Ah what I wouldn't give to be young and entertained by shiny things and holiday themed exspansion packs. Today Maxis announced a Spore Galactic Adventures Independence day themed adventure pack featuring an adventure called "How a Bill Becomes Law" and "Kaboom!". The first has you playing as a lobbyist trying to get a bill passed through the galactic legislature and the second is about explosions and picnics. These obviously have a limited appeal because being specifically targeted towards Americans and sound like a drag compared to, I don't know, conquering a whole galaxy with a fleet of space vessels bristling with death bringing super weapons. It is a free download so I guess if you happen to be American and are terribly lonely or bored this weekend it won't hurt to check it out. I will be patiently waiting for the Easter adventures that allow me to paint easter eggs and throw them at little childern whilst dressed as a giant rabbit. [READ MORE]

Here's a short bit of gameplay footage from Tales of Monkey Island that shows off what you can expect from the game when it's released next week. 

Here are a half dozen new screens from the Wii version of  Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.  They look about what you would expect and I'm guessing Capcom is going to be making a lot of folks happy with the game when it comes out.

As leaked earlier, Battlefield 1943 for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 will be coming out July 9th. The game will retail for $15 or 1200 MS points. Four classic maps from 1942 will be available and the game is using the new Frostbite engine which features destructible environments. Remember, the Coral Sea map will be unlocked once the community reaches 43m kills on both Xbox Live and the PlayStation network. PC gamers will have to wait until September. [READ MORE]

Here are a few shots of some of the bad guys you'll be pummeling in Unbound Saga on July 16th.  The classic beat 'em up was one of the games that surprised me at E3 and I think a lot of folks are going to enjoy the comic book style and sense of humor in the game.  You'll be able to download the game from the PlayStation Network for $14.99 in two weeks.

Good news for the few folks who haven't picked up Fallout 3 yet, the game is going to be half off this weekend on Steam.  John has been rather enamored with the game and at half off you can't beat the price.

We have a few pen and paper RPG gamers on the staff here at Gaming Nexus and we have a few Team Fortress 2 fans as well. There's a group of folks looking to merge the two as they are developing a Team Fortress 2 RPG. You can see some of the items available for you to grab and try. If I am not mistaken, there was a Doom pen and paper game right? Anyways, if you're interested, grab a few friends together and check it out! I'd like to know how a Spy would work in this scenario.

In an interview with Xbox 360 magazine, the creative director of Spinter Cell Conviction has revealed that if you are playing the game on normal difficulty you should be able to get through it in 12 hours. Their reasoning is they want anyone to be able to get through the entire game but if you think it's too easy, there will be a realistic mode where two bullets will kill you and the enemies will be tougher. I thought 12 hours were the norm these days with single player games but maybe I'm wrong. For a $60 game, I'd like a 15-20 hours worth of gameplay if it's a straight action game. For RPGs and adventure games I'm looking for a lot more of course.

Pi Studios is developing Quake Arena Arcade for the Xbox 360 and it will be distributed as Live Arcade title. Here's a screenshot of what one of the menus will look like. I think the web version of Quake Arena's popular so we'll see how a Live version will be. There's no release date yet though.

Thanks Blues News.

Here's the launch trailer for the PC version of FUEL that will probably have Dave drooling.  The trailer features the usual array of cars driving around dirt tracks and probably isn't going to do a lot for those who don't have the horses to run the game.

There are some fans of David Jaffe, creator of Twisted Metal and God of War out there so here's to you. He's posted on NeoGaf saying he's off to show Sony his latest title in video form. It's a greenlite meeting meaning a bunch of folks are going to be showing off their goods for the Sony brass. So what game could it be?  I'm guessing it's going to be some completely new IP.

A new patch for Blood Bowl has been released with a small change in the change log: To enhance the performance of the game on your computer, the game resolution has been decreased. You can change that parameter later in the game options. Umm.. do we really need a patch to turn our setttings down so that the game runs a little faster? Hmph. That's a new one for me. You can grab it from Atomic Gamer.

With the recent announcement that there won't be a LAN option for StarCraft II, there have been some hot debate everywhere and Blizzard's forums. Blizzard does address some of them and you can read the collection of responses on BlizzBlues. I don't perceive piracy as an issue to not include LAN though as if they wanted to make sure you have a legitimate copy to play they could always do as one person suggest and do a quick authentication to the Blizzard servers before opening up LAN play. Of course, hackers could get by ths by doing a false positive to the program I guess. Still, a 'Craft game without LAN play just doesn't seem right. I personally want to see it as an option.