalists and fans are still talking about it. The image above, of journalist Geoff Keighley forcibly surrounded by junk food as part of an interview, became emblematic of the issue (though not Keighley's fault).

Well, Bitmob is all about games writing. It's in our blood, and it's the purpose of our site. So when an issue like this grabs the attention of our community, we want to hear what you have to say.

We've already front-paged a couple of your articles on this topic, and our own Jason Lomberg has shared his opinion as well. But we thought it made sense to round all your thoughts up into one hub. So check out the article summaries below, and see what you think.

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Do you want to know what my nightmares sound like?

Something like this.

I guess you could say that I’ve always been somewhat biased against underwater levels in my gaming experiences given that Sonic the Hedgehog was the first title I ever owned. Those nightmarish “outswim the timer” stages led to about 1,000 of my little beloved hedgehog’s deaths.

But let’s be serious. Something is inherently wrong with these submerged sequences. Think about it. Ask gamers who grew up with a Nintendo 64 what the most difficult levels they ever had to play through were. I can guarantee you that the a number of them will burst into fits of sobbing as repressed memories of the water temple from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time bubble to the surface.

Or maybe that's just me. 

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Let me guess. You like video games, and you hate your day job?

You’re not alone. I think everyone would rather get paid to play big-time titles all day than do anything else.

A dangerous misconception exists regarding these dream jobs, however. They're not an excuse to play all day. They're work.

And life is about doing something meaningful.

Does that make sense?

Work makes life worthwhile. To throw your body, mind, and soul at a meaningful task is a human being's source of satisfaction.

To be utterly spent, exhausted, and bloodied while knowing that you’ve accomplished something great is the sweetest feeling.

Now let’s examine the dream of being a games journalist.

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I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Sonic the Hedgehog fan (at least of everything before the horrible 2006 game), but I have to shamefully admit to not knowing a single one of the interesting facts in Did You Know Gaming's newest video.

For instance, apparently Sega originally designed Dr. Robotnik (I refuse to call him Dr. Eggman) as a hero for another game. Also, Sonic originally had a human love interest called Madonna. That idea was thankfully scrapped by Sega of America for being too "Japanese."

You can learn more bizarre Sonic trivia by watching the video after the break.

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we examine how PlayStation All-Stars tries to shed the "Smash Bros. clone" tag, discuss David Jaffe's thoughts on video-game storytelling, and wonder why we still get so many sequels. Join us!

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PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is trying to separate itself
By Ethan Clevenger

"If you were hoping to play Smash Bros. with PlayStation characters," Ethan writes, "you'll be sorely disappointed. While the general concept is there, the game as a whole is far from a carbon copy, which may be a good or bad thing." I do love some Smash, but I'm looking forward to trying a different style of fight.

Jaffe, you so crazy (or not): Storytelling in video games
By Javy Gwaltney

Javy breaks down Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe's comments on how storytelling "stunts the growth of video games." Javy writes: "What Jaffe is missing out on is the fact that games aren’t trying to be movies but are instead trying to achieve a happy medium that offers interactivity and a cinematic experience." What do you think?

The never-ending year of sequels
By Thomas Bobyn

If it seems like every year could be called the "year of sequels," well, Thomas says you're probably right. He says that sequels are safe bets for publishers trying to turn a profit. But that doesn't mean we have to complain, Thomas argues: "Rather than fighting the barrage of sequels that comes at us 12 months a year, we as a gaming community should learn to minimize the pre-determined bias we have about sequels."

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We're about to enter the crazy period of time in our industry known as the holidays, but check out these reviews for some classic titles and recent releases that you might have missed before all of those triple-A experiences swamp your gaming collection.

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Gravity Rush: More, please
By Billy Guinigundo

Gravity Rush is my game of the year so far. I don't think Billy is quite as enthusiastic as I am, but he still has a lot of nice things to say about this PlayStation Vita exclusive. "The gravity-shifting mechanic created a vertical dimensionality to the play space that was parts disorienting, creative, and, ultimately, exhilirating."

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The best of gaming horror: Evil comes to Raccoon City
By Stan Rezaee

Stan looks back at Resident Evil 2, one of the most popular survival-horror games for the original PlayStation. "Despite its now obvious plot holes and anomalies, Resident Evil 2 still remains a classic example of a good horror game and a sequel that successfully improved over its predecessor."

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Holding up in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
By Javy Gwaltney

Let's keep the classic vibe going with Javy's review of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. How does it hold up? Pretty well, according to Javy. "The graphics haven’t aged well, sure, but everything else is just as superb as it was a decade ago."

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According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, to glorify something is to make it “glorious by bestowing honor, praise, and admiration.”

One of the charges that has always been levied at controversial video games is that many of them glorify violence. Now, there are certain games that I would be hard-pressed to make a compelling defense for, such as Postal; however, there have been certain games that have successfully sidestepped that criticism by giving the player the choice to commit or refrain from violence.

Think about Grand Theft Auto III. To progress through the game, you must kill mafia members and other undesirables, but the game never requires that you to progress through the story to play it. Think about it. You can play taxi driver or cruise around town blasting the radio or just walk about, observing the denizens of Liberty City as they go about their lives. It may be boring as hell, but the option to play the game without maiming a single person is there.

And then we have the middle ground: Hotline Miami. I’m not going to waste time reviewing the game as there are plenty of fantastic reviews out there. I do, however, want to focus on the violence in this game since it’s clearly been one of its selling points.

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