Big titles like Gears of War which sold a lot for its mother console are bound to get awards from all places. A good example is Entertainment Merchants Association's (EMA) Video Game Home Entertainment Awards 2007, in which Gears of War racked up four awards.

GoW bagged "Xbox 360 Game of the Year", "Shooter/Military Game of the Year", "Best Game Graphics of the Year", and the ultimate "Game of the Year" awards. All games released between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2007 were eligible, but GoW took the cake.

For handhelds, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories grabbed "DS Game of the Year" and "PSP Game of the Year" awards respectively. Lego Star Wars II' PS2 edition also took the win in its own category.

Resistance: Fall of Man dominated the PS3, while launch title Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was branded the best game on Wii. WoW: The Burning Crusade took both "PC Game of the Year" and "RPG/Strategy Game of the Year" awards.

Here's the rest of the list:

• Most Innovative Game of the Year - Guitar Hero II
• Casual Game of the Year: Guitar Hero II
• Fighting Game of the Year - WWE Smackdown! vs RAW 2007
• Racing Game of the Year - Need for Speed
• Sports Game of the Year - Madden NFL 07

Retailers and distributors from EMA's roster nominated and selected the winners. Their criteria on choosing, we would love to know. When Lego Star Wars II and WWE Smackdown! vs RAW 2007 are up there as creams of the crop, you know something special is going on.

Lego-philes, rejoice! After the huge success of Lego Star Wars and the sequel it spawned, Warner Bros. and Lego has signed a deal to produce a Lego Batman title. According to Variety, Warner Bros. also managed to nab TT Games, the studio that developed the two Lego Star Wars titles.

Lego Batman will follow the familiar Lego Star Wars template (picture Lego Batman sliding down the Lego Bat-pole and out of the Lego Batcave) and will be a family-friendly title. It is currently slated for a 2008 release date on multiple videogame platforms. If you guys remember, this title was announced for the Xbox 360 last year.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will finance and publish the game, while TT Games will reprise its Lego Star Wars role and develop Lego Batman. North American distribution will be handled by Warner Bros. as well.

 

If you haven't had any sleep in days and carry emotional baggage heavier than what Atlas has on his shoulders, you are not alone. Meet Dan. He's the poor guy in Sega's new game Crush, who's turned to hypnosis to solve his woes. The guys at PocketGamer UK were able to pin down Kuju Brighton's senior producer Paul Mottram for an interview about the new game.

The game's concept of switching from 2D to 3D gameplay is something interesting and quite original. They had quite a time setting down the "rule set" for the game but eventually got it. How? LEGO. They sat down with the building blocks to figure out how the game would work. The game's development for the PSP was spawned for two reasons: relatively low development costs and the gameplay is more suitable for a portable.

The environment was given a surreal touch (since Dan's in a state of hypnosis) and surrealists Tim Burton, Max Ernst, and Escher among others were the influences for the unique style. Players would be able to "crush" the 3D game world to 2D, and vice versa. According to Mottram, there would be no limit to the number of times players can crush the world. The only limits would be the environment itself. You wouldn't want to be crushed yourself. There are additional game modes that have limits in "crushing"
 to challenge players.

There were a number of hurdles development-wise as making a rule set for both 2D and 3D is no easy feat. The camera system also proved to be a headache. But they're happy with development so far, and we can expect some more info on this puzzle game next month.

Lego Star Wars II (PC, Xbox360, PSP) really must have raked in tons of moolah for Traveller's Tales because the said company has just acquired Embryonic Studios for an undisclosed sum.

Embryonic Studios, which has titles like Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, Star Trek: Invasion, and Battlestar Galactica, was formed in 2005 and currently houses 20 employees at its Bollington offices in Cheshire.

Traveller's Tales' Jon Burton says of the acquisition, "We are delighted to have completed the acquisition. Embryonic possess a very talented workforce that will help drive Traveller's Tales on to further success."

Well, that's that. And as for us, let's just keep our fingers crossed that this new partnership would only lead to more and better games in the future. We'll keep you posted for more.

Christmas is a time when game retailers can sit back and enjoy themselves, as gamers, parents, relatives, and friends rush around trying to get the perfect gift for their loved ones. But which games were on top this year?

Here, we have the cross format UK Game Charts for the week ending December 30, 2006. That's right, no console-only charts which tend to obscure the full picture.

Some games have gone up in their positions, some have dropped, and some lucky newcomers have managed to get on the scoreboard by capitalizing on the Christmas period. Now we've got that bit over and done with lets take a look at the movers and shakers in the UK top 10:

Format: Game, Publisher Position lost/gained from week ending 23 December 2006

1. FIFA 07, Electronic Arts +1
   
2. Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Konami +1
   
3. Need for Speed: Carbon, Electronic Arts -2
   
4. The Sims 2: Pets, Electronic Arts +1
5. Call of Duty 3, Activision -1
6. WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007, THQ #@%!8
   7#@%!
7. Gears Of War, Microsoft +1
8. Grand theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Take 2 n/a
   
9. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, Electronic Arts n/a
10. Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, LucasArts -1
    

Gotta say one thing about Britain - they love their soccer. And we're not just talking about the Manchester United fans - we're talking EA's FIFA 07, which takes the number one spot. This makes it the fourth year that EA's kept the lead at the UK charts.

Racing fans will be delighted to hear that Need for Speed: Carbon is tailing FIFA for the number two spot, another EA title...see a pattern? WWE Smackdown Vs RAW 2007 in turn takes the number three slot, formerly owned by Pro Evolution Soccer 6, which has dropped down to fourth place.

And in the number five slot, we see Call of Duty 3 taking position, with yet-again another EA title taking sixth - The Sims 2 Pets. And for the guys who were beginning to wonder when we'd mention this title: Gears of War is at sixth place in the lineup, with Happy Feet tapping in at eight place.  Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy takes the ninth slot, with Cars at the 10th place.

Before the "wtf?! this is not news!" comments start, we're gonna jumpstart this post by saying that yes, we know this is not news, and this has absolutely nothing to do with any aspect of Lego Star Wars gameplay, but we just found this vid so funny that we had to post it here.

We know some of the *cough*older*cough* gamers out there are probably harboring "Princess Leia in the gold bikini" fantasies, so maybe this one's for the younger gamers out there who want to see Princess Leia gone wild. Check out this vid posted by mcre8ive over at YouTube which shows Lego Leia strutting her stuff and dancing on top of a table...all in front of the bewildered and mesmerized Han Solo. Heck, you'll even see Han bobbing his head to the beat of My Humps. Bwahaha.

Why don't you guys just check out the action yourself, here's the video of Leia shaking her booty to the Black Eyed Peas. Enjoy! (If the video doesn't load because YouTube's having some site whatever, then you can just use the "Via" link instead.)

411mania got the idea right when they talked about their list of top 5 anything. From top 5 RPG characters to top 5 worst movie-based games, the guys who put up their individual lists always do a good job (or at least a funny one) explaining their choices. Most recently, the staff of 411mania decided to do the unthinkable: list the top 5 best games based on movies and TV.

For the most part, the picks were spread out among different genres and game types since the creation of video games. For instance, Tommy Colona, one of the three staff members who made a top 5 list, picked Capcom's NES-era disney games as his number one choice on the basis  of gameplay fun. Different incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games also got some love from these guys. Nintendo 64's Goldeneye FPS was mentioned, as well as the Kingdom Hearts series, and if you haven't played those games, you definitely missed out on some good times.

Not one to miss out, allow me to offer my humble list of top 5 games based on movies and television. Feel free to comment with your own list as well.

5. Lego Star Wars Series
    Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping faster than the killing Lego blocks shaped like Darth Vader. Nothing at all.

4. Spider-man 2
    Not all the games did the Spider-man franchise justice, but the game based off of the "Spider-man 2" movie was a lot of fun. Add to that the voice of Bruce Campbell as your tutor, and the ability to deliver pizzas as the wall-crawler, and you have a fun game.

3. Avatar: The Last Airbender
    You have to admit that the show is great fun to watch. The handheld versions are pretty nice renditions, but my prediction is that the Wii version will probably make people who've never heard of the series want to watch the show.

2. Anything that has Spongebob Squarepants in it.
    This is biased, but any game that I can do a preview on in sing-song format is going to be something interesting. I don't even need to wait for a release, because it'll just be perfect.

1. Anything WWE-related since the new century began.
    A good number of WWE games have had such awesome gameplay mechanics and fun matches. Why it counts in this list, above all others? Because the WWE has more drama than a soap opera.

LucasArts and TT Games definitely went for the masses on this one. A week after LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy was released worldwide, it proved to be more than just a fun-for-family videogame. In fact, it sold more than 1.1 million copies in all the eight platforms, making it the biggest family game title this year.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is a sequel to LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game and has been released September 11 in Europe and September 12 in the US. It can be played in PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, DS and Game Boy platforms.

The Original Trilogy is a massive hit because the new features allow you to create new characters and adjust the difficulty level. Above all, it's a neat family game that combines the tongue-in-cheek fun of rearranging Lego bricks and the most famous moments of the Original Trilogy itself. Parents admit that they found this game a great way to bond with their kids.

Well, it's obvious that the geniuses at LucasArts and TT Games have already figured this out in the beginning.

Buy: [LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - Xbox 360]
Buy: [LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - PSP]
Buy: [LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - DS]

G'day, mates! Ol' St. Nicky will be coming around in a few short months, and if you're reading us from Oz, then we here at QJ will be glad to help you with your Chrissie wish lists! It's no big, as we say back here; we do this courtesy of your fellows over at PAL Gaming Network Australia who've compiled this list. After all, the Pacific should never be a barrier to people who share the passion for gaming.

All dates are subject to change if their respective game publishers decide to change them, though (it's happened before, right?). Stay tuned to QJ for any new updates to this list as we find them.

September 2006:
21: Need For Speed Most Wanted (Platinum), FIFA Street 2 (Platinum), NASCAR 2007: Chase For The Cup, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (Platinum), NHL 2007
22: Pocket Racers
28: Big Bobble Evolution, The Godfather, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007, NBA Ballers: Rebound, FIFA 2006 (Platinum)
30: 50 Cent Bulletproof, Mercury Meltdown

October 2006:
  2: Madden NFL 2007
  5: FIFA 2007, Gitaroomman Lives
  6: Street Supremacy, Gradius Collection, Ys: The Ark Of Napishtim
12: Taito Legends, B-Boy, Capcom Puzzle World, The Hustle: Detroit Streets, Pilot Academy, NBA Live 2007
15: Dynasty Warriors Vol 2, Powerstone Collection
19: Ape Escape Academy 2, Ridge Racer 2
26: MotoGP, Buzz Junior Jungle Party Bundle, Junior Jungle Party, Ford Street Racing: LA Duel
27: Chess Battle, Rengoku II
28: LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
31: Blade Dancer, Yu Gi Oh GX Tag Battle, Planet, Arthur and the Minimoys, Eragon, Justice League Heroes, Metal Slug Anthology

Click "Full Article" to view the entire list.