Hit the "Road'

And here it is: The first of many planned DLC packs for The Beatles: Rock Band became available on Tuesday, and it's actually a solid lead-off: The remaining dozen songs from "Abbey Road" that weren't included in the game's release in September. We're talking some pretty good stuff -- tunes like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and the "Golden Slumber/Carry That Weight" ensemble. Each one has been recorded with its own music video, and if some of the videos are a little less spectacular and psychedelic than the head trip that was "I Am the Walrus," so be it -- at least the lips on Paul and John's avatars synch with the songs.

Beatlemania has never come cheap, and this DLC pack is no exception -- you'll be dropping $17 to buy the whole set of songs, but if you do, it comes with a tasty bonus: A 16-minute medley of B-side recordings from the album. If you can five-star that on drums, you're ready to replace Ringo.

Puzzled?

This seems to be the week where downloadable puzzle-based games hit your friendly neighborhood consoles harder than Levi Johnston and a talk-show circuit. Start with Axel and Pixel (Xbox Live, 800 points) , a cutesy game in which you're charged with maneuvering an artist and his dog across a series of puzzle-laden landscapes. It's one of those point-and-click-the-hotspot games, where moving the glowing cursor onto random (and not-so-random) objects in the environment triggers effects and chain reactions that open up new paths. Clicking on a leaf, for instance, might be just the thing to wake up a snoozing snail, who, if you've been smart enough to click on the pile of rope first, will slither along and provide the pulley ride Pixel needs to scale a cliff. It's fun stuff, and more challenging it than it first appears.

It's Magic

The Bullseye feature on the final page of every issue of Entertainment Weekly loves to claim credit for influencing Hollywood culture -- to wit, the self-referential back-patting that occurred when a call for a Heather Locklear cameo on the reboot of "Melrose Place" (um, how is this show still on the air again?) resulted in the announcement of...a Heather Locklear cameo on the reboot of "Melrose Place."

Well, Bullseye, you're not the only one with power. In my review of the excellent and enjoyable Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers download on Xbox Live, I called out to Wizards to give us expansion content...and here it is. For the reasonable price of 400 Microsoft points-that's only five bucks, folks, you can now several news decks to take down

Since I'm now drunk with power and hopped up on Cheetos, I'm going to swing my scepter of gaming power -- it has flashing jewels, gold plating and everything -- the way A-Rod's been swinging his bat this post-season: Valve, give us Half-Life 2, Episode 3 by next March. EA, resurrect the Dungeon Keeper series for next-gen consoles. Oh, and Wizards? Keep that Duels of the Planeswalkers DLC coming.

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