Flipping through my son's LEGO magazine over the weekend I noticed this ad for a new LEGO Star Wars ship, the Rogue Shadow, that is "exploding from the much anticipated videogame, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed!"

The ship comes with mini-figs of Juno Eclipse, Battle Damaged Darth Vader and Darth Vader's Apprentice. Hit the jump for close ups of the trip of little men. I wonder if this is going to be a new trend, LEGO screenshots.

Nick Larsen put together this kinda cute LEGO stop-motion film featuring Portal's end theme song Still Alive. The music video used more than 1,300 individual pictures and while it isn't quite up to snuff with some of the other videos spawned by Portal exuberance, I still think it's worth a watch. Fahey found it boring, but he has no soul.

LEGO Portal [Nick Larsen Media]

We (and I mean "we" as in "humanity") are all already super-excited for the upcoming Lego MMO. We'll all have to find room to squeeze a little more excitement in, though. Think there's some space up the back. Why? Because Lego have announced that, if you'd like, they can take any character - and "other creations" - that you create in the game and make them. Into real Lego. At the proper Lego factory in Denmark.

Somebody hold me.
Brick by Brick [GI.biz] [Pic]

Ed's note: The NetDevil folks first mentioned this possibility a year ago when we broke the news of LEGO Universe.

In what is looking like a trend today (if two posts can be considered a trend), there's another LEGO bit of news today, this time involving Halo. However since this is appearing in EGM's April edition it's likely their idea of an April Fool's joke. It's tough to say though as this issue is already on newsstands and we've just entered March.

Also, I don't find this to be especially outlandish, certainly not any more than the Batman game posted earlier today. Personally, I think a Halo LEGO game could be every bit as successful as the other games in the LEGO franchise.

Feel free to tell me how utterly wrong I am.

Vicki Vale. Vi-Vi-Vicki Vale.

Check out the trailer to the upcoming game. Complete with mock-serious voiceover guy, a tight-rope waddling Penguin and Vicki Vale. Actually I have no idea if Vicki Vale is in it - those LEGOs all look the same to me - but couldn't pass on her very lovely image.

Hit the jump & check it out.

For the last part of my three part coverage of the Lucas Arts presentation, we'll talk a little about LEGO Indiana Jones. The portion we saw dealt with the iconic scenes from the beginning of the first movie: running from giant boulders, stealing golden idol heads and the like. We were also introduced to some of the game mechanics. Indy will of course make much use of his whip to destroy things, grab objects and swing his way through his adventures. He will also have an ally who will help him through each of the various levels of the game and each ally will have a special skill such as excavation that will come in handy. These helpers can also be controlled by another player in the co-op mode. Players can look forward to Lego versions of all their favorite characters including Dr. Henry Jones Sr., Sala and everyone's favorite little screaming Asian kid, Short Round. Each characters phobias, such as Indy's famus aversion to snakes will come into play as you progress through the game. As in the other LEGO Star Wars titles, humor plays a huge part in the game and the few little cut scenes we saw were quite funny and had the gathered crowd laughing aloud quite a bit. We even got a special appearance by the golden head of a certain Star Wars robot that was used to great effect. All three movies will be covered in the game with each film being made up of six levels.

The DS version will be making use of the microphone to solve puzzles by blowing out torches and also included will be a cooking mini-game featuring the infamous monkey brains scene. Something tells me you won't be seeing THAT in Cooking Mama 3.

With all it's various in-jokes and trademark LEGO humor, I think that LEGO Indiana Jones will be a sure fire hit with fans of the genre and kids alike. I wasn't really on the LEGO Star Wars tip when it came out, but there is no doubt that LEGO Indy will be a permanent part of my game collection when it comes out this summer.

I was lucky enough to get a chance to sit down with Lego's Mark Hanson to talk a bit about their upcoming MMO project, LEGO Universe. What we've seen and heard about it so far has been a bit limited so I was looking forward to hearing about what could be one of the most interesting and fun MMO's to come along in quite a while.

The Lego world is all about creativity and building and Lego Universe will be no different. Players will start the game by customizing their mini-figs. According to Hanson, each figure will be endlessly customizable so that you can create a character that looks just like you (or not) to inhabit your little section of bricks. Each world of the universe will have a different theme that corresponds to the different sets of Legos. For example, you will be able to visit the Pirate Planet or perhaps jet over to the Medieval Castle Planet. Lego will provide the basis for each world and then the rest is all up the the users. You can own property and build up whatever creations your mind can come up with using your stock of bricks. Bricks can be earned by a combination of randomly finding them, completing missions and even battling. The more you play, the more bricks you can earn. While there will be no actual PVP battles, players will be able to create creatures/machines and use them to battle other players creations in their quest for more bricks. And of course, in the Lego Universe no one ever bleeds or dies, they just break apart.