Saturday shorts - DoWII: Retribution stuff, Halo art, videos, screens, more

Look at dozens of websites for small pieces of news you may or may not care about. Or hit the link.

• Halo concept artist Isaac Hannaford has released a bunch of his work from the sci fi behemoth. See it all on his personal site. Thanks, Kotaku.
• RPS has screens and impressions of Dawn of War II: Retribution, THQ's action-RTS expansion. Looks shooty. You'll be playing this on March 1.
• There's a video of Pendulo Studios adventure The Next Big Thing on Joystiq. It features a man, a woman, some aliens and some kind of Egyptian theme. PC-only, no date.
• Owlchemy Labs - the development team that made iPhone game Super Ramen Brothers in 24 hours - is back with Smuggle Truck, a physics-based driving game for iOS and browsers. Videos on Joystiq.
• Judgement Silversword, an old homebrew WonderSwan Color game shoot-'em-up, is getting a 360 retail release in Japan on March 24. Videos on Joystiq.
• IGN's got some direct-feed capture of Wii's Mario Sports Mix. It's out next week.
• There are some new shots of Supremacy MMA on IGN. This is 505's take on the genre. It's out this "summer" for 360 and PS3.
• An expansion to Snail Games' browser-based MMORTS Ministry of War, titled Ministry of War: The Arcadian Ladder, releases today. There's details on Massively.
• 11 bit studios has released a debut cinematic trailer for the upcoming Anomaly: Warzone Earth, a "reverse tower defense" game heading to PC, Mac and iOS devices later in Q1. It's on VE3D.
• Imminent Masthead MMO Earthrise has a new trailer. Watch it on TVGB. The game's out on February 4.
• Apple's App Store reached the 10 billion downloads mark today. Jobs must be pleased as punch, surely. The iPhone app store contains more than 300,000 apps, and there are also more than 40,000 apps available for iPad. Its closest rival, GetJar, reached 1 billion downloads back in June. Via Reuters.
• SOE's John Smedley has tweeted a render of a New Conglomerate tank for PlanetSide Next. Does this get you excited? We thought so. Thanks, RPS.
• Another day, another Minecraft blurb. Add another Kinect hack to that and you get another Minecraft Kinect hackamabob. This time, though, it's animated. Lucky you. Watch it on OrderofEvents (via Reddit).
• 1UP has posted Marvel vs Capcom 3: Ultimate Character Guide along with some nifty information on all the announced characters.
• BioWare has introduced the planet of Quesh over on Star Wars: The Old Republic website. It's an all-new planet, and not one found in the Star Wars tome. It's apparently got a toxic filled environmental which can be used to make "the most potent adrenals in the galaxy." The Hutts love it.Thanks, BigDownload.
• A new study from Michigan State University has found that games aren't the direct cause of obesity in children. The research also found that children who played games had improved visual-spatial skills, but on the negative end, received poorer grades in school. Thanks, Gamestop.