To serve as a follow up to this post, Colin Moriarty over on IGN wrote a hands-on preview of Linkin Park's "8-Bit Rebellion". On the name: Though the members of Linkin Park are apparently gamer-advocates of the old-school, 8-Bit Rebellion doesn't quite live up to its name. It looks more like a 16-bit, or even a 32-bit offering. On the story: 8-Bit Rebellion is fairly loose, but then again, stories never really drove games like this in the first place. The members of Linkin Park have crafted a song that was stolen by an evil mega-company called Pixxxel Corp. Conveniently, the heads of that corporation split the song into six different segments, which were strewn around the unique environments that the player must traverse in order to recover the missing track in its entirety. All the while, bad guys attempt to stop your progress as you jump around from level to level. On controls and leveling: The main character is controlled by tapping on the right or left side of the horizontally-held iPhone, while various weapons (sword, flamethrower, etc.) are engaged by tapping the center of the screen. There are leveling and monetary systems in the game, meaning that you can earn experience points to make your character stronger, and collect currency to purchase not only new gear for your character, but also other collectibles, including furniture that can be placed inside your own personal abode. On the music: Linkin Park fans will be pleased with the soundtrack. MIDI-like tracks of famous Linkin Park songs are available to listen to both in-game and independently, as well as MP3s of those same songs. So whatever mode of audio the gamer chooses to utilize will be available. For beating the game, players unlock an all-new, unreleased Linkin Park song entitled "Blackbirds." There are even clever in-game rewards for having Linkin Park tracks on your device already, mostly in the form of in-game achievements. On features: 8-Bit Rebellion contains both Facebook and Twitter functionality. You can create an in-game friends list to connect with other players, to the extent that as your list grows, in-game AI characters will actually be replaced by actual friends. There's an in-game messaging system, too, so that you can contact people who are on your friends list. You'll even run into other gamers who are currently traversing whatever sector you're currently in. All of these features seem to be at the heart of the experience; the developers have gone out of their way to make sure interactivity is an integral part of their product. 8-Bit Rebellion will be released on Monday, April 26th. Source: IGN.com
I'm still scanning the web to see if there's any other news we haven't posted yet. Seems to be a healthy day for news.