We al know how much Brad - and plenty of other people - loved Boom Blox for the Wii. Well, apparently enough people enjoyed the block-smash-fest to warrant a sequel.

According to a report over at 1up.com, the new game from Steven Spielberg and EA will be arriving this spring, bringing with it some features available on another popular game that puts a lot of faith in user-created content - LittleBigPlanet. Among these will be the ability to - finally - upload your own levels and download and rate the creations of others. We’ll keep you posted on new details as the release gets closer.

Thank you, Amazon.

You’ve always been good to us. Today’s Deal of the Day features an 80 gig PS3 for $349.99, which, while still being the equivalent of approximately of 174.5 egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches (your own mileage may vary), is still 50 dollars less that you would be robbed of on any other Tuesday. So if you’ve been saving your breakfast money for the last 6 months, and are mentally and physically ready to bring this shiny black monster into your home, now may be a good time to do it.

There are some new screenshots out for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, over at the game’s official site.

Together with the highly anticipated (by me, anyway!) The Secret World by Funcom, this may be one game that makes me upgrade my PC and get back into the MMO arena.

Of course they’d need to fix a lot of things that went wrong with other space-based MMOs like Anarchy Online and Star Wars: Galaxies, but given that Bioware is involved, I have faith. I love those guys

More good news from Eidos for all the Lara lovers in the audience. The first expansion for the latest entry in the long-running series, Tomb Raider Underworld, will be releasing on February 10. If anyone’s looking for a good birthday present for me, some Microsoft Points would be greatly appreciated. =) [my b-day is the 11th, fyi]

The first expansion, entitled Beneath the Ashes, will bring Lara back to (spoiler alert to the 2 of you who haven’t seen at least one of the trailers) the burnt Croft Manor, exploring new tunnels and passageways that her crafty father apparently had installed over the years. The second add-on will release 4 weeks later (that’s March 10, for those of you following at home and not realizing that 2009 is not a leap year), entitled Lara’s Shadow. Not much is known about this level yet, but the name seems to suggest something to do with the doppleganger. We’ll have to wait and see.

No word on pricing just yet, but the first expansion at least will bring 125 new Gamerscore points (woot) and 6 new outfits (sweet). Eidos also took the opportunity to announce the new premium theme for your New Xbox Experience dashboard, which will set you back 250 fake dollar-point-thingys (eh). Check out the press release here, and 1up’s take on the news here. And thanks again to Tomb Raider Chronicles for the pic.

Ubisoft announced their new line up of games for the year - including titles like Assassin’s Creed 2, Red Steel 2, and a new Ghost Recon, among others. The full release is here.

I am actually excited about the first two titles. Why? Different reasons.

With Assassin’s Creed 2, I think it’s an easy way to make an absolutely spectacular game by fixing some relatively easy to address issues with the first game. Assassin’ Creed was, despite it’s shortcomings, an undeniably atmospheric and beautiful game - a quality that eludes many of the best titles out there. And the gameplay had the right basic elements as well - it just needed more depth and less repetitiveness. As long as the devs listen to the fans, fixing these gameplay problems should actually be a very achievable exercise, which gives the second game some really amazing potential.

With Red Steel 2, I am waiting to see whether the new MotionPlus controller is indeed what’s needed to save the Wii for the hardcore gamer. There is probably very little real reason for my optimism here, but what can I do - I am an optimist If somehow it turns out that RS2 finally fulfills the original dream of a truly responsive motion-controlled action game - which is what got many of us so excited about the Wii in the first place - then Nintendo may not be lost to the hardcore gamer just yet. I am not holding my breath too much here, but I do want to give the big N that one last shot.

It happens every year. All the glut of the big September to November top notch, award winning, holy cow games come out — and then, between December to mid-February we get what I like to call the craptaculuar winter release games. Following the backward logic that says publishers have to save all the “good” games for the fall, comes the logic that somehow seems to say that since people are going to be stuck indoors (since it’s so flippin cold outside) you should have an absolute dogpile of games to play in the winter. Granted you could still be rockin’ through Left for Dead, Fallout 3 or Gears of War 2, but let’s say you are looking for something new, something to tide you over until you can get excited about all the games you won’t see until E3 and have to wait for in the fall? One would think (if you wanted to actually think about this) that after doing this year after year somebody would have the sense to put out at least one decent title in the winter.

Sure, there have been exceptions — Crackdown came out in February 2 years ago. Sure, it was a promotional gimmick for the Halo 3 beta - but it was still a good game. And yes, you could go down a very short list of other games that have broken the winter slump rules and actually rocked but overall, yeah it’s been a suckfest. Think I’m being picky or whiny. Why should I care? Because with all the talent and skill out there to make and publish games any time of the year, why bank all of your gaming eggs on that fall glut? Why not make a standout game and release it in January? You wouldn’t have any competition.

Before all you Lord of the Rings: Conquest lovers start getting all riled up here’s the thing — that game is awful. Take Pandemic who made the best multiplayer Star Wars game ever, Star Wars: Battlefront and a publisher who has made LOTR games, Electronic Arts, and what you should have is an awesome game, right? No, it’s not awesome, it’s okay and it’ll sell a few boxes but it’s not what you would expect or deserve as fan of the films and books.

Ironically, the other issue attached to the winter game release doldrums is that if there is a good title that makes it out, it doesn’t get any attention. Anybody go to the Prince of Persia release party or see commercials for the game on channels like ESPN of Comedy Central? Nope. Was it a bad game? Nope? In fact, this revamping of the franchise is a beautifully rendered, tremendously pleasing game. This game is at least a solid 8 out of 10. Unfortunately the game was released a week after Thanksgiving when all the frenzy for games was over. It deserved more attention and maybe that’s the fault of the publisher but what would have made more sense was to release it earlier. The bottom line is — a game released in December through February is just not going to get noticed. Expect the same thing to happen to Skate 2 ,which is a stellar game but it gets released in January.

And now if it pleases the court, may I present a few of the many 2008/2009 winter releases

Rise of the Argonauts – where to begin? First of all it’s a Greek mythology game, ooooooh. And secondly it’s dreadful with an ample sprinkling of idiotic. It’s one thing to see Ray Harryhausen goofy skeleton soldiers, but a completely other thing to see someone try to justify this pile of dung on a console.

Secret Service – Let’s see. What’s the definition of a game that makes you wonder if the developer was delusional? What’s a game that sucks so bad you wouldn’t take it if it were free? Answer – Secret Service.

Sim Animals – Yeah, because nothing says fun like using your Wii to manage fake animals in a game that isn’t Animal Crossing.

Puzzle Arcade – That’s right, solving puzzles on your TV makes much more sense than your tabletop. You know how doing puzzles in fun and you get to sift through pieces and it’s a great way to pass the time with friends and family? Do that and don’t play this game.

Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furons – You know this one joke pony had its merits the first time around. This is possibly one of the worst open-ended games ever made. This continuation of the franchise makes you yearn for Stubbs the Zombie (yes that was a real game.) Stupid as that game was, it’s a game of the year compared to this waste of disc space.

MLB Front Office Manager – Having trouble sleeping? Then buy this game, turn it on and try to stay awake for more than five minutes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the exciting world of the guys in the front office of the baseball teams.

Rygar: Battle of the Argus – Not only is the title embarrassing, the game looks like someone asked a monkey with a crayon to storyboard this game. Even worse this game looks like it should have been made 5 years ago.

Notable mentions

Neopets Puzzle Adventure — Are you kidding?

Dreamer: Horse Trainer — See above

So while we wait for the saving grace of the GTA IV downloadable content next month we have to suffer through yet another winter season of crappy games that will pollute the bargain bins six months from now.

Summary: Banjo and Kazooie come out in a whole new direction, and deliver.

Setting: Not the Appalachian or Smoky Mountains, where bears are surprisingly common.

Systems: Xbox 360.

Genre: Bear-centric adventure.

Mood: Lighthearted and farcical. In other words, the opposite of Gears of War.

Read the full review by Brad.

Okay, there’s some cross-promotion going on here, too.

My good buddy Dennis, aka dmoneymania, has himself a sweet podcast and blog taking up space on the interwebs these days, and yours truly was invited as a guest on the show. Among the topics - you guessed it - video games! We also chat about the current National Hockey League season, in case you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Please check it out and leave your feedback, both with Dennis and with us. Who knows - if the idea of us spewing our gaming info into your ears instead of your eyes for a change is a hit, maybe we’ll work on making podcasts a regular part of GameLemon…

Darthziggy on The Money Pit
The Money Pit on iTunes

Recently I spent four hours with my best friend and two other excellent gamers playing the Gears of War 2 horde mode on Xbox Live so that we could finish all 50 waves of a map we chose (if you’re wondering we used Avalanche). In the never ending quest for achievements, we realized that by completing all 50 waves we would get an achievement. It was a fun, intense experience that ended by collective over-the-headset cheers and hoots. Since the game’s release I’ve attempted to complete this mode several times, one night actually making it to wave 49 on the Day One map. But this day, this day all that would change. Upon getting to wave 50 there was a bit of a delay before the sound so many of us recognize was made, followed by the visual reward/crack of seeing the little logo show up that says what the achievement is. After that, even if your Xbox crashes you will still keep that achievement. By now you’re reading along thinking, “Man you must have gotten one hella achievement for all that videogame labor right?” Wrong. After 4 hours of relentless  alien killing and amazing teamwork you know what we got?

30 points

That’s right.  THIRTY ^%$%#$@&^*^(^!!!!!  ACHIEVEMENT POINTS!

All the cheering and joy was suffice it to say, instantly diminished, when we saw what was a remarkably small number of points awarded for investing so much time in a game. Here’s the thing, I understand there are1000 points to dole out for an Xbox360 game and somebody somewhere has to determine what they’re going to be, how many you’ll get for offline play and how many you’ll get for multiplayer, yatta yatta yatta. But for us 360 folk the issue is that there is an amazing amount of imbalance with this system.

From the start of the 360 launch, achievement points became a badge of honor. It was a way to show just how great a gamer you were by having a number in the thousands or 10 thousands next to your gamer tag. It’s also shows that some people have a lot of free time and are basically achievement junkies. Nintendo doesn’t have ‘em, Sony well, let’s not even go there so for the 360 this is a cool thing. There are many, many games that have come out that seem to have a fair distribution of achievement points so that you can get some playing alone and some when you’re online. There are some that have way too many that rely on things you do online and then there are those that are simply in no way equal to the amount of time spent trying to get the achievement. And there’s the rub.

If I plop down $60 for a game and put my time and effort into it (if it’s a good game) then the expectation is that I’ll get achievement points based on what I do right? It seems to be something that would be common sense. If you’re doling out 100 achievements in 10 point  increments then it doesn’t matter what you do. That being said if there’s a game like that then it should only take you 2 hours to finish. The problem comes when you go back and look at your list of achievements and see that there are some that are worth 30, 50, 100 or 150 points. Those are the ones you want.  You probably also make the assumption if you don’t look at the list that some tasks would be worth a lot. For example, you would think, that completing 50 horde waves would be worth 100 points or at least 50. It’s not easy to do, and you need to have four or five players that work together and stick through all the waves. Some maps, like “Avalanche”, if you have a strategy and work as a team you can accomplish this goal. But to reward you with so little for so much — ridiculous.

Here are just a couple of the other ridiculous points on Gears of War 2 list that will blow your mind.

Play 1,999 multiplayer games — 30 points. Do you know how long it takes to do that?

Kill 100,000 enemies in any mode — 50 points. Are you kidding?

Now in defense of  Gears of War 2, the developers did build in a counter that keeps track of these numbers so that you don’t have to sit there with a pencil and pad and keep track of all this crap. In fact a little tab periodically shows up to let you know how far you are to getting to that number. Granted you get 150 points for finishing the game on the insane mode but there are some achievements that remain questionable. Like the fact that surviving 10 rounds on the aforementioned horde mode is only 10 points less than completing all 50. Seems a bit unbalanced doesn’t it?

Look this may sound like me being whiny about stupid points that make me look like a serious gamer or me wanting my icing on my game cake, but if you’re going to go through the trouble of building this into your system, then put some time and logic into it. Here are some even more offensive violators of the achievement system that will literally make you want to throw your controller at the screen trying to get them.

Burnout Paradise – Score more than 1 million points in Stunt Run   — 25 points (seriously)
GTA IV – Be on the winning team in all ranked multiplayer modes — 10 points (there’s a lot of them)
Bioshock – Successfully invent at least 100 items (not easy) — 10 points

Halo 3 – Score over 50,000 points in Campaign meta-game on the 7th  mission - 10 points (yet you get 25 points for finding a skull — c’mon)

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 – Kill 50 enemies in multiplayer adversarial with at least 6 players present — 10 points
And the list goes on ….

Now this is not to say there aren’t games that have a much better point distribution system like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that offers a good chunk of 40-point achievements. But when you look at that list and see something like there are 50 achievements worth 1000 points you have to wonder will you ever get all of them? I often find myself accidentally getting achievements because I realized a long time ago that outside the ones you totally expect (finishing campaigns, boss battles) you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to get every achievement in every game.

I love getting achievement points and always feel some sense of accomplishment when I get them but to all the developers out there — think hard about how you assign these. If it sounds ridiculously hard to do or something that would take a long time, then give us some decent points. And the same goes for those Xbox Live Arcade folks too!

Summary: A beautiful indie game that aims just a little too high, Mr. Robot packs maximum quality for minimum green.

Setting: A huge spaceship full of robots. Duh.

Systems: PC.

Genre: RPG/Puzzle.

Mood: Sparkly, clanky fun.

Read the full review by Meirion.