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Announced earlier this month (though fate had ensured its arrival since the beginning), Brütal Legend's second pack of downloadable content landed on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network this week.

In celebration of the release, Double Fine has handed over a brand new trailer for the grab bag of multiplayer maps, skins for Eddie Riggs, and items with which to brutalize (as seen above). As we previously noted, the DLC also gives players the opportunity to endow Mt. Rockmore with Tim Schafer's beautiful face. If that doesn't sell you on it, we can't imagine what would.

Though it lacks the glitz, glamor and booth babes of consumer-based expos, the Game Developer's Conference has plenty to capture the attention of the cerebral game enthusiast. The event's official site recently posted a smattering of the lectures, roundtables, and panels which will take place from March 9 - 13, showcasing the efforts of the creators of Brütal Legend, Uncharted 2 and Braid, to name a few.

These events are broken into tracks representing the various types of work that go into making a game. For instance, Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand will be leading a post-mortem of Uncharted 2 as part of the Production Track. Double Fine's Peter Demoreuille and Drew Skillman will be talking about crafting the visuals of Brutal Legend for the Art Track. And Jonathan Blow is leading a discussion on implementing time travel in games as part of the sparsely populated Quantum Physics Phenomena Track.

[Via Gamasutra]

It's been a bumpy road to release for Brütal Legend. Tim Schafer's had to change publishers, deal with a pesky lawsuit, soldier through PR missteps and even handle some post-release DLC. This is all common knowledge, but in a lengthy postmortem at Gamasutra, Caroline Esmurdoc, executive producer at Double Fine, goes in depth on the development strategy for the title and talks about what went right and what went wrong in the creation of this rock gaming opus.

Double Fine adopted the Scrum method of agile software development for Brütal Legend, which allowed the company to create a renderer, terrain and a playable Eddie Riggs for Tim in a mere month. Content creation was fairly steady, Esmurdoc admitted, but around January of this year, the game's content jumped from the 2.5GB generated over three years to a massive 9GB, thanks to multiple teams unloading assets for the game simultaneously.

Esmurdoc also touched on the lawsuit, though she couldn't go into specifics beyond mentioning that the transition between publishers caused "internal unrest and morale dips among the team", and that Double Fine learned Activision would not be publishing Brutal Legend when the game was suspiciously absent from a list of the publisher's upcoming games. Double Fine then pursued a new publishing partner.

If you claim to love Tim Schafer, the new Brütal Legend DLC, "Hammer of Infinite Fate," is your chance to prove it. When it arrives on Dec. 17, you'll be able to pay the designer the ultimate tribute and carve his giant, disembodied head into Mount Rockmore. Sure, you're still a stalker, but in a totally socially acceptable way. You'll also get the Oculus of the Lost, a Deuce upgrade that shows every collectible on the map, as well as new outfits for Eddie and four new multiplayer maps.

The pack's apparently going to be a bit cheaper for PlayStation 3 users, who will pay $4.99 compared to 480 MS points ($6) on Xbox 360. That might be a misprint (we've asked EA for confirmation), but we recall that PSN users did get the first DLC free for two weeks. Teacher's pets.

Brütal Legend may have had a smaller-than-expected impact during the game's first month on shelves, but Double Fine head Tim Schafer remains nonplussed. In fact, he hasn't even seen the numbers yet, instead choosing to wait "'til after Christmas," he recently told GamePro. "I like to give it time, you know? I think many people look too soon but a lot of games I've worked on have succeeded based on word of mouth," he explained. And despite somewhat disappointed responses from critics, Schafer said he was happy "for the most part" with how the game was received.

While he's still not talking specifics, the idea of more downloadable content is clearly one Schafer's interested in. "We definitely want to do more DLC for both single-player and multiplayer, as well as some tuning patches," he said, and added that the developers are still watching multiplayer online to see what needs fixing. We're betting it won't be too long before we hear what the folks at Double Fine have in mind.

Between John Davison recently promising a revitalization of GamePro, Steve Harris' purchase and subsequent relaunch of EGM (as EGM Now), and now the announcement of "Kill Screen" from Jamin Brophy-Warren and Chris Dahlen, it's been quite the year for gaming magazines. But Kill Screen seems to be taking a decidedly different approach to publishing, aiming its first print run at "2 or 3,000 copies," Brophy-Warren told us this afternoon.

With an editorial directive to thematically tackle game writing -- and no obligation to the traditional reviews/previews/news format due to a donation/subscriber-funded, non-profit approach -- Kill Screen intends to avoid the mechanical nitty gritty that plagues game writing. "A great example of that is with Brütal Legend," Brophy-Warren said. "Tim Schafer had to come out and defend the RTS elements ... When we talk about games critically, it's not going to be in that sense."

The first issue, the "test run" or "zero issue" as it's being called, will be finished in "the next week or two" and shipping by January. Brophy-Warren added that he's hoping the second issue will be ready for GDC, but he's not so certain. And as for the short initial print run, he says "Everyone's gotta start somewhere, right?" and encourages people to subscribe to insure they'll get a copy. We wish them the best of luck!

Hey Canadians! Yeah, you guys and gals huddled together attempting to maintain sustainable body heat. Just a friendly reminder that big-box retailer Futureshop is currently slashing prices on a slew of new video game titles. Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, Brutal Legend and Need for Speed: Shift are all on sale for $39.99. Wait, what's this? NHL 10? Oh, Canada. You're so adorably predictable!

The online and in-store sale ends on December 3, so make sure to defrost your car, dust off your skates and hit the store ASAP. And before you ask: Yes, Rock Band 2's special edition is priced at $99 and does include a free mullet kit. We don't know what that is, but we know we want it. More Canadian deals can be found after the break.

Update: Best Buy Canada is offering similar discounts.

Both Brütal Legend and DJ Hero were conspicuously absent from October's NPD top ten. According to data given to GameSpot by NPD, DJ Hero, which was released at the end of the month, on October 27, managed 123,000 units in sales across four platforms, with the Xbox 360 version accounting for the highest number of sales (62,000 units) and, predictably, the PS2 version, the lowest (3,300 units).

Double Fine's rocking, semi-strategy game, Brütal Legend, which debuted on Rocktober 13, totaled 216,000 units in sales across two platforms during October: 150,000 on Xbox 360 (almost enough to launch it into the monthly top ten) and 66,000 on PS3. This total fails to hit analyst Jesse Divnich's prediction for the month. However, Divnich suggested that Brütal Legend would go on to be an attractive holiday item -- something that may also be true for the bulky box with the cool turntable thingy in it.

Update: Removed reference to Brütal Legend as an Activision-published title. We know better!

Our grandmother had this saying, "Handicrafts make for strange bedfellows." In fact, she believed in it so much she once stitched the saying into a pillow she made from the skin of drifters she had lured into her home and killed. True, you don't normally think "drifter murder" and "decorative pillows" as a pairing, so she had made her point. But we tried (and are still trying) to convince her that there are ways of stating her case that are both less illegal and involve less risk of contracting hepatitis C.

... So we guess what we're saying is that our grandmother would probably be way into these Brutal Legend papercrafts.

EEDAR has released its predictions for October sales charts in North America. Analyst Jesse Divnich expects year-over-year declines for every console except the PS3 -- but also expects the Wii to regain its place at the lead, with an estimated 600,000 units sold. Divnich predicts that the Wii will remain at the top for the rest of the year -- based partly on New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Divnich expects the title to lose initially to Modern Warfare 2 in November, but pick up sales in the holidays and become the best-selling game of the year.

Other games expected to pick up in the holidays include Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City and Brutal Legend. Divnich expects both games to underperform in October (coming in at under 100,000 and 300,000 units, respectively), but to receive significant boosts in the holidays.

Demon's Souls, however, may exceed expectations. Divnich estimates that Atlus's punishing RPG sold 100,000 copies in October.

It's another slightly skimpy week on the ol' European PSN update. Let's see ... there's some Brutal Legend DLC, a few new Rock Band tracks, and -- oh! We finally got that PSOne Classic featuring everyone's favorite Square Enix hero: Party Time with Winnie the Pooh. What? He was in Kingdom Hearts, remember?

Furthering his efforts to let you know there's some multiplayer beyond the single-player campaign of Brütal Legend, Double Fine's doubly fine gent, Tim Schafer, has passed along the above video. Now, it may initially seem like an episode of The Jerry Springer Show (standing against a brick wall backdrop will do that!) but, through and through, the near eight minutes of footage provides insight into the multiplayer it's-not-an-RTS mode by holding viewers' hands through an entire play session.

If you've been lacking in the keeping up with awesome stuff department, then you may not know the annual Red Bull Soap Box Derby went down in LA recently. This isn't the sorta thing you'd normally find out about on a video game blog, but the winners of said event so happen to be big Brütal Legend fans -- so big, in fact, that their sopabox car is the friggin' Ironheade tour bus.

Destructoid ihas posted a photoblog documenting the creation of this wonderful piece of brand synergy, complete with pictures of game creator Tim Schafer behind the wheel. Surprisingly, not a single bit of goat's blood or any incantations were used to create the thing -- the soapbox bus is mostly made of steel, fiberglass, foam, and sweat. The sweat gives it a good shine and makes the body more aerodynamic -- for those nasty curves, you know.

The effort to build the bus paid off, too, as its creators, Team Ironheade, totally drove away victorious. Head past the break to see some coverage of the event from G4.

EA announced today that the "first DLC" (that means there'll be more, right?) for recently released Brütal Legend will be arriving November 3 and November 5 on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, respectively. Named "Tears of the Hextadon," the two, totally not RTS maps ("Circle of Tears" and "Death's Fjord") will set you back 400 ($5) on Xbox 360. If you're a PS3 owner, however, the map pack will be free of charge for the first two weeks. "We love the PS3," EA's Brent Dady said over on PlayStation Blog, speaking on the publisher's decision to offer the DLC for free on PSN until November 19.

Those who get the DLC on either console will also get a free in-game axe -- the intimidating "Blade of Ormagöden." We suggest you start looking for the game's creative lead Tim Schafer, who claims in the release that he plays online "every night." Get him Joystiq Biomass! Get him.

Source -- FIFA hat trick [Chart Track]
Source -- All formats chart [Chart Track]