Wallace & Gromit have made the leap--across the pond--from cartoon characters to videogame heroes. The latest offering from Telltale Games' episodic adventures is, if I dare say so, their best yet.

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventure excels with Telltales's tried-and-true formula of puzzle/adventure interspersed with comedic cut-scenes. The puzzles are tricky enough to be satisfying, yet not so difficult as to cause frustration. There's a high level of delightful absurdity. The logic is that of our favorite British inventor and his faithful--and long-suffering--companion. Fans of the original Wallace & Gromit shorts will enjoy the character banter and outlandish inventions which play impressively true to the source material.

At long last, downloadable content has arrived for one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially underrated PlayStation 3 exclusives: Valkyria Chronicles. Reviewing content that is tacked on in addition to the game itself is a different beast from a normal game review, so we're going to do it as follows: each DLC item will be reviewed based on price and content (gameplay time, further story immersion/character development, challenge). Sega has been kind enough to release three DLC items for us: a Hard EX Mode, Enter The Edy Detachment side story, and Selvaria's "Behind Her Blue Flame" chapter. Here's how they stack up and what you can expect:

Hard EX Mode

Price: $4.99

Time to complete: 10+ Hours

Further Story Immersion/Character Development: None!

Challenge: High!

This mode allows you to play skirmish battles on a mode beyond that of Hard where you no longer have use of any tanks, but you control Welkin as an infantryman. This also means you cannot dish out orders mid-battle. Don't get discouraged - every skirmish battle has been completely re-worked for this mode. Enemy layout, your starting position, objectives... everything has changed, not to mention the increased power of enemy soldiers and the more-common occurrence of those pesky "elite" soldiers (the ones who have their own name, i.e. Nick the Awesome). So technically, it's like getting 9 new stages that will fry your brain and rattle your nerves. It's also the sort of DLC that would have benefited greatly from a Trophy patch. Although this adds nothing to the game, backstory or otherwise,  it's still a fantastic challenge and compared to the other two DLC, a fair price.

Loco Roco 2 is the quintessential videogame sequel. IMO this is what game franchises should aspire to do: creating follow-up games which follow from the original, but really expand upon it. All too often sequel games are either just straight continuations on their predecessor (expansion pack anyone?) or worse, awkward re-imagining's of the original concept--because clearly there are no new ideas. LocoRoco 2  breaks this mold by taking what worked in the original, and truly adding to it. The mechanics are basically the same, the game feels familiar; but there are new enemies, environments and challenges to overcome, along with a new character and new resources at your disposal.

You needn't have played LocoRoco to enjoy LocoRoco 2. Once you get used to the game mechanics the sequel can be played as a stand-alone game. For the more driven gamer, there are many different objects to collect each level to build the LocoRoco house, and record 'bests' to achieve. But the game offers something to both those who want to collect everything and those who just want to have fun with the cute locorocos.