The first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness has been officially dated for May 21, 2008, coming to Xbox Live Arcade and Windows, Mac and Linux. Cost to you? $19.95 USD or 1600 Microsoft points.

As you recall, there's no PlayStation Network version because PSN doesn't support Torque, with which the game is built. Full fact sheet follows the jump.

Xbox Live Arcade weekly updates are back on schedule, after Niko Bellic and his gang hijacked all Live traffic last week. This Wednesday, it's Wits & Wagers, a trivia party game for up to six players that features Xbox Live Vision camera support for maximum avatar creepiness. The official site states that Wits & Wagers "includes 700 unique and fun questions for up to 25 hours of exciting play." That's important to note. At 25 hours, you absolutely must stop expecting exciting play. You've been warned.

Wits & Wagers [Xbox.com]

New Commando 3: Wolf of the Battlefield Footage Is Shootalicious

The best thing about Commando 3: Wolf of the Battlefield isn't the demo for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix—god those are some verbose game titles—it's the ability to shoot lots and lots and lots of things. The sequel to Commando and Mercs is coming to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network soon (we hope). Let's revisit Forgotten Worlds soon too, Capcom. Please?

Assault Heroes remains one of the best arcade shooter experiences on Xbox Live Arcade today - exactly the sort of game I used to play in arcades with my friends back in the day. Now Wanako Studios is readying Assault Heroes 2 for release next month, promising all of the action of the original and more. The new game adds hijackable enemy vehicles entering the mix, as well as taking the firefight into outer space for the first time. The game is due out on XBLA May 14th for the standard fee of 800 Microsoft points. In honor of the release date announcement, here's enough screens to create your own little Assault Heroes 2 flipbook.

The Behemoth, developers behind upcoming Xbox Live game Castle Crashers, plan to hand out bronze Castle Crashers trophies to the top leaderboard slots once the game comes out.

The devs say they hope to show off the statues, which are made of "genuine genuine bronze", during this year's upcoming Comic Con. They also showed off one of the statues gnarly arms. Apparently, casting bronze isn't as easy as one would expect.... I'd expect it to be really hard.

Gnarly Arms [The Behemoth Dev Blog]

Microsoft Rejected Portal For XBLA

I'd love to sell Portal on Xbox live. [But] the platform holders aren't doing that right now. There's a size limit and all kinds of other things.

This week's contribution to Xbox Live Arcade comes courtesy of Sierra and the brain of Dr. Reiner Knizia who has a PhD in mathematics... and fun! That last part isn't true, but Knizia's fast paced card game Lost Cities is being digitized for your Microsoft Point-based consumption, bringing four person multi-player and plenty of grizzled or eternally winking adventurer artwork to Xbox 360s. Lost Cities will set you back 800 MSPs (or $10 USD) this Wednesday should you choose to engage your sick-of-Uno peers.

Lost Cities [Xbox.com]

XBLA Soul Calibur Is The Dreamcast One, Not The Arcade One

For the uninitiated, Treasure's Ikaruga is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up originally released for arcades, with ports for the Dreamcast and GameCube released in 2002 and 2003 respectively. It uses a simple mechanic of polarity—your ship, the Ikaruga, can switch between black and white states; there are no traditional shooter power ups, black and white beams are your only weapon. It's a system that belies its complexity. When white, the ship can absorb all white-colored incoming enemy fire. When black, the ship can absorb all black-colored incoming enemy fire. However, when firing on ships of the opposite color, the Ikaruga does double the damage. Oh, but there's more to it than that, a layer of depth that makes Ikaruga one part shooter, one part puzzler, with a dash of rhythm and strategy tossed in. How does the Xbox Live Arcade port hold up, with Ikaruga now seven years old?

Warning. The big list of love and hate is approaching at full throttle. No refuge.

Bionic Commando Rearmed, Shipping Soonish

Good news! XBLA and PSN title Bionic Commando Rearmed seems like it's getting one step closer to digital shipping. On developer GRIN's official site, the game's Creative Director Simon Viklund blogs:

The final date for completing Bionic Commando Rearmed is closing in - we're stabilizing the game and polishing all the details now, and soon this product of almost a year of late nights and hard work will ship to a digital distribution channel near you!

...Within weeks we will see with sad eyes how it leaves to enter the approval process, and I'm sure that just days after things have calmed down here at the office and our schedules say "wait and see", the team and I will already start longing to get back to the backbreaking work we've gotten used to during the project.

Puzzle Quest 1.5 Gets Named, Detailed

After asking fans of the Puzzle Quest franchise to name their new expansion pack, D3 was inundated with more than 500 suggestions. Today they settled on the name Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Revenge of the Plague Lord.

The runners-up names were Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Sorceress of Malbec and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - The Scourge of Antharg.

Revenge of the Plague Lord will be hitting Xbox Live arcade this spring and include four new hero professions: bard, rogue, ranger and warlock, as well as a new area on teh Southern Map which includes more than 25 new quests, 50 new spells and 40 new magical items.

The expansion pack has players taking on Antharg, the Lord of Plague and brother of Lord Bane.

Ikaruga For Xbox Live Arcade Finally Dated

The promise of Ikaruga for Xbox Live Arcade has been a constant tease since its official announcement in September. We know it's coming soon, but didn't know exactly when. Fortunately, the Japanese version of Xbox.com has put a date on it, pegging the release for Wednesday, April 9. That's a respectable distance from April 1, so we suspect our emotions aren't being stomped upon by cruel Japanese webmasters. Cross your fingers in hope that the world doesn't explode until at least April 10!

Ikaruga [Xbox Japan via XBLAH]

Lost Cities is is a card game designed by prolific traditional game designer Reiner Knizia. Released in 1999, the simple 2-player game involves players mounting expeditions to various lost cities around the world. Using a simple, 60-card deck, the game's fast-paced action is perfectly suited for a video game, and Sierra Online agrees. They are bringing Lost Cities to Xbox Live Arcade this spring for the relatively standard price of 800 Microsoft points, and they've released a few lovely little screenshots to whet our appetites. Not the most exciting-looking game, but non-traditional card games are general more about compelling gameplay than looks. Radical concept, I know!

N+ Devs Clear Up Live Arcade Shit Talk