Godfather II: More Visceral, Strategic, Open in Feb.

As we mentioned earlier this week, the wraps have been taken off of Godfather II, in fact we'll be playing a bit of it next week.

Today, though, Electronic Arts officially unveiled the game which will go beyond the second film's story and have gamers take on the world of organized crime in 1960's Florida, Cuba and New York. After taking over New York in the first game, players will work to expand their organization to other cities through extortion, crime rings and wars with other crime families.

As Luke mentioned, the game will include an strategy-heavy Don's View:

To help players manage their empire, The Godfather II introduces “The Don’s View” – an innovative strategy meta-game that allows players to oversee the entire world as they grow the family business. Using the Don’s View, players will be able to build, defend and expand their crime rings, while keeping an eye on the movements and plans of the rival families. Players will also learn to master the business of organized crime by building a family of Made Men, hiring crew, handing out orders, and promoting their best men up the ranks.

The lengthy and detailed release is on the jump.

Get Your Gears of War 2 Lancers!

Amazon.com has announced an exclusive Gears of War 2 Lancer. Yours for a mere US$139.99! Out November 7th, the life-sized replica of course doesn't work, but hey, don't let that stop Dude Huge from pretending it does. Look how much fun he's having! If that is not a blast, will someone please tell us what one is?

If you pre-order the Lancer, you even get the standard edition of Gears of War 2, free of charge. And that's not a bad deal at all.

Gears of War 2 Amazon.com Exclusive Lancer [Amazon]

Yup, You Just Got Master Chief In My Fable II

Crackdown 2? It Could Happen

Crackdown fans, all hope is not lost. You do have a reason to get out of bed, clear the room of Taco Bell wrappers, put on a smile and face the world. Crackdown 2? It could still happen, says Colin Macdonald of Realtime Worlds. Sure, the team is neck deep in APB development — which looks completely awesome — but, should the stars align, high jumping supercops may be in your future.

Calling the choice to not immediately begin work on a sequel "a horrible, horrible decision that we still dwell on," Macdonald tells VG247 that "I don’t think the door’s closed" on a sequel. Sounds like RTW is still willing, and able, to take another crack at Crackdown, should Microsoft call upon them. And they may, one day.

Crackdown 2: “The door’s not closed,” says Realtime Worlds [VG247]

Damnation Trailer Urges You To Stay Calm

Ex-Nintendo Exec Talks "Thin Line Between Gimmick And Great Gameplay"

David Gosen used to be the head of Nintendo Europe. He is not anymore. He is now Microsoft's VP of Strategic Marketing and LIVE for the Continent. He has this to say about his former employer, Nintendo and upcoming Xbox 360 title Lips:

I think it’s really important that you don’t underestimate the knowledge base of the consumer. What Nintendo have done with the Wii is truly fantastic –- there is no question about it. But I think sometimes there is a thin line between gimmick and great gameplay. We’ve seen some research that says 60 per cent of people who bought a Wii Fit play it once and don’t play it again. So we have to get the balance right, because what we are doing is bringing new consumers into the market for the first time in their lives they are playing games sometimes –- and we have to treat them with respect.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say! Here's that 60 percent poll Gosen is talking about, which we first broke from Japanese news site IT Media. (Note: David Gosen left Nintendo back in 2004. You know, back before they printed money.)

Q&A: David Gosen, Xbox [Develop via CVG] [Pic]

Rare: Shut Up, Kameo And PDZ Sold A Ton

You want to point to either the poor quality of the 360's launch lineup or the decline in standards at Rare, and you point to two games: Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo. A boring shooter and a boring platformer. But you think Rare give a fig what you think about them? They're a business, they care about sales, and according to Rare's Nick Burton, they sold quite nicely thank you very much:

One of the things that I always find funny is when people always quote Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero as being flops at the launch of the 360. In the industry if you break even you're lucky, you're in the minority. If you make a decent amount of money you're really in the minority. You're in the top percentile. Those two games made a lot of money. For the install base they sold phenomenally well. Kameo is still selling now.

Who the hell is still buying Kameo?

Rare: Perfect Dark and Kameo 'sold phenomenally well' [Videogamer]

Japanese People Actually Lining Up For Xbox 360 Exclusive? Oh Yes.

Check Hell, because we think it's official frozen over. That right there was the line at the Akihabara Yodobashi Camera earlier this morning for Xbox 360 exclusive Tales of Vesperia. It was over a hundred people — small potatoes for, say, a Poké launch, but shocking for an Xbox 360 title in Japan. The game and an Xbox 360 went on sale, and there was a stage event with the game's creative producer Yoshito Higuchi and producer Tsutomu Gouda, telling fans how that they created a beautiful looking Tales for the Xbox 360. Joked Gouda:

Even though the Olympics are starting, everyone please enjoy playing Tales of Versperia.

Pro wrestler Wataru Sakata, who is married to Wii Fit spokesperson Eiko Koike, was also on hand to help promote the game and do the countdown to game's sales launch. Reader Jamie, who emailed us from the event, puts it in better prospective: "Queues are small but they're selling a steady stream of consoles."

Inside The 60GB 360: Old CPU, New Memory Chips

The new Xbox 360 has a 60GB HDD, which is new, but what about the rest of the console? Anything new inside the unit? Hacker extraordinaire Ben Heck got hold of one and busted it open like a naughty coconut to find out. What he found was that the new console has the same GPU, same 65nm CPU and same heatsink as we've been seeing for a while now, so don't expect any heat/noise improvements on that front (at least for the next few months), though he did notice that some of the console's memory chips have been moved from the bottom of the board, which should ease up on heating in that part of the 360. Other than that...yeah, it's a 360, with 40 extra GB.

Inside a 60 gig Xbox 360 [Ben Heck]

Xbox 360 System Updated - Nothing To See Here

As the emails start to trickle in regarding this morning's Xbox 360system update, we thought we'd deliver you folks the skinny on what exactly the update does. Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing - it's one of those preparing for the future sort of things. Who knows? Perhaps this system update is putting into place the very foundation of the new Xbox Experience, sending out its hungry tentacles to wrap around the existing programming, quivering in anticipation as they wait for the signal to tear away the old and take root as the new. A seed, waiting to be nourished so it can grow wild, covering the dash with pretty leaves and flowers, while the core functionality remains, held safe in the bosom of this wild new thing.

Poetic, isn't it? I got the idea from that Sony television commercial. Anyway, nothing to see here.

Xbox 360 System update now available (no new features) [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

Famitsu Doesn't Like "Beijing Olympics 2008" At All

The Olympics are starting soon! And if you are a game developer working on an Olympics game, you must get your game out on time. No matter what! That could be why SEGA's Beijing Olympics 2008 is apparently so, well, crummy. Japanese game magazine Famitsu scored the game 3,4,4,3 for the PS3 version and 4,5,4,3 for the Xbox 360 version. Ouch. Comments include things like "Sports, as a collection of mini games, isn't enough" or "We like the game patched". Apparently the PS3 online rankings weren't even working correctly, so. That's a shame. Well, guess that means we'll have to watch the real Beijing Olympics then.

PS3「北京オリンピック 2008」がファミ通レビューで次世代ハード最低点を記録 [裏はちま起稿]

Behold, Your Tales of Vesperia Collectors Edition

Gears of War 2 will be providing the option to turn the game into a more family-friendly affair. The "Mature" rated game will ship with parental control options that will change blood into sparks and remove all bad language. "Eat snot and diet", anyone? Anyone?

Gears 2 given violence filter [MCVUK]

Microsoft Clarifies Final Fantasy XIII Asia Version "Announcement"

Yesterday we brought word that Taiwanese game site GNN Gamer was reporting that Xbox Taiwan head Grace Chou had confirmed the Asia release (Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong) of Final Fantasy XIII. Today, Microsoft Taiwan issued a statement clarifying this, stating: "The announcement of the release of Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 at this year's E3 is at the moment still at the planning stage. We don't have any further information regarding the releasing date or the possibility of localization." Sounds like it was a little too early for Chou to apparently go around and mention the Asia release. Stay tuned for the possible "official" Asia version announcement and consider the Xbox 360 version only North America and Europe for now!

台灣微軟澄清《Final Fantasy XIII》在台上市說法 表示一切仍屬未定 [GNN Gamer Thanks, Dutch!] [Pic]

Xbox Live DLC Has Raked In $240 Million

Buy much horse armour? Spend cash money unlocking Tiger Woods cheats? Don't feel down. Even if you regret your purchase, Microsoft (and friends) don't! Indeed, at the recent Gamesfest event, they disclosed just how little regret they have, announcing that since the launch of the 360 they've recorded over $240 million in downloadable content transactions, with $180 million of that just in the last 12 months. Proving conclusively that it doesn't matter how many of you rally against the principle of DLC, there'll always be 10 other guys happy to pay money for an idolm@ster skin for their Ace Combat 6 fighters.

In-Depth: The ABCs of Xbox 360 DLC [Gamasutra]

Braid Priced High To Prevent "The Space Giraffe Problem"

When the pricing was announced (both times) for Xbox Live Arcade puzzle-platformer Braid, the vocally frugal gamer crowd bemoaned the higher than average cost. Too bad, really, as it's one of the best XBLA titles I've ever played. Still, there are folks who can't get past the 1200 MS Points pricing — that makes it one of the more expensive downloadable games, but still cheaper than Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid, explains why it was priced so, commenting on the official Braid blog he had to "guard against [...] the Space Giraffe problem." He offers up the low priced, low selling (just 19,000 downloads) psychedelic shooter as an example of how pricing came back to bite the developer in the ass (specifically the wallet).

Half Of Rare Hard At Work On Secret Googly Eyed Projects

Hang tough, Rare fans. If Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts aren't quite scratching your Rare itch, the developer has more in store. Nick Burton, a senior software engineer at Rare, tells Videogamer that the developer's officially announced titles are being tackled by "about half" of the current staff, hinting that much more is on the way. Dreams of Killer Instinct 3 may be dancing in our heads, but we'll try not to get too excited.

When will we find out? According to Burton, "soon enough." If that means Leipzig Games Convention, we'll be surprised, and expect that we'll hear real details after the release of Rare's already in development Xbox 360 titles.

Rare: Half the studio working on secret projects [Videogamer]

Game Critics Best of E3 By the Numbers

You've had a chance to digest the raw data of who won what from the Game Critics Best of E3 awards. Now here's a bit of fuel for that angry fanboy deep inside you: A run down of all of the 2008 Best of E3 Game Critics Awards stats.

Platform Breakdown By Number Of Wins
Xbox 360: 8 (Down three from 2007)
PlayStation 3: 7 (Down one from 2007)
PC: 7 (Up three from 2007)
Wii: 1 (Same as 2007)
PSP: 2

But wait, that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Game Critics folks have also broken down wins by publisher. Electronic Arts took home the most wins, despite taking one less category this year than last year. Sony was in second with three total wins and Bethesda in third. Microsoft rounded up the list, while Nintendo didn't win a single award as a publisher.