Filip Felberg is kind of like Mr. Miyagi, but instead of masterfully pruning bonsai (and training kids to take down Cobra Kai), he makes awesome stuff out of Lego. His flickr page shows us his latest fixation: Nintendo's Pikmin. He's remade Olimar (and his ship), along with many of the enemies encountered in the game, to great effect. His creations strike an amazing resemblance to their in-game counterparts, and we totally wouldn't mind having a few of these on our desk. How about you?

[Via GameSetWatch]

Attention UK readers, Warner Bros. is running an interesting promotion for its DS RTS title, LEGO Battles, which is set to release in the region next week. MCV reports that the game will include vouchers for free entry into LEGOLAND Windsor. Specifically, the vouchers allow a child to enter the park for every paying adult. In other words, full grown adults will still have to pay full admission regardless, but the kids can come along for free (so long as you bring enough adults along).

So, all you adult gamers won't be getting a free pass. Of course, being full grown adults, you'd never play something as silly as LEGO Battles, would you? Of course not. Neither would we. Never.

We've contacted Warner Bros. to see if this promotion will be making it to North America as well. Considering it's already been released in North America -- and we haven't heard any full-grown children screaming with glee -- we're not holding our breath.

Mistwalker head (and Final Fantasy creator) Hironobu Sakaguchi is hard at work on his next game. And by "hard at work" we mean "thinking idly about the game while building his LEGO truck."

In a post on Mistwalker's blog, Sakaguchi revealed a few ideas about the upcoming, unannounced project. "Planning to basically put importance on having seamless control of the overall direction of the game, mixed with CG spectacle scenes," Sakaguchi said. "Controls will have a bit of a trick to it, while having a blend of RPG-type strategy and growth. Behaviors based on interaction with the situation around you...wait, I'm not supposed to say more than this... (^^;" He will be able to say more this year, he says.

As for the LEGO truck, Sakaguchi says that LEGO building is something he does when he's "troubled with something," in this case the "graphic settings" for the new game. It's a pretty nice truck.

[Via Eurogamer]

Though we've known about Lego Rock Band -- more or less, that is -- since early this year, an Xbox.com listing for the game has revealed a few more tidbits to satiate our non-stop hunger for more info on the title. For starters, the game's progression has been revealed as incorporating the Lego theme with collectible Lego pieces that will allow you to, "build cooler vehicles and move to new venues." Furthermore, an extra easy (totally for babies) difficult setting has been added to the game for the ... ahem ... less than face-meltingly-advanced Rock Band-ers in our lives.

To add even more Lego flavor to the mix, the game will feature challenges that allow you to "destroy a giant robot, summon a storm, and demolish a skyscraper." One important bullet-point glaringly missing from all news on the game (and its Beatles-themed brethren, for that matter) is the ability to export the songs into Rock Band 2, a la Rock Band 1's tracks. We've put in a note to publisher MTV Games for clarification on this and will keep you updated if and when we hear more info.

[Via Destructoid]

In January, a rumor came out about an upcoming Lego version of Rock Band in the works from Lego Star Wars/Batman/etc. developer Traveller's Tales. After a few months, we had forgotten all about our daydreams of seeing tiny, macaroni-like minifig arms windmilling on jaggy guitars like rectangular yellow Pete Townshends.

The game seems to have resurfaced, according to Kotaku, in an early version of a slide from Harmonix's Dan Teasdale's GDC Rock Band presentation. "So, it looks like Think Services put up a version of my slides that was sent for speech approval rather than the version that I actually showed at GDC," Teasdale said on his blog. The "Lego" box, if it was really there in the first place, was gone by the time the slide appeared in the actual presentation. The slide now available on his website has also been amended.

It could be a joke from the Kotaku fan who seemingly spotted the pre-corrected slide, or it could have been a joke from Teasdale. There remains, however, the possibility that Lego Rock Band really will arrive this year between Rock Band Unplugged and The Beatles: Rock Band. The slides also mention several Guitar Hero releases, including Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero VH (probably Van Halen) and Guitar Hero BH. The preponderance of unannounced Guitar Heroes makes us lean toward "joke." We contacted Teasdale to confirm this, and he referred us to MTV PR, with whom we've left an inquiry. We'll let you know if there's even a 1x2 brick of truth to this!

Gazillion. Up until a couple weeks ago, the word was representative of numerical hyperbole, and now it represents a publisher with massive venture capital backing and the MMO rights to major IPs like Marvel and Lego. We had a chance to interview the company's VP of Marketing Paul Baldwin -- with a fire drill intermission -- during GamesBeat 2009 last week. We asked him pretty much anything we could think of ... you know, considering we knew almost nothing about this new publisher.

Joystiq: We're here with Paul Baldwin, who is the vice president of marketing at the "newly founded" Gazillion Entertainment? What's the deal there?

Baldwin: Newly announced. The company was in stealth mode since 2005, so we've been around for a while, but we are "newly announced."

You guys just appeared on the scene and got the Marvel license. I can tell you, we spent hours the day we first heard of the company, just calling up several journos and PR asking, "Who are these guys?" So, who are you guys?

Good question, I have to first say that I was amazed myself that we were able to keep the company quiet since 2005, additionally when we acquired NetDevil in July of '08 and obviously we were very excited to get Jumpgate and of course Lego Universe, then we also acquired a company in Seattle, and we've been slowly building up the Marvel Universe studio, Gargantuan, in San Mateo, and throughout this period we were able to keep it quiet, which, once again, really surprised all of us. As I mentioned, the company started in 2005. At that point, we had kind of modest goals, frankly. We had an original IP, which is going to be a big client, high production quality -- World of Warcraft-like production quality -- coming out. That was the first product we had actually on tap.

Charlotte Parker, a cutscene animator at Traveller's Tales, has confirmed to VG247 that both Lego Harry Potter and Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are on the way. "But they're not confirmed," Parker said. "I can't really talk about them." That means, of course, that Parker didn't provide any details of release plans for either game, including dates or platforms.

Parker's CV reportedly listed the two Lego series game titles, though they were removed. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the CV also listed work on a demo of a Hobbit game, intended to be pitched to Peter Jackson.

Disney and Lego have announced a partnership to bring constructable versions of Toy Story, Cars and Prince of Persia to retail by next year. The Lego Prince of Persia will be based upon the upcoming movie and not the Sands of Time video game.

Indulging pure speculation, we received this tip with the idea that the partnership means a Lego Prince of Persia video game could happen. Despite Warner Bros. ownership of developer Traveller's Tales, it has used licenses from other movie studios, so anything is possible. We're still holding out hope for a Lego Harry Potter game first, considering that magical universe is far more evolved than the Prince's, with numerous notable characters to unlock and play.

[Thanks, Matt]

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games' latest LEGO game, coming this summer for DS, is not built around any license. Well, other than the LEGO license. But there's no Batman or Star Wars or anything like that: this is pure LEGO.

LEGO Battles, developed by Hellbent Games, sounds like a kind of LEGO-based strategy game, in which players build and defend bases in the LEGO Castle, Pirates and Space Themes, using units mixed and matched from the sets. The press release promises "pirate swordsmen fighting side-by-side with wizards and aliens; dragons battling ninjas; and pirate ships launching broadsides against spacecraft and knights!" In addition to the single-player mode, local multiplayer battles will also be available.

And because we haven't said the word "LEGO" enough in this post: LEGO.
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It's difficult to imagine a property as insidious as Lego Batman. Go ahead, try. Labeling the game a "symbol of commercialized childhood," an activist group calling itself the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has called out TT Games' cubic take on the Dark Knight. Wait, is this a joke? A riddle? A two-faced lie?

The game was included among a handful of other toys as a finalist for the organization's inaugural TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children) Award. Other playthings, including Hasbro's poop-happy Baby Alive and a Barbie tarted up as a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, are also up for the dubious honor. But how many of these were also included in Happy Meals, one of the chief complaints of the Boston-based group? Only you can put the Caped Crusader over the top by voting for the "winner". Won't someone please think of the children?

There's only one way to show appreciation for any given object of desire and that is through the loving building blocks of dreams known as LEGO. Yes, LEGO. Metal Gear Solid 4 fan Samuel Lafleur knows this one simple truth in life and has made a worthy tribute to his beloved game. He has made, out of LEGO, Solid Snake's preferred weapon of choice: the M1911 Operator pistol.

It's a rather gorgeous design; he's even got several modifications to it on his web page, so check out all the pics over there. Also, Sam, can we make a request for a full-sized Solid Snake bust which is opening up its mouth ready to shoot itself with that Operator? Only then will your tribute be complete. Well done.

Supposedly, during a Radio One interview, a UK Traveller's Tales employee confirmed that they're working on a new LEGO game and that it's releasing in 2009, but exact specifics were withheld. That game being LEGO Rock Band, or so says videogaming247 and their sources who claim their information is "100 percent correct." LEGOs and Rock Band? It's an odd mix, but it could be tasty. Kinda like potato chip and peanut butter sandwiches.

[Via Joystiq]

We usually save our statements of incredulity for the end of our rumor posts, but we think this story warrants one up front -- we'd have an easier time believing that Lego Halo is in development, and we know that one's not true. Videogaming247 reports that one of their sources is "100 percent" certain that Traveller's Tales is working on a Lego-fied version of Rock Band for Electronic Arts.

Now, we know that Traveller's Tales is currently working on further Lego titles, but when last we heard, these unannounced games are being based off of Warner Bros. IPs -- it's a lot more likely that a Harry Potter game or follow-up to Lego Indiana Jones is in the works. As it stands now, we're fairly certain that VG247's source is either extremely confused, or they're jumping the April Fools' gun by a few months.

Lots of people have been speculating that the next entry in the Lego games franchise, to follow up Batman and Indiana Jones, would be something to tie in with the release of the next Harry Potter film. However, gaming site videogaming247 claims a source let slip to them that, instead, the next Lego game by developer Travellers Tales would be Lego Rock Band. Let the chorus of "what???" begin.

While this one is a tough rumor to swallow, for reasons of rights, viability, and silliness -- and we're always mistrustful of these anonymous sources, no matter who they're talking to -- Lego Rock Band would be both hilarious and completely awesome, so we're going to cross a few fingers.