Poppin' heads, galactic style

The clever, slightly off-kilter folks over at LucasArts have put together an unusual little promo for the upcoming LEGO Star Wars II: the Original Trilogy. The game's official website now enables you to choose a head, body, and leggy area from 20 of the game's characters to create your own freakish hero.

Just hit the link above, click the brick-like link that says, "create your character", and you're all set. We prefer the "mix it up" button, which chooses the bits randomly. But hey - if you've always harbored a perverse desire to see Chewbacca's fuzzy grill mounted on Princess Leia's sexy, metal bikini-clad frame, now's your chance to make that happen...

But we did it first.

Commanding presence

As with comic books and certain unfortunate parts of the world, maniacal dictators never seem to completely die. So we weren't completely shocked when publisher Electronic Arts recently announced that the main villain in the new Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is: Kane, the series' long-standing main evil ass from Hell.

We further learned that Kane will again be played by actor Joe Kucan, just as he always has been. We don't know whether to feel glad for Joe or sad - you'd hope that, after more than ten years, a guy as nice as Joe would have made it big enough in Hollywood to be priced out of this kind of gig.

Oh yeah - the whole point of this mention was to show off the videos.

Now even more ultimate

Speaking of Electronic Arts, the company has also announced the existence of the oldest "new" massively multiplayer online RPG we've heard of in awhile: Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn, for PC.

For those not making the connection, this is the latest retooling of the existing game Ultima Online, which was designed with the help of the not-at-all-pompously-named Ultima creator Lord British, and released before even the original EverQuest. The new upgrade will feature a "massive visual overhaul" - which it has actually needed badly since its launch in September of 1997.


Got an Xbox 360? Fire that beeotch up and get set to download stuff. Hopefully, you've already got Texas Hold 'em, because that formerly-free download is going to cost you about ten bucks as soon as the calendar ticks over to 08/24/06.

Beyond that, you're looking for a new demo of Test Drive Unlimited to take for a... you know. And banana-scented, parachute-wielding "Grand Theft Auto on an island" actioner Just Cause is ready to let you drink the demo milk from its coconuts.

And if you're not old enough or cool enough to care about games with guns and engines, you can always opt for some new trailers of virtual pet/Pokemon combo Viva Pinata. If you don't barf at its cuteness, you're not human. Or you're eight years old, which is pretty much the same thing.

Headset or headshot?

Finally, we just have to mention what a bullshit move we think it is that Microsoft has decided that anyone who wants the new Xbox Live Vision camera for the 360 must also want to pay $39.99 for a package that adds in a crappy headset and a coupon that lets you download UNO over Xbox Live.

What the hell, M? We already got an included headset when we bought the 360 (except for the schlubs who got that dumbass Core Pack), and something like 9 jillion people already downloaded UNO - you sent out a press release bragging about it, remember? Oh yeah - and you're also putting out a non-craptacular wireless headset in November. Why would we want this thing?  

You'd think Microsoft would at least steal a page from Nintendo's book and make each unwanted-yet-included headset a different color, so people maybe get tricked into collecting them. As it is, it's flat-out insulting. But hey, don't worry Microsoft - you just made it a little easier to decide who's getting that first gorgeous, 640x480 picture of the GR team's bare asses.

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