Thrilled, Star Wars fans will be, when in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 a beloved character appears.

... okay, we're not going to do the Yoda voice the whole time. We'd like you guys to be able to read this stuff. LucasArts revealed that Yoda will appear in The Force Unleashed 2, in a segment taking place on his home planet of Dagobah. Angsty Force unleasher Starkiller senses a powerful presence, and goes to the planet to investigate. There, he finds everyone's favorite Jedi Master, who helps him deal with, you know, all the angst. With this being ... a Star Wars game, the presence of Yoda actually makes sense this time.

If more Yoda you would like to see (we can't help it, apparently!), we have screens in our gallery and a video after the break.

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Compared to last year, July's NPD numbers are fairly static, with overall video game industry sales down just 1% from $850.6m to $846.5m. While software sales were down a sizable 8% with newcomer NCAA Football 11 bringing in the top two spots for a combined 667K units sold, hardware sales were up a hefty 12%, mostly on the back of the newly redesigned (and, ostensibly, fixed!) Xbox 360 S. Looks like there was "unprecedented demand," like Microsoft said.

Most notably, that July sales surge resulted in a minor 2% drop in Xbox sales while every other console suffered double digit drops. This, as you can see in our lineup below, has earned the Xbox 360 the rare opportunity to best the Nintendo DS as the best-selling piece of video game hardware last month. To put things in perspective, NPD analyst Anita Frazier notes, "It's the first time since September '07 (Halo 3 launch) that the 360 was the top-selling hardware platform."

While the list of software sales only charts console and portable SKUs, there is one other game that deserves to be mentioned: StarCraft 2. Despite just five days on the market in July, the much-anticipated RTS sold an impressive 721K units at retail in July. Of course when you factor in digital and global sales, it sold a lot more than that.

• 360: 444K, down 9K (-2%)
• DS: 398K, down 113K (-22%)
• Wii: 254K, down 169K (-40%)
• PS3: 215K, down 90K (-30%)
• PSP: 84K, down 37K (-31%)

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As revealed by a recent post on PlayStation.Blog, Atlus' strategy-meets-RPG-meets-Bullet Hell shooter Knights in the Nightmare will make the jump from the DS to the PSP on October 19. That should give you 12 good days of play time with which to get totally spooked out before Halloween -- provided you share our mortal fear of multitasking.

If you're unfamiliar with the title, which hit Nintendo's handheld last year, you can catch a glimpse of its frothy stew of genres in a new trailer posted just after the jump.

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Our dear friend Scott Pilgrim makes his temporarily exclusive appearance on the PlayStation Store this week, joined by a demo for Mafia 2 and an early access sale on PixelJunk Racers: 2nd Lap for PlayStation Plus subscribers. There's also new content for Red Dead Redemption and Dragon Age: Origins. That should be more than enough to keep you busy for at least 48 hours, provided you're not some sort of game-beating robot.

(Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)

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If you've always struggled keeping your XIIIs and IIIs straight, you might just need the assistance of a few handy flash cards. Hey, the covers of all the Final Fantasy games that Amazon just discounted across multiple platforms should suffice! Check out the full list of offers below, courtesy of Thrifty Nerd.

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So, LSD: Dream Emulator is the weirdest game ever made by anybody. After becoming entranced by the hours of footage from the game currently on YouTube, we feel like we can make that statement with complete certainty. The game features no plot or any goals to speak of whatsoever -- it only tasks the player with taking short, ten-minute jaunts through areas inspired by a dream journal kept by a staff member of its Japanese developer, Asmik Ace Entertainment, who may or may not have been tripping on LSD at the time.

If that sounds like something you can get behind, you'll be pleased to learn the game's creator, Osamu Sato, recently announced on Twitter that the game would be coming to the PSOne Classics storefront on PSN. Of course, it's unlikely the game will come to the U.S. store, as the title was never localized for the States. That's no problem, though -- you might be able to find it at your favorite online auctions site for upwards of $200. That's a small price to pay for immeasurable weirdness!

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game: Not based on the movie, but the comic: Is an awesome brawler -- yes, that's the actual full title (no, it's not). Our review explains how much we liked the game. Don't trust our review? Well, we're hurt ... but there's also a demo for the game in this week's PSN update, so definitely try that out. Also, as another treat, this week's update also includes a "must try" demo for Valkyria Chronicles 2 on PSP.

Check out the full update after the break.

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Though Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sanctioned the abuse of stormtroopers on your PSP, The Force Unleashed 2 has jettisoned Sony's handheld system before its multiplatform launch on October 26th. According to IGN, LucasArts did not offer an explanation for the late cancellation.

The PSP version of the original game didn't fare too badly with critics, so we're left wondering where the sequel's development took a wrong turn -- assuming it wasn't simply a consideration of profitability on a platform that has been known to struggle with piracy. We'll let you know if we hear anything that more closely resembles an actual reason.

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