Now that StarCraft 2 has been released, we can begin to look forward to Diablo 3 with renewed fervor. Blizzard has revealed a new feature of the game today: artisans that travel with your party as you go adventuring. These artisans can level up, use materials you give them to craft new items, and will give you quests before you earn their loyalty. Want to add some sockets to your favorite weapon? Now you can.

You won't start the game with these artisans, you'll have to encounter them during the main campaign. Diablo 3's Lead Designer Jay Wilson showed off these characters in a video:

"We want to provide players with an alternative way to acquire gear, potions, and other randomly found items. We also want to provide additional forms of customization for players—adding jewels, enchants, or sockets to existing gear allows players to further tailor their characters," Blizzard said, explaining the crafting professions. "Many rare crafting recipes and materials are only found as world drops, enhancing the item acquisition process by increasing the diversity of items dropped by monsters."

If you were obsessive about your gear in past Diablo games, this gives you another excuse to grind to your heart's content.

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Microsoft hosts a contest called Dream.Build.Play for those who develop games using the XNA Creator's Club, and this year the winner was a charming little game called Lumi. It was created by two people, features some very inviting artwork, and is fun as hell. Bonus: it's $5 and available now in Xbox Live Indie Games.

The gameplay is simple: you use the top trigger buttons to either attract or repulse Lumi from red and blue balls of energy, using them to propel your way around the level. You collect fireflies to feed plants that in turn bring light back into a world that has fallen into darkness. There are enemies to avoid and fight; one level pits you against a giant charging beetle, and the backgrounds and aesthetics change often enough that you'll want to keep playing to see what comes next. This is a very attractive game: it stopped multiple people in their tracks when they walked by the monitors I was using to play.

There are some downsides to the game, as I often found myself relying on trial and error to advance, and some jumps felt a little trickier than they need to be. The charm of Lumi more than makes up with these minor shortcomings, however; the design is refreshingly colorful and organic. This feels like a larger, full-priced release, and is cut above above most of the games found in the indie games section of Xbox Live.

The team won $40,000 in the Dream.Build.Play contest, but this is still a game worth supporting. With many Xbox Live Arcade games priced at $15, this is a steal at $5. Enjoy!

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Microsoft hosts a contest called Dream.Build.Play for those who develop games using the XNA Creator's Club, and this year the winner was a charming little game called Lumi. It was created by two people, features some very inviting artwork, and is fun as hell. Bonus: it's $5 and available now in Xbox Live Indie Games.

The gameplay is simple: you use the top trigger buttons to either attract or repulse Lumi from red and blue balls of energy, using them to propel your way around the level. You collect fireflies to feed plants that in turn bring light back into a world that has fallen into darkness. There are enemies to avoid and fight; one level pits you against a giant charging beetle, and the backgrounds and aesthetics change often enough that you'll want to keep playing to see what comes next. This is a very attractive game: it stopped multiple people in their tracks when they walked by the monitors I was using to play.

There are some downsides to the game, as I often found myself relying on trial and error to advance, and some jumps felt a little trickier than they need to be. The charm of Lumi more than makes up with these minor shortcomings, however; the design is refreshingly colorful and organic. This feels like a larger, full-priced release, and is cut above above most of the games found in the indie games section of Xbox Live.

The team won $40,000 in the Dream.Build.Play contest, but this is still a game worth supporting. With many Xbox Live Arcade games priced at $15, this is a steal at $5. Enjoy!

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The Nintendo Wii has enjoyed amazing success this generation, bridging the gap between hardcore and casual gamers. The low-cost console's innovative motion controls expanded the audience for games, and it looked as if Sony and Microsoft would never catch up in the United States. Both Microsoft and Sony ultimately decided that there's something to the whole motion control thing, however, and have announced products that will soon see them following in the Wii's footsteps.

Sony's entry into the motion control race is the Move, a collection of devices that work together to create motion controls that are more precise than what Nintendo can offer, with games that enjoy high-definition graphics and better frame rates than the Wii can deliver. Microsoft's motion effort takes a different tack, using a sort of camera that will sit under your television and allow you to interact with your games by moving your body and waving your hands. In essence, Microsoft's Kinect makes you the controller. Make no mistake, the Move and Kinect are me-too products. It's no coincidence that both motion control schemes follow on the heels of the Wii's success. The question is how well each product will engage with the Wii's strengths and weaknesses in order to carve out its own success.

After looking at the final pricing from Microsoft and Sony, playing many games on both technologies, and getting a feel for what both companies are after, we've come to this conclusion: Sony's strategy is going to offer more to a wider variety of gamers. That's not to say that it will be more popular, sell more, or make more money for third-party developers—it's just that for our audience, Sony is the better bet as of this moment.

Here's why.

Sony is blowing the roof off Gamescom, which is taking place in Cologne Germany as we speak. The announcements are coming in fast and furious: Resistance 3! New PS3 hardware! New Ratchet and Clank! We're going to run down the news and give you a look at the games talked about during Sony's press event.

Microsoft is showing a newfound enthusiasm for its Games for Windows brand, and has announced the return of two major franchises: Age of Empires and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Of course, the "Simulator" bit has been removed, so now it's just Flight. Let's take a look at the trailers, and discuss what little we know about these games.

Do games need to be fun to be successful? Think about it: we give films the freedom to depress us even though we still enjoy the movie on many levels. When it comes to games, I'm not sure we extend ourselves the same courtesy. Kane and Lynch 2 features unlikable men doing things I don't agree with, in a place I don't want to be. As I fought wave after wave of thugs and law enforcement, my main thought was simply that it would be better if both Kane and Lynch took bullets to the head. I didn't want them to win, and I certainly didn't want to be them.

It also doesn't help that the game's presentation rubs your nose in the ugliness of its world. That could have been on purpose, as some sort of statement, but the end result was a feeling of claustrophobia and discomfort. The game feels like it doesn't want to be played, and tests you by asking how long you'll endure it.

How seriously does Blizzard take the operation of private World of Warcraft servers? On August 10th the company was awarded a stunning $88,594,539.00 judgment against a woman who operated a business running her own WoW server and selling items via Paypal. That may seem steep, but over $3 million of that amount came from "inappropriate profits" the woman made from running the server. That's right: her private server, run under the name Scapegaming, was a multimillion dollar business. It also made her a very attractive target for litigation.