1,000 Wii points is all you need to score the first four chapters of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on WiiWare come Monday the 11th, with the fifth chapter showing up in May downloadable content for 100 points. For the WiiWare release the game has been updated with appropriately dramatic Wii remote waggling controls, which alone should be enough for fans who've played through the original several dozen times to give the game another go.

In other attorney-related video game news, Capcom also plans to release a demo for the next DS title, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, several weeks before the game is released next month.

It's a good time to be an Ace Attorney fan, isn't it?

Previously planned to release on the Xbox 360 and PC on Tuesday, January 5th, BioWare will instead not release it on Tuesday, January 5th. Sorry, we know about as much as BioWare community fella Chris Priestly is saying on the game's official forums.

"We're sorry but the planned Return to Ostagar downloadable content scheduled to launch on January 5th has been delayed for all platforms," Priestly writes. "We will update you as new information becomes available."

Yeah, well, so will we!

Return to Ostagar Delayed [Bioware via PlanetXbox360 - thanks, Eric!]

The three live Paul McCartney tunes Luke mentioned yesterday are joined by The Ramones classic "Rock N ' Roll High School" in the Rock Band Music Store next week, together completely overshadowing the contributions of The Psychedelic Furs and Blink 182.

It was close at least for the Furs. If one more song was included along with "Love My Way" and "Sister Europe" they would have been just about on the same level as the one song from The Ramones, but two tracks just doesn't cut it.

Blink 182, on the other hand, could have dropped their entire catalog onto the store and it wouldn't have made a ripple. "Adam's Song," "First Date," and "I Miss You" never stood a chance.

Check out the full listing of next week's tracks below, with the plus signs indicating that the tunes are valid for LEGO Rock Band as well.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Jan. 5) and PlayStation3 system (Jan. 7):

· Paul McCartney – "Band on the Run (Live)" +
· Paul McCartney – "Jet (Live)" +
· Paul McCartney – "Sing the Changes (Live)" +
· Blink-182 – "Adam's Song"
· Blink-182 – "First Date" +
· Blink-182 – "I Miss You"
· The Psychedelic Furs – "Love My Way" +
· The Psychedelic Furs – "Sister Europe"
· The Ramones – "Rock ‘n' Roll High School" +

What does one get for the 800 Microsoft Points investment? The all-new Riot Mode challenges, offering new things to loot and a bank in which to store all that loot. It may not sound like much for ten bucks, but the description "like Smash TV in coop FPS" seems to actually have some truth to it, making the DLC potentially priceless.

You can read our impressions of the new downloadable content if you're on the fence or, if exceptionally cautious, wait for our upcoming review.

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot hits the PlayStation Network beginning January 7, 2010 for $9.99 USD and Windows PC in "early 2010." Anyone grab it yet?

Ostagar is the very first area you visit in Dragon Age: Origins once you make it through your character's original story, though shortly after you get there the location becomes less than welcoming to continued exploration, what with the rampaging hordes of vile creatures and the chance of getting dead king on your boot soles. Return to Ostagar allows players to reclaim the secrets lost on that battlefield. The downloadable content will be available for the PC and 360 on January 5th, with the PlayStation 3 version arriving later in January.

"We are thrilled at the way the fans have embraced Dragon Age: Origins and we're excited to welcome them back into the game," said Aaryn Flynn, General Manager and Vice President, BioWare Edmonton. "Return to Ostagar represents BioWare's commitment to providing a steady stream of compelling post release content as we continue to expand the Dragon Age universe."

As reported previously, Return to Ostagar will run 400 Microsoft points, 400 BioWare points, or $4.99 depending on your system.

Rock Band and Rock Band 2 owners with a taste for twang should count their money, then decide if new downloadable tunes from Alan Jackson, Keith Urban, Shania Twain, Martina McBride and more are in the cards. These seven new country hits will be dealin' out as of December 29 on the Xbox 360 and Wii and January 7 for the PlayStation 3.

The entire "Going Country Pack 02" will cost $10.99, £4.99 UK, €7.99 EU or 880 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360, depending on your currency of choice. That works out to $1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU or 160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 per track.

• Alan Jackson – "Good Time"
• Cross Canadian Ragweed – "Cry Lonely"
• Jason Aldean – "She's Country"
• Keith Urban – "I Told You So"
• Kenny Rogers – "The Gambler"
• Martina McBride – "This One's For the Girls"
• Shania Twain – "Any Man of Mine"

The offer: Buy any three titles from this list and you get 800 Microsoft points back. Now, some of these are full $19.99 titles. But if you get a new hard drive or Christmas cash and want to lay out the price of a new game to get three, you can consider the points back to be like a gift card. And many stores run that kind of special.

If you want to know the bare minimum you can spend to still qualify, that would be buying up both Mass Effect downloads, plus the Dragon Age: Origins DLC (or Madden AFL Legacy Pack), for 1360 points. You then get 800 back, effectively making the cost 560 points, or the entire package for $7. Naturally, given the units in which Microsoft points are sold, your actual cash outlay may vary here.

The special runs from Dec. 25 to Jan. 31.

Xbox Live Holiday Discounts [Electronic Arts news]

The second installment of Borderlands DLC ditches the exploration found in The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned in favor of strengthening the ties between the game and the Mad Max series of post-apocalyptic action movies. Stealing a premise from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot sees players fighting for fame and fortune in a series of new Riot Mode arenas, facing wave after wave of enemies in either single player or co-op battles.

It sounds intriguing, but it's got to be more than three new arenas to warrant a $9.99 price tag, right? Read on.

What Is It?
Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is the second set of downloadable content for Borderlands. Rather than a new area to play in, which we got in the first downloadable content, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi delivers a new gameplay mode, Riot, which is almost like a game show version of Gears of War's Horde Mode. The titular Mad Moxxi, a widow several times over seeking to relieve her boredom with carnage, entertains a cheering crowd as you and your teams take on five different waves of enemies in three new arenas - Hell-burbia, the Angelic Ruins, and The Gully. These aren't simply pits that fill with enemies - they are relatively sprawling yet contained battlegrounds, ready to be soaked with the vital fluids of your prey.

What We Saw
I played through each of the three new arenas multiple times, using a pre-made level 30 soldier graciously supplied by the folks at Gearbox. Okay, I attempted to play through all three arenas several different times, dying frequently. I unfortunately only got to play single player, but it's easy to imagine having a blast with a couple of close total strangers on Xbox Live.

How Far Along Is It?
The new DLC releases next week on the Xbox 360, so the build I was playing is damn near close to the finished product.

What Needs Improvement?

No Experience Necessary: You don't gain experience while battling through wave after wave of enemies in the Underdome, which quite frankly feels odd. I understand the draw here is new weapons and the glory of triumphing over seemingly impossible odds, but when I spend an entire game on a steady climb towards max level, spending several hours tooling around a plateau just feels like a slight waste of time.

What Should Stay The Same?

Riding The Waves: The enemies in Mad Moxxi's Underdome come at you in different waves, each consisting of different types of enemies. One visit to an arena might start you off with an Easy Wave, with powered-down enemies that are easier to dispatch, before moving on to a Gun Wave, in which all enemies have guns (duh), or a Horde Wave, where swarms of melee enemies come at you mindlessly. There's a variety, but it's not so much that you can't anticipate what's coming next after you're done scrambling for the health and ammo Moxxi tosses into the stadium between rounds.

Moxxi's Got Talent: Black widow Mad Moxxi is a constant presence in the DLC, shouting out taunts to you as you struggle to survive, egging on the crowd, and just basically being the consummate showman, adding to the feeling that you are a contestant in some sort of twisted game show birthed in the mind of a violent husband-killer. Good times.

The Penalty Box: If you die during a wave, you're warped into the penalty box, an area overlooking the arena where you can shoot from, but cannot leave. Once again, I only played single player, where its mission failed if you wind up in the box, but I can easily imagine the fun that will come of having 2-3 other players in the box, urging the survivors on while desperately searching for targets to take out long range.

Final Thoughts
Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has said that Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is "like Smash TV in coop FPS, but in the Borderlands." I'd have to say he hit the nail on the head. There might not be piles of cash spawning at the end of every round, and the enemies aren't quite as numerous, but once you step into the Underdome you're the star of a game show where your life is on the line. I'd like to think that if the world had body replicating technology, this is the sort of thing we'd find on every street corner.

And if they can take the "Th" out of Thunderdome, I can take the "B" out of Beyond.

The World at War Map Pack Bundle collects all three of Treyarch's expansion packs for the latest World War II iteration of Call of Duty, which could be very convenient for those players who are showing up extremely late to the zombie Nazi party. The pack retails for $24.99 on the PlayStation Network and 2000 Microsoft points on Xbox Live, which works out to a savings of $5 either way you look at it. Okay, technically it works out to a savings of $4.98 on PSN, but pennies aren't real money anyway.

The pack will be available worldwide today for the Xbox 360 and in North America for the PS3, going up on the European PlayStation Store on January 7th.

Announced this morning by Sega's assistant community manager David Beavers on the PlayStation Blog, the Sega Mega Sale drops the prices of every piece of downloadable Sega goodness on the PlayStation Network by 40%. That includes downloadable content for PlayStation 3 games Sonic Unleashed, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Valkyria Chronicles, as well as Sega's full lineup of downloadable PSP titles for your PSP or PSPgo. For those of you who, like me, "upgraded" to Sony's latest handheld, this would be an excellent time to fill up that 16GB of memory with games like Crush and Super Monkey Ball Adventure. It won't make the tears go away completely, but they'll sting a bit less.

Check out the full list of sale items below, or just hit up the PlayStation Store and browse. The sale runs between today's PlayStation Network update and January 7th, so you've got plenty of time to shop.

PSP:

Alien Syndrome
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars
Crush
Full Auto 2: Battlelines
Gunstar Heroes
Iron Man
Sega Genesis Collection
Sonic Rivals
Sonic Rivals 2
Super Monkey Ball Adventure

PSN:

Sonic Unleashed Apatos & Shamar Adventure Pack
Sonic Unleashed Chun-nan Adventure Pack
Sonic Unleashed Empire City & Adabat Adventure Pack
Sonic Unleashed Holoska Adventure Pack
Sonic Unleashed Mazuri Adventure Pack
Sonic Unleashed Spagonia Adventure Pack
SONIC: Very Hard Shadow Missions
SONIC: Very Hard Silver Missions
SONIC: Very Hard Sonic Missions
Valkyria Chronicles Edy's Mission "Enter the Edy Detachment"
Valkyria Chronicles Hard EX Mode
Valkyria Chronicles Selveria's Mission "Behind Her Blue Flame"

Happy Holidays - The SEGA Mega Sale for PSN is on! [PlayStation Blog]

Xbox 360 players get first dibs on the new OP:DR DLC, dropping today on Xbox Live for 400 Microsoft points with PlayStation 3 and PC owners getting it "shortly." The downloadable content includes two new multiplayer modes - the objective-based Blindside and occupation game Supremacy - along with Friendly Skies and Hostile Takeover, two new fire team engagement missions.

Take a look at the trailer for the new content below to see what Overwatch brings to the table.

EA Sports' blog promises the same package is on the way "very soon" for PlayStation 3. A ton of these look like they have color variants or something, but here's a list, taken from the EA Sports blog with duplicates removed. I'm just disappointed we don't have the Chickie Yonakor waffle-soles with floppy three-stripe socks.

TS Supernatural Commander AllStar East Blue SLD/Running White FTW/Red SLD DLC
TS Supernatural Commander
TS Supernatural Creator AllStar West Red SLD/Running White FTW/Metallic Gold SLD
TS Supernatural Creator
TS Cut Creator Low Gil
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 Duncan
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 KG
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 Howard
Jordan Melo M6
Jordan CP3.III
Jordan XII (re-purpose from NBA Street)
Jordan 2010
Nike Air Max LeBron VII
Nike Zoom Kobe V
Nike Zoom Hustle
Converse Wade 5 Mid
Converse EB2 Mid
Converse Weapon Evo Ox
Converse Weapon Evo Ox C
Converse Weapon Evo Mid
Reebok Answer XIII
Reebok Hexride
Nike KD2
Nike Hypermax
Nike Hyperize
Nike SHOX Vision
Nike Blue Chip II
Nike Air MAX Rise
Nike Zoom Skyposite
Nike Zoom Hustle
Nike Cradle Rock Low
Nike MAX Turnaround
Nike Sentido
Nike Zoom Flip'n
Nike Huarache Legion

Holiday DLC Shoe Pack [EA Sports]

The first of these episodic downloads is Heavy Rain: Chronicle One – The Taxidermist, a self-contained story featuring Heavy Rain ensemble star Madison Paige. You may have seen The Taxidermist before, as it was the subject of many Heavy Rain previews, like the one we had at the Leipzig Games Convention in 2008.

According to official word, these "unique, stand-alone, playable short stories" will "offer a unique journey and different outcomes based on the players' decisions and actions." The PlayStation.blog puts a theoretical $4.99 price tag on these things, which may or may not affect your decision to pre-order the game.

Hit up the PlayStation.blog for a list of participating retailers if you're interest is piqued.

Pre-order Heavy Rain and Get The Heavy Rain Chronicles [PlayStation.blog]

As you can see, the Mountain Man skin for Eddie Riggs isn't quite as impressive as one would have hoped, but it certainly does add a beard, wherteas the other two costumes mainly consist of white and black face paint. Friends don't let friends be ripoffs of The Crow, so beard it is.

Burnout Paradise was originally envisioned as a series of islands all connected to Paradise City through bridges (or potentially boats!), but something changed after the game was released that shifted Criterion's focus on DLC. Criterion figured Stunt Run and Ranked Racing would be the online modes everyone would be playing, but instead, players flocked to the Free Burn Challenges, so the developers shifted gears accordingly, scrapping the idea of multiple islands filled with different game types, including one marked up like an F1 course. Drat.

The other scrapped plans are even more interesting. They envisioned boats racing from island to island, planes and helicopters flying overhead, and cars versus motorcycles ala Road Rash. They considered a network of underground racing areas, and time portals that would temporarily warp you to the Old West. But by far the most out-of-this-world idea was Burnout on the moon.

Again, completely true. Someone on the team said that 'players want the moon on a stick when it comes to DLC' We thought that was funny and thought we'd do it. The actual surface of the real Moon was modeled and it was drive-able. Lunar Challenges would have been totally unexpected - as would have been zero gravity Takedowns and Challenges.

The idea was that we would have built a rocket pad on Big Surf. If you reached a certain Rank, or completed a number of specific challenges, you could drive there, press a button and the rocket would launch. Destination - Moon! (Now that would have beaten downloadable car liveries any day!)

Agreed! Check out the link below for more on Criterion's overly ambitious DLC plans, and imagine what might have been.

"Take A Look At What You Could Have Won..." [Criterion Games via inc gamers]

It's hammer time! Every game has triple and double XP weekends these days. Volition wanted to take things a step further with its "Get Your Ass Back to Mars" event. From today through December 21st, logging in and blowing things and people up will net you five times the normal experience points, meaning that getting 50 achievement points or a gold trophy for hitting 100,000 XP will be easier than ever, not to mention unlocking the fabled ostrich hammer at 120,000 points.

During the event, be sure to follow the Red Faction Twitter for chances to score free downloadable content codes, which make great virtual stocking stuffers, possibly.

Desperate Escape, due out on March 3rd for the Xbox 360 and March 4th for the PlayStation 3, sees Jill Valentine, recently recovered from mind control and looking fine, escaping the Tricell facility with the help of Agent Josh Stone, who is also looking fine if you're into that sort of thing. The pair must fight through hordes of biological weapons in order to make it to the final confrontation between Chris, Sheva, and Wesker.

The release coincides with the release of Costume Pack 2, which we showed you earlier. Josh Stone, along with Heavy Metal Chris and Business Suit Sheva will be playable in Mercenaries mode, leaving just three of the eight new characters still to be revealed.

And don't forget, all of this DLC will be part of the Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition, due to be released on March 9th.

These two new costumes are a bit more reserved than the little red riding hood and warrior costumes Capcom previously revealed, though I'm still not buying Chris as some sort of post-apocalyptic bad ass. Sheva, on the other hand, pulls off the businesswoman look with charm and grace. All she needs is a long jacket and her fingernails will shine like justice.

We already technically know what's coming in the double dose of DLC slated to arrive over the next two months, but everything seems so much better when Patrice explains it.