It’s an umlaut-heavy week for Rock Band, with DLC releases from the likes of Blue Öyster Cult and Motörhead, among others.

New games releasing this week include a vertical jetpack game from Capcom and an immensely weird addition to the WiiWare library.

Alice in Chains brings a second downloadable song pack to Rock Band this week, including five more tracks that you can play on the Xbox 360 and Wii today and on the Playstation 3 on Thursday.

Last year the Panzer General line of board games inspired a new Panzer General: Allied Assault game on the Xbox Live Arcade. Now the process is going in reverse, as the new gameplay and rules from Allied Assault are being adapted from the video game back into a new board game.

The first downloadable content for Rock Band of 2010 brings one of the Beatles into the game with three tracks from Paul McCartney! Also on tap this week are more songs from Blink-182, two tracks from the Psychedelic Furs, and one from the Ramones.

We’re ringing in the new year with an awesome game from the old year. Thanks to a holiday discount from Microsoft, Castle Crashers has found new life and new fans on the Xbox 360, and this week’s Fan Art Friday is all about those crazy little knights and their adventures.

This week’s Rock Band downloadable songs are all country, comprising the second “Going Country” song pack and featuring the likes of Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, and Kenny Rogers.

On the last episode of the year, we take a look back at the best and worst of 2009 in movies, TV, comics, and games.

Lord of the Rings Online just debuted its newest expansion, Siege of Mirkwood, and this week Turbine has provided us with a copy of the base game plus the first expansion, Mines of Moria, to give away!

Rock Band revisits one of the franchise’s favorite bands this week with yet another Weezer song pack. Also up for grabs are new downloadable tracks from Limp Bizkit, The Offspring, and Yellowcard.