Batch of projects from premium publishers; 'Monkey Island' mastermind returns

"Penny Arcade" creators Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik have been working on the project for a few months with the Canadian studio Hothead Games. Holkins, clearly tickled by the chance to work with a legend, said, "The whole thing is super crazy."

— LIVE FROM HOLLYWOOD: Variety reports that Hollywood's young Turks have a new meeting place: Xbox Live. And in some cases, the online network has become a job network. Stuart Beattie, screenwriter of the film adaptation of Microsoft's "Gears of War," got the gig after playing the game online with New Line Cinema Executive Jeff Katz.

"Troy" screenwriter David Benioff said there's another benefit to playing Xbox Live. "Whenever I play with strangers, there's always profanity directed against me due to my incompetence," he said. "I find it's an easy way to research the slang that today's 14-year-olds use when they curse."

— NEW IN STORES: Sony's excellent baseball title, "MLB 07: The Show," finally arrives on the PlayStation 3. ... Activision delivers May's second big movie tie-in, "Shrek the Third," for the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and DS. ... Atlus imports another weird role-playing game, "Etrian Odyssey" for the DS. ... Natsume introduces a whole new genre — sci-fi farming — in "Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon" for the PlayStation Portable. ... And the DS becomes a zombie-killing machine in Eidos' appetizingly titled "Touch the Dead."