Gaming for charity seems to be getting popular. There’s going to be an event taking place today and it’s thanks to a team-up between OnLive and Extra Life.

OnLive’s 7th annual Game Day event will occur from 12:01am PST until 11:59pm PST today, and through it users of the service from the US, Canada and UK will be able to play any of OnLive’s 250+ PlayPack games which include such titles as Darksiders II, Batman: Arkham City and Saints Row the Third. An OnLive account is required to play, but signing up is free. Joining with the OnLive fundraising team means that your gaming will also be raising money for around 170 children’s charities too.

“Our hope is to rally awareness and participation for Extra Life in advance of their Game Day marathon by offering free gaming and multiple tiers of rewards to anyone who joins in and games for the cause.” says Jeff Woods, the OnLive Team’s captain.

And in case the charity aspect wasn’t enough to get you involved, there’ll be prizes and rewards for those who raise certain amounts of money. Raising $5 will get you a free month of OnLive and more rewards are available to those who raise $25, $50, $100, $200, $300 and $500, including more free months of OnLive and free games. Also, the top five participants will get a MadCatz microconsole and controller or a Wikipad gaming tablet.

Good news if you’re a fan of the video games Disney Interactive makes. A sizeable number of their back catalog has just been released on Steam today, the main ‘jewel’ probably being Epic Mickey 2 – a game that had previously had its PC port cancelled everywhere except parts of Eastern Europe.

It comes as a bit of a surprise, after all the company that made that game, Warren Spector’s Junction Point, was shut down by Disney just after Christmas. That could be blamed on the fact that although Epic Mickey was a loved game, the sequel didn’t do quite as well and neither game really did as well as it had been hoped they would do. I’ve played the first on the Wii, and while it is a wonderful game the controls really could have used some work. Regardless, I’ll probably stick the sequel onto my wishlist.

Here’s the full list of games released onto Steam from Disney Interactive:

• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
• Disney Alice in Wonderland
• Disney’s Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree Animated Storybook
• Disney/Pixar Cars 2: The Video Game
• Disney/Pixar Cars Toon: Mater’s Tall Tales
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Disney Planes
• Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure
• Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell’s Adventure
• Disney Tangled
• Disney Universe
• Disney/Pixar Brave: The Video Game
• Disney G-Force
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
• Disney The Princess and The Frog
• Pure
• Split/Second
• Disney/Pixar Toy Story 3: The Video Game
• Disney/Pixar Toy Story Mania!
• Disney TRON: Evolution

After a week-long break, the Hero of the Storm’s alpha servers are back up, bringing with it a load of new features that have been added during the downtime. Of course, Blizzard want players to put them through their paces so the bugs can be spotted and stamped out in a timely manner, and the three biggest features are custom games, observer mode and replays.

Custom games are in a fairly early form, but they are basically the game mode that allows players to set up their own games with their friends rather than entering into the matchmaking pool of players currently looking for a match at that moment. The mode and battleground can be selected and the teams and their heroes are displayed in the lobby along with any observers. Empty slots will have an invite button to allow for the the invitation of those who might be observing the match, or if you fancy just filled with AI heroes. The host of the game also has other controls, such as being able to swap people around between teams, kick a player or make them an observer and some customisation for the AI players too.

Observers can see all the information that players can, as well as cycling between the POVs of all the players so they can see all the action of the matches.

Replays allow for you to relive victories and losses and have a bunch of commands such as slow down, pause and speed up for use. Clicking ‘Watch’ in the menu will bring up the replays from recently played matches to view.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to get a new expansion in a few months time. And it’ll be centered around Revan, a character from Knights of the Old Republic.

The expansion will be called Shadow of Revan and will add story-based content to the game about Revan going rogue and starting his own army to oppose both Imperial and Republic forces and the goal of demolishing both sides among other things.

Priced at around $19.99/£13, Shadow of Revan will include five new stages, two new worlds the pirate paradise of Rishi and the jungle world of Yavin 4, an increased level cap of 69 and a whole bunch of new multiplayer Flashpoints and Operations challenges.

There’s also some pre-order bonuses as well as a special subscriber pre-order bonus. If ordered before November 2nd, non-subs will receive one week of Early Access before the grand opening of the new expansion parts to all, the digital expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel, and an exclusive grand statue of Revan to display in their Player Stronghold. Subscribers get all this and a 12x experience boost in class story missions up to Level 55 until the day before release. If pre-ordered after November 2nd, Early Access won’t be included but everything else will be.

Shadow of Revan will release on December 2nd for the PC-based MMO.

Crusader Kings 2 is about to get an expansion, and it’s coming quite soon.

The Charlemagne expansion will give you 100 more years to play with, as well as new kingdoms, characters and events. The assassination button has been removed which means now that plotting another’s demise is somewhat harder to do. On the bright side if you;’re on the wrong end of a plot to murder yourself, you’ve more defensive options including going into hiding to reduce the success rate. That means appointing a regent to rule in your stead though and obviously that brings its own issues with it.

The expansion will release October 14th.