Activision made a smart move when they put out Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure last year. It combined both collectible toys and video games, and made you feel important by calling you, “The Portal Master”. There were 32 toys to be collected, and although the starter pack came with three, you needed at least 8 to complete all the missions.

This year’s Toy Fair announced that there would be an expansion for the franchise. Needless to say, you’re going to need to brace your wallets, because 16 new collectible figures are going to be hitting the shelves. Half of these toys will be giants that are two times the size of a regular Skylander.

All of these second wave toys will also lights up when near the Portals of Power, but come connected to a new game. The toys from the first game will still work just fine, but they will be tiny both literally and virtually compared with the Giants. Check out the video below to get a peek of what’s to come.

A small indie team has been working on a new game called Hawken, and it looks pretty amazing. It’s going to be a FPS multiplayer mech title, and will place you in the cockpit of your very own mech suit. They have been working on this game for quite some time, and have been building up quite a lot of hype.

Adhesive Games, the studio creating this beauty, has finally announced a release date. You can expect the finished version on December 12, 2012. If you weren’t already salivating over the beauty and destruction, then you’ll be happy to know that it’s also a free-to-play game.

It seems that more and more games are starting to go that route. Having a price tag would not stop me from helping them continue to do what they’re doing, but I am definitely happy with a free-to-play too. You can sign up for the beta on the Hawken website here.

Sometimes you wonder why a game was created. Although I do enjoy the stupid hilarity of Family Guy, I can’t exactly see why Family Guy Online came into existence. However, it does actually look like fun, and is going to be Free-To-Play.

This browser-based RPG is going to feature all of your favorite characters and locations from the show, while also giving you a character creator. The Griffins will be NPCs that will give you quests and challenges that will probably send you into some interesting situations. You will be rewarded with clips from the show, and points that will go towards upgrades and items. The map you’ll be playing on will be somewhat realistic, as there is no actual map of Quahog in existence at the present.

It seems that even though it carries core mechanics from other successful RPGs, this game is going to be more for comedy than heroic deeds. As the actual show progresses, new DLC will crop up to keep things current for both show stories and real life events. Family Guy Online is doing a closed beta at the moment, but will hopefully have an open beta in the coming months.

A few days ago, Kaz Hirai was made Sony’s new president and CEO, taking the place of Howard Stringer. He wasted no time in letting everyone know that changes on the horizon that will hopefully save Sony from it’s almost two decades of lows. The official takeover will happen in April, but no time will be wasted twiddling thumbs from the looks of this interview with the Wall Street Journal. (check out the video below)

There are going to be some serious goal changes for Sony, and it’s about time. Especially since they saw a 2 billion dollar loss in the game division a few years back. You know the business model needs to change when you see that you’re a couple billion in the hole. Hirai knows that waiting for things to get better isn’t going to do anyone any good, so he’s going to be moving things around until they improve. In a previous interview he had stated, “I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not.” If he can make Sony better for all of us, then more power to him.

It seems as though not everyone is being a team player, and Hirai intends to change that immediately. Not in the sense of laying anyone off, just trying to get core groups together so that decisions can be made quickly, efficiently, and with everyone’s best interest in mind. The naysayers are likely going to change their minds though, as Hirai stated in his interview:

“I think one of the fundamental things that we need to change at Sony is to become a company that provides a very unique and compelling user experience as opposed to just a company that provides great hardware products. We really need to buckle down and be realistic. I don’t think everybody is on board, but I think people are coming around to the idea that if we don’t turn this around, we could be sitting in some serious trouble.”

For the full interview, go here.

Ever since Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the internet has been abuzz with some pretty great media centered around the game. We’ve seen bardic covers of the game’s theme, comics and memes inspired by in-game situations, and even some great props based off of in-game items. When it comes to making the game rock out loud, however, a brand new cover has got it all under control.

Youtube user MatthewPegoli has assembled a party of the mightiest warriors in the rock world. With this team he has helped produce one of the greatest remixes ever to be handed down from legend. He, along with Jamit Gandhi on bass and Paul Attanasio on drums, have brought the force of the Dovahkiin in the form of some epic rock tunes.

This video is sheer brilliance, and it’s got my vote for the best cover out so far for Skyrim. There’s seriously no reason why you shouldn’t be headbanging and watching this right now. Check it out below and get some FUS RO DAH in your system!

One of the reasons that Bethesda is among my favorite game developers is their commitment to bringing us tools for modding. Here’s a company that doesn’t just want to make awesome games for you to play, they also want to give you the ability to change the game, and make it your own.

The company has released a teaser video of their upcoming Creation Kit for Skyrim. It looks as though it will be much the same as we’ve seen in previous titles, with a few updates. The biggest new feature is called Skyrim Workshop, and is an area within Steam that will allow you to upload your mods, so that they can be easily discovered by people, rated, and downloaded. It will even ensure that the latest version of your mods are downloaded each time you want to play the game.

What’s really nice is that they aren’t forcing you to use Skyrim Workshop for your mods. They specifically mentioned that sites like Skyrim Nexus will have no problems offering mods like they have in the past. The Creation Kit will not break existing mods. Now the only question is when they are going to actually release this.

While it is exciting that there is going to be a RPG for the PS Vita, I must say that the video for this thing will rot your brain. I swear, if I hear “Dude” or “Boom” one more time, I don’t know what I’ll do. Anyhow, this is going to be a port of the PlayStation 3 game, Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention.

If you were thinking it was going to be the same thing all over again, you thought wrong. It will have all the of the DLC that was on the PS3 version, but will have new characters, levels, systems, bosses, and attack levels. One of the new characters will be a half-Nekomata, half-human, transfer student named Rutile. While the other is the student body president and daughter of the dean of an opposing school called the Death Institute, named Stella.

This isn’t just going to be button-mashing either, as it just wouldn’t be right if they didn’t include some of the specific systems of the PS Vita into it. There is something called the “Honor Quotient” which uses GPS to track how far you’ve traveled whilst playing the game. A higher Quotient means more experiences points, discounts at item shops and more. Things like winning battles and increasing your total play time will increase the Quotient as well. You can expect this to hit shelves sometime in April.

Playing The Witcher 2 on PC was fun and all, but it seems as though I’m going to have to give it another go. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is going to be available for Xbox 360 players on April 17^th. What’s coming out will be an Enhanced Edition of the game, and this goes for PC gamers too!

This new edition will have more locations, like forests in the Loc Muine mountains. Of course, this also means new characters and challenges to face. While PC gamers will be enjoying the new tidbits they receive (up to four hours worth!), console gamers will be experiencing a full adaption of the game. The developers made huge modification to the RED engine to make sure the graphics are the same level of awesome for console gamers.

If you don’t particularly care about this game, you may want to take a peek at the cinematic opening found below. There’s a good chance that it will change your mind. It’s got magic, fire,  blood, violence, and decapitation, so really, what more could you ask for?

One of my favorite movies of all time, though it’s not necessarily the season for it, is The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s one of Tim Burton’s better works, and the songs in the movie help make it a true masterpiece. If you take that love and combine it with one of the best games to ever grace the community, then you’ve got something that truly deserves some recognition.

That’s exactly what Youtube user Harry10UK did, and am I ever so glad. You see, Harry’s creation is titled “This Is Aperture,” and it mimics a song from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Fans of the movie will no doubt recognize the song as a cover to “This Is Halloween,” and the creation captures the full potential of the song.

You can see Harry’s video below, and I definitely think you should watch it multiple times. Each of the voices match really well, and the melody of the song really comes through, even with the computerized versions of the vocals. It truly paints Aperture in a new light, and it’s terrifyingly great.

I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan of the Kinect. I have one, and I’ve played games with it, and even spent some time controlling my 360 with it. However, I’m still completely convinced that Microsoft has misplaced their faith in the technology. I’ve yet to see it utilized in a way that doesn’t feel gimmicky. Despite all of that, I’m a sucker for anything that lets me use a lightsaber.

Yes, I am looking forward to the Kinect Star Wars game. Even more so after this latest advertisement. They’ve taken the famous lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Obi-wan Kenobi, and changed it up a bit. Putting the player in the place of Obi-wan.

Honestly, could you say that you’d do things differently? Everyone wants to play with a lightsaber, swinging it around and listening to the awesome hum. It’s great to see this captured in this humorous ad.