We’re coming to you on the road to GDC 2010, the biggest gaming event of the year! We’ve also got a review of the latest entry into Capcom’s venerable Mega Man franchise.

RADAR: Mega Man 10 Review

Capcom, Platformer, WiiWare, $10

Mega Man 10 is here, and it looks like… Mega Man 9. This retro-inspired entry goes a couple steps farther than it’s predecessor with new challenge modes and the ability to play as Proto Man right from the start – but is it enough to warrant another purchase?

If you want to make an impact online, GoDaddy.com has what you need. . COM names as low as $1.99. Plus, world-class hosting, fast-&-easy Web site builders and much more. Check out Revision3.com/GoDaddy for a list of all of the amazing GoDaddy deals from Revision3.

Free Indie Countdown

#3 – Dreamside Maroon – Windows, Some Vine-Growing Thing, Terraced – LINK

#2 – Puddle – Windows, Platformer, Puddle Team – LINK

#1 – Devil’s Tuning Fork – Windows, First Person Platformer, DePaul Game Elites – LINK

Feedback: Best Franchise Ever

What’s the best game series ever? We asked you last week, and you came out (some of you in costume) to share your opinion. Oh, you guys.

Next week’s Feedback question: What’s the WORST game franchise ever? Weigh in with a video or audio comment on www.Bytejacker.com, a video response on YouTube, or a message on our hotline: (530) 675-GAME

GameFly is the largest online video game rental service and offers you a choice from over 7,000 new and classic titles across all consoles and handhelds. With plans starting at $15.95 a month, GameFly members can rent one to four games at a time and keep them for as long as they like. There are no late fees, no due dates and shipping is always free. Once youÕre done playing a game, send it back and GameFly will send you the next available game on your list. If you really like the game youÕre playing, simply click Ņkeep itÓ on the GameFly website and the game is yours, at a discounted price. GameFly will even mail you the case and manuals free of charge!

Bytejacker fans get a 15-day FREE Trial when they go to www.GameFly.com/byte and sign up NOW. Be sure to use this URL so that they know we sent you!

Free Indie Rapid Fire

Air Pressure – Windows/Mac/Linux, Visual Novel, Bento Smile – LINK

Home Sheep Home – Flash, Puzzle Platformer, Aardman – LINK

Redder – Flash, Platformer, Anna Anthropy – Redder – Flash, Platformer, Anna Anthropy – LINK

This Week’s Music:

Chromelodeon, “Aluminum,” “Higgeldy Piggeldy,” and “Triangular,” The Final Recordings: http://www.iimusic.net/catalog/2008/04/the-final-recordings

Spiny Norman, “Give us the green light,” Magnetic Sumo: http://www.iimusic.net/catalog/2010/02/compilation-magnetic-sumo

Stalking People is Fun!

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Sadly, Bytejacker couldn’t make it to GDC this year (more on that this Thursday). Apparently, though, everyone else on the planet was, resulting in a massive influx in game news, both of the downloadable and indie variety. And hey, that’s totally our thing, man. So here’s a list of the relevant GDC stories from the past 24 hours – filtered through the Bytejacker indieloadable lens.

Tomorrow Corporation reveals their existence to the world - Today, a new indie studio emerged – one consisting of Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy, EGP co-founder Allan Blomquist, and Kyle Gray (of Henry Hatsworth fame). They haven’t announced any games yet, but if I know indie game development studios, it’s safe to say they will eventually.

Joe Danger is coming to PSN exclusively (at first) - Hello Games sent out a press release today announcing that Joe Danger will be coming as a “console exclusive” to Playstation Network this spring! This means two things: firstly, that the wait to play Joe Danger is soon approaching, and secondly, that all those videos of the game being played with an Xbox 360 pad did mean absolutely nothing after all!

Or did they? A Hello Games spokesperson (presumably “spokesperson” here means “one of the four dudes that Hello Games consists of” told Joystiq that this announcement doesn’t mean Joe Danger will never be seen on any other consoles. So just chill out! Jeez, guys.

Battlestar gets an MMO – and it probably isn’t what you expect - The pretty much invitable Battlestar Galactica MMO is now official – and actually kind of surprising. Unlike the Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Onlines of the world, this is gonna be a browser-based Unity joint. While no pay system has been announced yet, the game will be brought to us by Bigpoint, a developer notorious for those newfangled free-to-play MMOs that are so big on the internet these days. Pretty curious to see how this pans out.

Twitter games dominate - This is yet another piece of half-shocking, half-inevitable news: people obviously love Twitter, and apparently, more than a few developer types see that as an angle for a game. Fully relevant to this week’s events is BackChatter, the self-described “massively multiplayer GDC game” . It works like this: users can go to BackChatter.com and predict the three words they expect to trend the most in GDC-related tweets.

On the other end of the spectrum, the not-actually-at-GDC-but-just-released Tweet Defense for iPhone offers a much more tacit alternative to Twitter integration into your gameplay. Your Twitter stats factor gently into the otherwise-standard tower defense gameplay by netting you bonuses – followers equate range, tweets grant you damage bonuses, etc. Check it out for its special 99c introductory price here.

Phew! Obviously, this isn’t everything that got announced on day one of GDC, but these are some of the things we figured you guys might dig. Did we miss any big ones? Let us know in the comments!

GDC doesn’t technically start until tomorrow, but Derek Yu decided to kick things off early by posting a few minutes ago the first-ever screenshots from Spelunky’s Xbox Live Arcade release! Waagh!!

Check them out below:

Pretty dramatic departure from the pixel art graphics of the original Spelunky, don’t you think?

I hope you like running, space worms, pixelated prospectors who shoot fireballs, Meat Boy cameos, and Anamanaguchi, because the trailer for Bit.Trip Runner is here, and it contains all of these things.

Games are art. No one is debating that anymore. The few stragglers attempting to claim otherwise were finally silenced when flOwer came out last year and won Best Indie Game from Playboy. But it’s important to look at where the movement began. Obviously, it began with the indies, but let’s be specific:

Games became art two and a half years ago during Glorious Trainwrecks’ Emergency 100-in-1 Klik & Play Pirate Kart Meltdown.

Lucky for us artgame dilettantes, the powers that be have chosen to engage the public in a second Pirate Kart competition, resulting in five hundred and twenty nine new games. We have played all of them. Here, for your convenience, are the eight titles of the greatest artistic merit.

-                                                                           -

CollisionFighter – A fascinatingly self-reflective piece on the use of death in games, CollisionFighter borrows heavily (philosophically, of course) from the treatment of death in roguelikes like NetHack and takes the concept to its furthest conclusion. This one is definitely designed to make you think, and beneath its almost-too-polished action game exterior is a game that will do exactly that.

Profound, yet subtle.

Zongor VS Crazy Axe Man – Zongor is by far one of the darkest submissions to the competition this year. To say much more about it would risk tarnishing the emotional impact of one of the most intense games we’ve experienced in a while, but in short, Zongor focuses on one man’s attempts (and ultimate failure) to quell his deeply-suppressed violent tendencies. While the game strives to lighten the tone in spots with xdonthave1xx’s characteristic black humor, this one is truly not for the faint of heart.

You Have to Put the George Washington in the American Flag – Call it this year’s indie Bioshock, but this text-based thriller from Healy is not only remarkably exciting and well-paced, it also packs a strong philosophical punch. In essence, you control an everyman placed without explanation in our nation’s capital, and, over the arc of the game’s progression, you are confronted by some of the most powerful and direct political metaphors we’ve seen in indie games to date. Washington provides an interesting and unique twist on contemporary libertarian theory, and absolutely should not be missed.

Disjointed, yet coherent.

Create Balls – Wouldn’t run.

Eat a Baby or a Burglar – This game takes inspiration from the complex moral decision-making required from contemporary console games like inFamous and goes on to prove that you don’t need a huge studio or giant budget to create sophisticated ethical quandaries. Burglar is one that definitely requires multiple playthroughs to get everything out of.

Bleak, yet heartfelt.

Pac-Man Without a Cause – Another existential masterpiece by Sergio Cornaga (author of the absolutely chilling my shadow is a killing thing), this piece uses the angst of a lonely 80s arcade character as an illustrative tool for the greater issue of the artificial personalities that disguised the quarter-greedy, soulless arcade games of yore. Perhaps minimalist to a fault, but nonetheless a valuable piece.

An artgame about the horrors of war. – Devastating.

Suicide Is NOT The Answer – Shit.

Readers! Do you have a favorite game from the 529 submissions? Let us know in the comments!

Do you like chiptunes? Do you like chiptunes artists?! Do you like chiptunes artists who we interviewed at Blip Festival?!? Then you should probably get psyched for the 8-bit Alliance Tour, one of the biggest US chiptune tours…ever, actually.

Organized (and headlined) by fantastic chip-and-guitar group Anamanaguchi, the tour also features UK 8-bit breakbeat artist Sabrepulse, the pseudo-improvisational Henry Homesweet, and eccentric beepy post-rock duo Starscream. I have taken the liberty of linking you to great songs by all four artists so you know what you’re missing if you don’t show up to the tour. You are welcome.

It all kicks off this Friday at Market Hotel in Brooklyn, but will gradually work its way down the East Coast over the next two weeks. The full dates can be found on the official (and badass-looking) 8-bit Alliance Tour site right here:

http://www.anamanaguchi.com/8ba/

See you guys there!

Readers! Are you planning on showing up at one of the 8BA tour’s stops? Let us know in the comments!

We combed through Nintendo’s game store for their handheld and found the best titles for your buck. We’re also taking a look at your picks for the best strategy games of all time.

RADAR: Top 5 DSiWare Games

Glow Artisan – Puzzle, Powerhead Games, 500 points – LINK

Art Style: Precipice – Platformer, Nintendo, 500 points – LINK

Escapee GO! – Stealth Action, Gevo Entertainment, 200 points – LINK

Flipper – Puzzle Platformer, Xform, 500 points – LINK

Mighty Flip Champs – Arcade, Wayforward, 800pts – LINK

Free Indie Countdown

#3: Rocket Ninja CyborgLINK
Suggested by Scattle

#2: Cream Wolf – Flash, Arcade, Messhof/Pixeljam -LINK
Suggested by Harrison

#1: Pax Britannica – PC, RTS, No Fun Games – LINK

Feedback: Best Strategy Games Ever

Last week we asked you to throw down your opinion on the best strategy games ever, and we got some surprising answers.

Next week’s Feedback question: What’s the best game franchise ever? Weigh in with a video or audio comment on www.Bytejacker.com, a video response on YouTube, or a message on our hotline: (530) 675-GAME

Free Indie Rapid Fire

Devil’s Tuning Fork – Windows, First Person Platformer, DePaul Game Elites – LINK

Dreamside Maroon – Windows, Some Vine-Growing Thing, Terraced – LINK

Puddle – Windows, Platformer, Puddle Team – LINK

This Week’s Music:

All music this week is from the II Music Compilation “Magnetic Sumo.” Download it for free here: http://www.iimusic.net/catalog/2010/02/compilation-magnetic-sumo

Stalking People is Fun!

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Steam is doing another one of their Midweek Madness sales, and this week’s bargains are pretty damn excellent. They’ve marked down six $9.99 (and one $4.99) indie titles to two bucks a pop. The games include Space Giraffe, Gridrunner Revolution, Altitude, Super Laser Racer, Galcon Fusion, Bullet Fusion, and (drumroll) Bob Came In Pieces!

Yeah, between Bob and all the Jeff Minter representation, I think it’s safe to colloquially refer to this as the Anthony Carbundle.

Maybe the coolest part of this sale is that you can get all seven games together for $9.99. So, for the retail price of practically any of these games, you’re getting that game and six others. The economics of Steam sales will never cease to boggle my mind.

Here’s the link to the sale. Now get t’buyin’!

A year and a half ago, Adam Atomic and Danny Baranowsky worked together on a game for the first time. That game was Gravity Hook, and you know what? We liked it a lot.

So did Adam and Danny, apparently; at the very least, they liked it enough to lovingly craft a badass remake of it. Every aspect of it has been rebuilt – the original’s 8-bit art style has been swapped out for a new, highly-detailed one, the gameplay has been dramatically changed through the addition of new mine types and grapple points, and the controls have been revamped (in part to take advantage of the iPhone platform, which Gravity Hook HD should be arriving on soon).

Gravity Hook HD also contains what is easily my favorite Danny B. soundtrack of all time. The music this time around is incredible – the chiptunes soundtrack of the original Gravity Hook has been replaced by the exciting, fast, rocky music that dB Soundworks has become known for. There’s also a surprising amount of music in the game: instead of the same loop over and over, the game switches between a handful of very different songs. All of them have pretty different moods, but they all work well for the game.

What are you waiting for? Go play Gravity Hook HD right now! http://www.gravityhookhd.com/

I promise, I’m doing everything in my power to stop this from becoming The Joe Danger Blog (presented by Bytejacker). But if Hello Games keeps pumping out the awesome at their current rate…all I’m saying is I can’t promise anything.

The debut trailer for Joe Danger finally hit today, and it is goooooood. Depending on how pre-obsessed you’ve become with the game, you may have seen some of its contents before through leaked footage, but if you’ve never heard of Joe Danger, this trailer is the best jumping off point you could possibly ask for. GET PSYCHED!