Until the new Leerdammer update hits on Monday, the only way to create LittleBigPlanet levels with your friends was to gather around the television set or coordinate online and have one person do all the work. Come Monday, that will no longer be a factor, and friends from all around the world will be able to join together online and craft the sort of sublime, disjointed experience that comes from too many cooks in one pot. It's a feature fans have been waving their arms about for, and now it's almost here. Rejoice!

Leerdammer also adds location-based matchmaking to the mix, meaning the game will first look for folks whose connections don't suck before pairing you up with some guy on the other side of the planet.

All this plus more profile space, an auto-reject play invitation setting, and more, all in Monday's update. You can check out the full details over at Media Molecule's home on the web.

LittleBigPlanet Leerdammer Update [Media Molecule - Thanks Ursus-Veritas]

Today through November 2nd, Valve invites the spirits of the dead into Team Fortress 2 in the form of terrifying paper bag hats. The masks are unlocked via five new update-specific achievements, with names like "Candy Coroner" and "Attack O' Lantern," the latter of which might have something to do with the exploding pumpkins added in the update.

The update also brings a new KOTH map called Harvest, through which wanders the restless spirit of Zepheniah Mann. Crossing his path will cause you to freeze with terror, leaving you open to all sorts of deadly Halloween mischief. On top of that, "the mangled corpses of the recently deceased will plague the living… with candy!" I have no idea what that means, and I'm a little scared to find out.

Team Fortress 2 Pumpkin Patch [Team Fortress 2]

Pick-up groups, or PUGs, are the bane of many an MMO player's existence. Rather than grouping with your guild or folks you know, you group up with random strangers who often turn out to be complete and utter tools, and probably think the same thing about you. PUGs are generally avoided whenever possible, but World of Warcraft's new dungeon and raid system, due out in an upcoming patch, actually rewards players for grouping with random strangers. In fact, the more random additions to your group, the faster you gain rewards, including a Perky Pug non-combat pet.

In order to make PUGs even more attractive, the new system features smarter group matching, which means you should never end up with five shadow priests, which would completely break any instance you entered, along with cross-server instancing, which can pull players from any server in your Battlegroup to go dungeon hopping with you.

Another cool new feature that will seriously cut down on waiting for your PUG members to show up is Instance Teleporting. Much like the PVP battlegrounds in the game, when you join a dungeon using the new system, you will be automatically teleported to the dungeon entrance, where you can then sit AFK for 20 minutes while you get a sandwich.

The new tool will also allow players to select multiple dungeons to take on, or they can take their chances with a random dungeon, with NPC's giving out quests and rewards to those that complete daily random dungeons, which will be taking the place of the current daily heroic dungeon system.

All of this, plus vote kicking, a looking for raid tool, group disenchanting, and a need before greed update are coming our way in the upcoming WoW content patch. It should go great lengths towards making an already easy game that much easier. Huzzah!

New Dungeon System [World of Warcraft - thanks Joshua!]

Since Microsoft expressly said we're not forbidden from discussing this, why not? U.S. Xbox Live users in the closed preview will see a "News and More" tab in the "Inside Xbox" channel, and it will deliver "a regularly-updated stream of content from MSNBC.com, MSN Autos, The New Yorker and Dilbert,

For rhythm and music gamers, the update will also set up dedicated music stores for Lips, Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

But wait, there's more! "Surprise! - Keep an eye out in the weeks after the preview launches...you never know what might pop up," says the email.

It's the triumphant return of the Xbox Live Preview Program, and everybody is invited! Invited to apply that is, but Major Nelson says they are searching for multiple thousands of participants to test out the latest Xbox Live features, and you're just a brief application away from being considered. You can visit the Xbox Live Update Preview page right now to apply, but make sure you've got your Xbox 360 serial number handy, because they're gonna ask for it. I told you to keep it on a card in your wallet, but did you listen?

Xbox LIVE Preview Program: Zune, Facebook and Twitter [Major Nelson]

Additionally the update enables support for wireless microphones and lays down an "audition" feature you may use when the Rock Band Network enters its open beta.

When "Audition Mode" goes live, RBN members will be able to "upload songs from their PCs and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools," according to the official Rock Band Forums. Currently, Rock Band Network is in closed beta and the game will tell you 'To enter Audition Mode, you must be signed into an Xbox Live enabled gamer profile that is a member of the XNA Creators Club and connected to Xbox Live." Harmonix says the open beta will commence in the coming weeks.

Meantime, gamers will find improvements to the hammer on/pull off tricks in guitar play. The forum says these improvements were brought over from The Beatles: Rock Band, which featured "much more robust handling" of hammer-on and pull-off.

Other upgrades: In the sort menu, you may now arrange songs according to the star rating you've achieved in each of them. Unplayed songs will be grouped accordingly. This helps players chart their progress toward five-starring every song they own.

The game will also support wireless mikes, such as the Lips microphone. Ion Drum Kits now have velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and freestyle mode. And most conveniently, background downloading in the Music Store has been enabled, so you no longer have to wait for the complete download of a purchased song before moving on to another.

As for the PS3, Harmonix' Sean Baptiste explained that patch is being worked on and awaiting its certification process with Sony.

Rock Band 2 Software Update Notes [Rock Band Forums via Joystiq]

The Battlefield Heroes community continues to grow in leaps and bounds, having added an additional 1 million players since the first million was announced back in June of this year. It turns out gamers love free things. They also love free updates to free things, and that's what EA is giving them with the "Heroes of the Fall" game update, due out September 30th, in celebration of this latest milestone.

The fall update includes changes to the gunner class that our resident BFH enthusiast Luke mentioned previously, a new ranking system, and a new fall-themed map that players can submit names for at the official website.

"Along with this new map, ‘Heroes of the Fall' includes a slew of changes including upgrades of the Gunner class and improvements to the friends system," said Ben Cousins, General Manager, Battlefield Heroes team. "We've also added a brand new ranking system for the game – players can earn cool new titles for their heroes as they play – showing everyone on the battlefield how dedicated they are."

Dedication comes quite easily when the price of entry is free. A lesson for all of us!

Major Nelson confirmed the new firmware in a late-night post; also, for any of our friends who were up late and gaming and found the system update spit back a router error when connecting to Xbox Live, that has been totally resolved, tweets the Major.

Xbox 360 System Update Rolling Out [Major Nelson via VG247]

The most notable content addition is a timer in the Zombie HUD that counts down the special attack recharge of the other infecteds you're playing with.

Curiously, the in-game achievements menu now reads "X of 60" unlocked. Before this patch, there were 50 achievements. No names of these achievements or Gamerscore for them are yet available, but it seems the patch has reset the achievement flags in advance of adding new ones. I'm showing "1 of 60" in the game's achievement menu. In the dashboard, it shows me with 16 of 50. So something's up here.

There's a Game With Fame tonight tomorrow night (thanks Komrade Kayce) with the band Paramore, and we earlier reported that the GWF announcement mentioned it is an opportunity to play Crash Course. That still has not hit the Xbox Live Marketplace.

This patch, of course, is free. Thanks to tipster Sean S. for the heads-up to the heads-up display. The L4D forums are buzzing as you can imagine. Go there to read more.

L4D Title Update Just Hit 360 [Steam Users' Forums]

Power Spectrum isn't all about changing the color of your character's powers. The new update also brings a new scalable difficulty system for missions, a new and improved side-kick system, and more powersets available to more archetypes! Okay, it's pretty much all about changing the color of your powers. NCsoft is thrilled to finally be implementing the feature. Just ask senior lead designer Matt "Positron" Miller.

"We are thrilled to be able to deliver yet another major player-requested feature with Power Spectrum," said Matt Miller, Senior Lead Designer for the City of Heroes franchise. "We aim to build the most customizable gameplay experience in any MMO for our players. Adding Powers Customization to our genre-defining character creator, as well as user-generated content through Mission Architect, shows we are willing and able to give our players what they want."

But what if they want love? Can you give them that, Matt "Positron" Miller? The next update should be the side-switching Going Rogue, but after that we expect love.

But no other update is more important in helping you play more games than the easy-to-overlook user ratings, or as Microsoft calls them, Community Ratings.

"We're excited to bring this new functionality to Xbox," says Ben Smith, program manager of Xbox Live. "Now that all game content can be rated with a five-star system based on the collective vote of users, you can easily find great games and demos that you may have missed by sorting the 'Top Rated' section of the Games Marketplace."

For example, I'm a noob when it comes to knowing the best indie games to play. Upon browsing the "Top Rated" of both the Indie Games and Xbox Live Arcade sections, however, I quickly become informed, thanks to helpful Xbox owners willing to star their favorite games. At the time of writing, I see that CarneyVale Showtime, Miner Dig Deep, and Kodu Game Lab sit at the top-two of which I've never heard of (and I get paid to keep up with this stuff.)

Castle Crashers, Portal: Still Alive, and Battlefield 1943 currently lead the Arcade Section-the latter I'm also unfamiliar with. Out of said titles, Miner Dig Deep appeals the most to me, so I download. Easily worth the $2.

But what about bigger games and add-on stuff? User ratings help there too. "Every piece of content on Games Marketplace can now be rated using the 5-star system," says Smith. That includes Demos, Arcade and Indie Games, Videos, Games on Demand, and Add-ons among others. Additionally, disc-based games can also be rated.

The bigger categories provide fewer surprises. Bioshock, Halo, and Mass Effect-games which most handsome readers have already beaten-predictably lead the top rated Games on Demand section. Rock Band tracks dominate the top rated add-on content. And Xbox owners still love to watch Orange Box and Halo 3 videos-the latter of which makes sense, as Marketplace sorts it as the "best-selling" of any Xbox game.

But with a little digging, you'll soon reveal and handful of similarly rated games you may have snoozed on. And who doesn't like discovering new games, even if you're late to the party?

What's more, user ratings are often more reliable than collective critical ratings, provided you have feedback numbering in the hundreds. As my demanding statistics professor once taught, a sample of 200 to 300 votes can accurately judge quality on behalf of the entire population, give or take a few rare exceptions.

The top rated Fallout 3, for example, has already been stared a whopping 40,000 times. Even Metacritic averages can't compete with that, making the Xbox community a more dependable critic, not to mention more convenient since the scores are baked into your console now.

Granted, user ratings are nothing new. Amazon has been doing them for years. But this is the first time they've come to aid of console players looking to separate the chaff from the wheat. Wii owners might quickly counter with, "Hey, we have recommendations too!" But that system is cluttered, tedious to sort, and in no way easy to read like the universally accepted stars found on Xbox. Conversely, PlayStation 3 has no rating system.

It's unclear how the rating system might evolve over time. For example, will Xbox owners be able to see friend ratings with similar tastes as opposed to the entire community? And Microsoft won't say how current ratings are calculated (all-time, last month previous year, etc). But when coupled with both Top Downloads (formerly Most Popular) and Best-Selling categories, Community Ratings are a powerful and pragmatic way to "zero in on great game content"-like the gamer gift that keeps on giving.

Microsoft is certainly hip to the idea. "There is something very social about being able to tell people what you like or see what other people recommended," Smith concludes. "User Ratings will help Xbox Live members find great games and fantastic add-ons more easily than they could previously-and that's what it's all about: making it quicker to have fun."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Blake Snow writes about video games and technology from Crecente's neighboring state of Utah. His curious work has appeared on MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and GamePro among others.

Today I sat down with the developer for a hands-on demo of Fairytale Fights. My actual preview is embargoed until August 19, but I was given permission to share a couple of things in response to some of the questions raised by the b-roll footage. First off, the gingerbread men aren't supposed to bleed — that's a bug — they're just supposed to crumble and fall apart. Second, I can confirm that there will be friendly fire in the multiplayer co-op mode.

Between those two tidbits and this gloriously gory trailer, I'm sold. But if you're not, stick around for my preview on the 19th and then see how you feel about Fairytale Fights.

Thursday, June 23rd is when the WipEout HD Fury pack races onto the PlayStation Network, trailing along tons of new game play in its wake. Eliminator, Zone Battle, and Detonator game modes bring new ways to do battle in the PSN version of the futuristic racing series, while an all-new campaign, new trophies, and new online ranks will keep players driving, and striving, and hugging the turns.

Two days before the pack hits there will be a free update to the game, which will add a new statistics system while tweaking the menu system and adding some enhanced community features.

Basically, the face of WipEout HD changes next week, either a little for free, or a whole lot for $9.99. Your choice!

WipEout Fury Developer Diary - New Game Modes (+date & price) [PlayStation Blog]

Aside from a new 5th Column Task Force / Strike Force series of missions, the bulk of the Issue 15 update for NCsoft's superhero MMO is dedicated to making characters look their best and making it easier to use the mission architect player-created content tool introduced in Issue 14: Architect.

On the cosmetic side of things, players now have more than 20 new faces to choose from in character creation along with two new costume sets - vines and ulterior - making an already ridiculously versatile system even more so. They've also added new costume change emotes, allowing players to back flip, salute, or maniacally laugh their way out of their clothes.

NCsoft also updates their mission architect system, adding new testing tools to help iron out the kinks and enhanced search capability to help players separate the wheat from the chaff.

Considering the major changes that came about with the last update, Issue 15 seems rather tame, but with the massive Going Rogue update next in line for release, we can forgive the odd lighter than normal offering.

Yes, along with the new areas, which can be seen in the lovely screenshots here, Update 5 is another step in Funcom's continuing effort to make Age of Conan the sort of MMO that keeps old players and brings in a steady stream of new ones. This main focus of this update is item statistics, specifically how they affect a player's performance. Starting today, players should notice a much more significant change in the effectiveness of their skills by wearing items with stat-enhancements, which in turn makes finding and creating new gear that much more rewarding.

The update also adds more life to guild cities, allows players to gain PVP experience through mini-games, and perhaps the most compelling new feature for those who migrated from World of Warcraft, social pets. See? Funcom totally knows what players want!

Now that they've gotten the full sequel out the door, Capcom and developer Grin have been hard at work tweaking and fixing the Bionic Commando remake, slipping in support for PlayStation 3 trophies in the process. The update, which is due sometime soon, tweaks the easy and normal modes for both the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network versions of the game, while leaving hard and super hard alone for those of you with madder skills.

How much easier is it? Can you say unlimited lives? Capcom can. Now when you die you will respawn at the last piece of solid ground you stood on. You can also reel out your line if it's too short, and swinging into a wall while hooked will no longer send you falling to your death. They've also fixed a bug with the Super Joe Machine Gun, giving it more damage when upgraded along with the bigger clip.

Needless to say, if you can't finish the game once the upgrade hits, there is most likely something seriously wrong with you.

Trophies coming to Bionic Commando Rearmed plus 100% less broken controllers. [Capcom Unity]

Issue 15 is all about returning enemies and looking good enough to take them on. Both heroes and villains score a high-level mission arch featuring powerful foes returning from the past, with cosmetic additions that will ensure that players tackle their trouble with a fresh face. More than 20 new faces are being added to the character creator in fact, along with some new costumes and costume change emotes, granting characters the ability to change their outfit stylishly without having to get naked.

So new clothes, old foes, and several enhancements to the Architect system introduced in Issue 14, all for the low low price of completely free. When? No clue, but at least they've announced the Anniversary update in time for the anniversary.

Issue 15 Overview [City of Heroes - Thanks Kyle!]

Tomorrow sees the release of the 3.01 patch for SingStar, an automatic free update to the title that adds PlayStation 3 trophies to the list of reasons to sprain your voice trying to sing along to "I Believe in a Thing Called Love."

You might want to take it easy on your pipes, however, as another new feature arrives on April 22nd - voice control. Now, rather than always needing to keep a controller handy, you'll be able to simply tell the game which song you'd like to sing, hoping it understands what you are saying.

I actually picked up SingStar for the PlayStation 3 this past weekend for some reason, and was wondering what motivation I was really being given to torture my cats with my voice. Trophies should fill that role nicely.

Online multiplayer gets a bit more competitive tomorrow as Sony introduces 50 ranks to WipeOut HD, giving players a little something more to race for. Along with the rankings, a new podium screen appears after each race, where players regardless of placing can earn any of 33 different badges based on how they performed.

A bit more competitive, but a bit more friendly as well, with the addition of friend invites, finally allowing players to invite their pals or join them in their own matches, already in progress. Speaking of in progress, joining a game in progress now allows players to watch the action in spectator mode, rather than simply waiting in the lobby while everyone else finishes.

Some excellent changes, though arguably features that should have been in the game from the get go. Still, a free update is a free update, and if you've been on the fence about whether or not you should snatch up the game, perhaps these changes will push you off into oncoming traffic.

The Mission Architect for City of Heroes and City of Villains actually appears in game within buildings belonging to Architect Entertainment, a company that has developed a virtual training program for super-powered beings. Players will log in to a computer terminal in said buildings to gain access to the mission editor, where they can create anything from a quick mission that lasts a few minutes to a massive, five-chapter epic. Players write the dialogue, create the enemies, and map out the goals other players need to achieve to complete their mission. Once they've got it perfect, they can upload it to NCsoft's Arc Server, which delivers their content to all of the game servers. Once it's live, anyone can access the terminals in Architect Entertainment and run through the mission.

NCsoft actually sent along a helpful FAQ with all of these details and more, which we've posted below for your perusal, along with screenshots of Architect Entertainment and the editor in action. What happens next is up completely up to the players, but it could be the start of something pretty damn amazing.

For those of you interested in checking out what the players create once Issue 14: Architect goes live, look for the City of Heroes: Architect Edition, the game's first dual PC and Mac release, on store shelves this April.

City of Heroes Issue 14: Architect

Frequently Asked Questions

1.What is Mission Architect?
a.Mission Architect is a new game system we have developed for the City of Heroes massively multiplayer game. It allows our players to create their own stories and share those stories with other players on our live servers. Creators can pick from hundreds of maps and thousands of characters. They can use existing characters or create their own custom enemies. They can get even more detailed and create full enemy groups, giving each enemy unique costumes and powers. We allow players to write all of the dialog for their story as well as decide on level of difficulty and enemy placement. We even give them the ability to trigger one mission goal off of another, creating a chain of events within a single mission. Each story can have up to five chapters or missions and each mission can hold up to a maximum of 25 achievable goals. For people who just want to play the user created content, we give them access to the mission browser that shows all the generated content. You can sort these stories by name, highest rated, length and recently added. You can also filter content to show only those with specific ratings, arcs you have or haven't played as well as the alignment of the story. As people play content, they'll be able to rate that content from one to five stars. Creators will actually get in game benefits for making content that gets highly rated. We even offer a Dev Choice and Hall of Fame standing for the best of the best.

2.How does it work?
a.Players create content in game through a computer terminal within one of the Architect Entertainment buildings. Architect Entertainment is the name of an in-game company that's developed this type of ‘simulated experience' for heroes and villains of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. You can think of this like a holo-deck or a simulated mission tool. Players go to these facilities that are spread through out most of our zones and interact with a computer that walks through the creation process. Here is where they pick all of their options for a mission as well as write all the dialog and build their custom characters. Once they've gotten their story together, they can test it out and see how it plays. Once they've gotten it perfect, they can publish the story up to our Arc Server. This server is cross shard and cross game. So, any content published will be seen by everyone on every server, regardless of where they play.

3.What rewards are we giving to the players and creators?
a.We're granting full experience (XP) and influence rewards for defeating enemies in player made content. We're also giving players tickets in place of random drops. They can take these tickets to an Architect ticket vendor and redeem them for various in game rewards, such as enhancements, recipes and salvage. We're also allowing players to purchase unlockable content with their tickets. They'll be able to get maps, costume pieces and different characters.

4.What special features does Mission Architect have?
a.At the high level we allow you to create your own stories and share them with others in the game.
b.You can build your own custom characters as well as full enemy groups, giving each one a unique costume, powers, name and background.
c.We allow players to link mission goals together, creating a chain of events in a single mission.
d.We offer rewards for the players who develop well received content (Hall of Fame and Dev Choice).
e.Every published story is visible to each and every one of our players.
5.Can you talk more about Dev Choice vs. Hall of Fame?
a.The Hall of Fame is where the best player rated content goes. To get to this rank you need to have over a 1000 votes with an average of 5 stars (we round up). Getting into the Hall of Fame changes your standing in the mission browser, moving it further up the cue.
b.Becoming a Dev Choice story happens when one of us (the developers) sees content that we feel best represents what Architect can be, good story and fun gameplay. Getting into Dev Choice actually elevates you beyond Hall of Fame and gives your mission the same sort of rewards and drops you would get outside of Architect. The only difference being that you get a ticket bonus at the end of a mission as opposed to an experience bonus.
c.We also have a third tier of stories which we will talk about at a later date.

6.How are you dealing with inappropriate content?
a.We've worked very closely with our customer service department to develop systems for this. In the end, we implemented a number of different systems. We have language filters that check for bad words and won't let you publish them until you remove them. We're also allowing players to flag content for inappropriateness. We also track all users and flags for any potential vote griefing.

7.What's appealing to the players of user generated content?
a.We're creating a system where the best content rises to the top of the list and everything else is filtered to the bottom. Players can sort by rank as well as what they have and haven't played. When playing in someone else's content you'll continue to earn full XP and influence. We've replaced the random drop system with a ticketing system. Players collect tickets as they go through content. Once they've collected enough tickets they can go to a ticket vendor and purchase exactly what they want as far as rewards go.

8.How long does it take to make a decent five mission storyarc?
a.You can create a single mission rather quickly, in less then ten or fifteen minutes. However, to truly craft something unique and excellent, you'll have to spend a decent amount of time in the tool. It could take someone a couple of days of to write, build and test something really good.