Have you ever just looked up at the stars, trying to make your own constellations ... and suddenly everything becomes a star cluster of Pac-Man-related shapes? (Imave via The Librarianist) Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomics; voting after the break.

• Real Life Application (Sharcbate)
• Battle Fighter III: Hyper Edition (Truck Bearing Kibble)
• Starcraft Blues (Extra Life)
• p=mv (Digital Unrest)
• The Expected Result (Penny Arcade)
• Oh, you're choosing fire? (Super Effective)
• Options (CAD)
• Grand Theft Dinosaur (Dino Comics)
• Define Addiction (2P Start)
• It's DYN-O-MITE (Dueling Analogs)
• "I'd be less nervous" (A Softer World)

When the new releases were a bummer and the Virtual Console didn't offer much comfort, we were depressed. But now that we've seen what's coming to Xbox Live Arcade this week, we're just hurt. This Wednesday, you'll be able to download Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe at the bargain price of 400 points/$5/Unforgivably more than "Free." Oh no, not for both. 400 points a piece. Ummm, no. [Update: Major Nelson's now saying that it's 400 points for both.]

We'll be honest, friends: We're starting to smell a conspiracy. Somebody out there wants you to skip playing games this week so you can get out and buy some games. Luckily, if you're anything like us, you're too broke to fall for their clever trap. Thank you, comically slim wallet.

Sony has officially announced the impending arrival of two more PlayStation Network titles, each of them boasting hyper-rainbow visuals that are likely to induce a mental state similar to that following ingestion of a hallucinogenic substance. Not that we have any experience with that sort of thing. We do have some familiarity with Snake though, which you may remember as that slithering self-extension exercise available on every electronic device known to man.

In Snakeball, you pilot a "bizarre hoversnake" across an "outlandishly dazzling disco floor," all the while devouring delicious spheres, blasting other players and whacking them with your bizarre hoversnake tail. The game supports online multiplayer, as well as the newly announced PlayStation Eye camera, ideal for plastering a face over your bizarre hoversnake pilot. Three Speech expects the game to arrive in July.



Super Stardust HD, to which the Sony blog gives a 15 June release date in Europe, is an arcade shooter built around the high concept of blasting defenseless asteroids to smithereens. A two-player co-op mode (it's unclear if this is local, online, or both), online rankings, 1080p resolution and a "seriously catchy soundtrack" are mentioned in the game's list of features. No word yet on what it costs to shoot at space rocks or pilot bizarre hoversnakes.

Tired of consoles that take up valuable entertainment center real estate? How about one that fits on your keychain instead? A new line of miniature Atari 2600 joysticks and paddles actually hook up to your TV to play built-in games. The mini-systems, which include two or three classic Atari games each, hook up to a TV through a six-foot RCA cord and external AAA battery pack.

We wonder how playable these games are on such small controllers, but just the idea of a TV console that fits in your pocket intrigues us. Now if we could only get a pocket sized Intellivision, we'd really be in business.

[Via Random Good Stuff]