Hopefully, people have been brushing up on their non-English. This week's Rock Band Weekly brings us the songs packaged with the European release of Rock Band. We've known for a while these tracks were coming as DLC, and Harmonix has seen fit to do it the week of Rock Band's European release. Also, all DLC available in North America should be available in Europe beginning May 20.

Individual songs

• "Beetlebum" - Blur (Cover, 160 MS Points / $2)
• "Hier Kommt Alex" - Die Toten Hosen (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Countdown to Insanity" - H-BlockX (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Perfekte Welle" - Juli (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Manu Chao" - Les Wampas (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Hysteria" - Muse (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Rock N Roll Star" - Oasis (160 MS Points / $2)
• "New Wave" - Pleymo (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Monsoon" - Tokio Hotel (160 MS Points / $2)

Le sigh, videos for all of next week's tracks can be found after the break. The DLC will be available next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

Although World of Warcraft is still the ever-reliable top dog, the game has lost that "new MMO smell." Producer J. Allen Brack told Eurogamer that a graphics overhaul is likely for the title's future. "That's actually something we talk about every expansion," he said, later adding, "Will we need a graphical update from the ground up at some point? Yep, probably."

Brack cited two previous MMOs – Ultima Online and EverQuest – that have tried the graphics reboot with only moderate success. "In each case a lot of people continued to play with the original client, because it was faster, or they preferred it, or were just used to it or whatever," he said. Wrath of the Lich King, which will have some optional effects for high-end PC users, is scheduled for release Fall 2008.

Well, PS3 owners don't really have much to look forward to this week from the PSN update, but those with a PSP can try out the new Secret Agent Clank demo. Maybe we spoke too soon, some people might be interested in the Rocketmen expansion or the Dragon Ball Z demo. Don't forget that new echochrome levels are now available, although it isn't technically part of the PSN update, it seems worth mentioning here. Find the full NA update after the break.

The European PSN update is happily posted in the town square over at PS3 Fanboy.

GameTap does a little better than last week with the addition of Outpost Kaloki to the subscription lineup. With Kaloki's addition, this is a good time to mention GameTap's indies section, where subscribers can peruse all the games which don't come from big evil publishers keeping the little man down. Yeah, like, la vie boheme, man.

• Five Card Deluxe (Windows) - Poker-themed solitaire. Sure, it sounds lonely, but isn't it supposed to be?
  
• Outpost Kaloki (Windows) - A "tycoon" game where players create a space station to stand the test of time and keep aliens happy.

GameTap's list of free games can be found after the break. The Battle of Europe flight-sim joins the free lineup this week for your Luftwaffe-destroying pleasure.

The PlayStation Blog announced today that 20 new user-generated levels will be available in echochrome between May 15-21, and those new levels may be replaced with even more content the following week. Despite our mixed feelings on the idea that the puzzles are replaced rather than added to a mega-list, it's still great to see how quick the promise of free extra content for the $10 Escher-iffic puzzler was fulfilled.

The additional levels will appear randomly in freeform mode if the difficulty is set to level 2 or 3 and there's also been a Flickr page created to give some recognition to the level designers. Definitely check out the demo for the game if you haven't tried it,

It's simple, though not hand-drawn. Still, it gets the point across. We loved A Softer World's entry in this week's webcomic wrapup and, lo and behold, so did you. Congratulations on top honors.

Second and third place go to Super Effective and Penny Arcade, respectively. Thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomics you stumble upon this week!

Update: Added source -- this press release, which vaguely implies that Live Gamer's RMT service, called Live Gamer Exchange, will allow players to "customize their characters through attire, weaponry, gadgets, vehicles, gear and aliases that tailor their game play." However, Massively's Kyle Horner spoke last night with The Agency lead designer Hal Milton who said that no weapons will be sold. The team is currently discussing the sale of low-level operatives (analogues to low-level equipment), but currently, everything planned to be sold will be purely cosmetic and not gameplay affecting.

Original: Remember all the hoopla over virtual arms dealing in Battlefield: Bad Company? Sony Online Entertainment's not hearing it. In fact, it announced today that its upcoming espionage MMO FPS, The Agency, will feature real money trading (RMT) of everything from clothing and gear to vehicles and weapons.

SOE has yet to declassify its business model for The Agency, so this could go in one of two directions. If it's free-to-play (a la Battlefield: Heroes) the cash-for-guns program would be (slightly) easier to swallow. Since The Agency is a PC and PS3 title, we're laying a bet on a free model given the latter platform's already free online gaming service and today's announcement, which provides a means for SOE to subsidize free play with a cut of player trades. If it's subscription-based? Someone best send some fire-retardant undergarments to SOE brass.

FPS players -- console ones specifically -- are used to earning their way to the top and into better weapons and gear, as seen in Call of Duty 4. The idea of playing a game where they're at an immediate disadvantage based on cash money is unlikely to sit well. At least trade works both ways; those who take the route of being skilled players -- and not payers -- can profit from their homegrown skills by selling stuff to noobs (and people with dead presidents lighting fires in their trousers).

In a press release announcing Q1 2008 results (PDF File), Blizzard owner Vivendi Universal asserts that the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King is "anticipated to be released in the second half of 2008." Mark your calendars, as we suspect the Christmas season is going to be a lot less productive.

While we always expected release this year, Blizzard, who has yet to make a formal announcement, is notorious for delaying games until they've met some in-house standard of quality. Our attention is now focused intently on Blizzard's WWI event in Paris next month.

[Via Big Download]

Read (PDF File)

Having fortunately escaped a swift booting from last night's EA Spring Break event by PR folk for making an innocent (we swear) "If you make a sequel, will it be titled Right 4 Dead?" query, we sat down and got our kill-on in Turtle Rock Studios' PC and Xbox 360 shooter. Our first thought: Maybe this shouldn't be published under the EA Games label; EA Sims might suit it better. Because, frankly, we can't conjure a game that could better be described as a "zombie apocalypse simulator." Take that, GT5, with your "driving" simulation.

Highlighting the four-player Survivor co-op mode, the event's Left 4 Dead station featured four HP Blackbird PCs, so we were definitely experiencing the game as an owner of a high-spec gaming rig would. To that end, the game is looking even better than it did at previous showings, wowing us with a bevy of neat visual tricks (flashlights produce rainbow halos when you stare at them straight on, for instance) and fluid character animation that had us making mental comparisons to Call of Duty 4's lifelike character motion. Left 4 Dead's visual style -- which is largely realistic with just enough style and saturation to lend it a slight arcade hue -- worked its magic and we were soon firmly in the game world's clutches. Not that we were complaining.

Producer Alexander Grondal said the team wants Battlefield Heroes to run on your Grandma's PC and -- with a sub-250MB download and the ability to run on Intel's anemic integrated video offerings -- we're sure it will. But that doesn't mean Grams is going to kick the Pogo crack pipe and be racking up levels in Heroes anytime soon. It's about as simple a shooter as you can imagine -- everything from the cartoon aesthetic to the streamlined controls reinforce the game's message: have fun -- but it's still a shooter at heart.

It's a curious message coming from the same team that's been bringing the popular, and complicated, multiplayer Battlefield games to the hardcore shooter fans of the world. Has some of their audience grown up? Run out of free time? Still using the same gaming rig they built to play Battlefield 1942 in 2002?

In our brief experience with the game at EA's Spring Break event in San Francisco last night, we were initially disoriented by the third-person perspective. Even though you see your character, Heroes doesn't play like a third-person shooter; it's an FPS through and through. A quick mental adjustment later, and we were running after enemies, grabbing flags, flying planes, and driving tanks.

In an interview with the Seattle Times, Sony Online Entertainment head, John Smedley, sees a future for MMOs on the PS3. He tells the paper that MMOs are going to be a "real strong selling point for the PS3" and uses The Agency as an example. More collaboration between the online and console divisions makes sense now that SOE reports to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Smedley believes that MMOs will reach a 50/50 ratio between men and women over the next decade. He believes some of these games will be "as big as hit movies." Funny thing is that there's already a few out there, like World of Warcraft -- too bad that one only belongs to Blizzard.

[Via GameDaily]

Have you ever just looked up at the stars, trying to make your own constellations ... and suddenly everything becomes a star cluster of Pac-Man-related shapes? (Imave via The Librarianist) Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomics; voting after the break.

• Real Life Application (Sharcbate)
• Battle Fighter III: Hyper Edition (Truck Bearing Kibble)
• Starcraft Blues (Extra Life)
• p=mv (Digital Unrest)
• The Expected Result (Penny Arcade)
• Oh, you're choosing fire? (Super Effective)
• Options (CAD)
• Grand Theft Dinosaur (Dino Comics)
• Define Addiction (2P Start)
• It's DYN-O-MITE (Dueling Analogs)
• "I'd be less nervous" (A Softer World)

Last night Blizzard waved its Arcane Staff of Embargo Lifting, unleashing an torrential downpour of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King information from an event held recently. Our friends at WoW Insider, whose invitation must've gotten lost in the mail along with ours, are gathering all the news from around the internet. In case you missed anything:

• Gamespy's hands on with Wrath of the Lich King
• Dungeons and Raids in Wrath of the Lich King
• More of the Wrath of the Lich King impressions and information coming out
• The Death Knight class revealed
• Gamespy Interviews J. Allen Brack

A flood of videos are also coming in. We've embedded several from GameTrailers after the break.

Bring out the haters for this week's Rock Band Weekly update post. The songs are perfectly fine, but considering the amount of hate there is in any given week for really good tracks, we can only imagine what it'll be like for these songs. Come on, "Random Song Lover Defense Force," where are you?

Individual songs

• "Hanging on the Telephone" - Blondie (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Train in Vain" - The Clash (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Kool Thing" - Sonic Youth (160 MS Points / $2)

Videos for next week's tracks are after the break for people to make informed decisions on whether they actually hate the songs.The DLC will be available next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

If you're not the type of noob to simply dial up your new pal "Multiplayer" and leap blindly into a hail of bullets and screaming 12-year-olds (er, "18, right?"), then you may find Rockstar's just published -- and carefully reproduced after the break! -- Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer guide just the sort of literature you've been pining for. Want to know how to get the "Party" started? Unlock new threads? Flip someone the bird? It's all in the details that follow.