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Just days after the release of Mafia 2, it has officially been announced that the anticipated crime drama sequel has top the UK charts. Mafia II has taken the #1 spot while dropping the previous chart topper Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days into the #2 spot. Chart-Track has come out and said that Mafia II is “the biggest U.K. game launch since Take-Two’s very own Red Dead Redemption 14 weeks ago.”

Here is the entire top ten list of Chart-Track’s All Format category this week…

1. Mafia II (Take-Two)
2. Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (Square Enix)
3. Toy Story 3 (Disney)
4. Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar)
5. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo)
6. Just Dance (Ubisoft)
7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)
8. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Warner)
9. Sniper: Ghost Warrior (City Interactive)
10. Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Ubisoft)

Online retailer Webhallen have done it again. Instead of advertising GTA5 like they did a couple of weeks ago, they are now advertising Far Cry 3. The website mentions a Collector’s Edition and claims to have a 2010 release date. A listing found on their website said:
“A sequel to the phenomenal success in 2008. Rumor says that this time the game will be played out in Africa but with an even larger world and with a completely updated Dunia engine.” (Translated)

Timothy Hammerstone of Polk City, Florida enjoys playing on his Xbox 360 just like us The only thing is, this 22 year old uses it for completely different reasons. Earlier this week, Timothy was arrested in his home for soliciting naked pictures of a 10 year old boy via Xbox Live. Hammerstone invited the boy to an online gaming group he founded himself called the Relentless Society of Brothers (RSB). Hammerstone asked the boy for naked pictures of him and in exchange, would send him a code for 1,600 Microsoft Points. After Hammerstone was arrested, he confessed to the crime and police found a flash drive with over 40 pictues of the boy completely naked. Hammerstone is now behind bars without bond and is facing 16 counts of possession of child pornography.

For those hardcore fans of Call of Duty and World War II games might be a little disappointed after reading this. Treyarch said there will never be another WWII based Call of Duty game ever again. They claim that after the success of the Modern Warfare games, modern war games are here to stay. Treyarch community manager Josh Olin had this to say:
“For us, I don’t think we would go back because we’ve done a lot of World War II. I’m not saying that the genre’s done. It would be important that, if there ever were to be another game set in the World War II era, it would have to be something that’s fresh and new.”

Microsoft announced earlier this week that they plan to launch an improved version of their headsets. The new and improved headsets coming out this fall will have improved sound quality, that is a guarantee from Microsoft. Xbox Live Studios head Jerry Johnson said..
“The codec we used when we first launched was a low bit rate codec and we stuck with that. We launched and we said we required broadband.We required a 64k connection, which not many people think of as broadband any longer. But that was the minimum requirement to run the service at the time.

It’s time for us to move on. Especially if we want to think about broadening – a crackly headset on the top of your head – not what people think of when they talk about popular entertainment.”

BradyGames has announced that there will be 2 editions of the official Halo: Reach strategy guide. The first one is the regular strategy guide with will be priced at $20. This strategy guide will be 325 pages long and will feature many things such as… Exclusive maps with locations of weapon catches and enemy engagements A complete campaign walkthrough Official art, bios and stat lists of every character and enemy in the game. A complete guide on how to unlock all the Achievements. The Legendary Edition strategy guide will contain all the following and comes with a limited edition hardcover plus a 96 page developers’ diary from the team at Bungie, this strategy guide also includes exclusive concept art and personal commentary. All of this will be wrapped in a high-quality dust jacket with an exclusive cover. The Legendary Edition will be prices at $31. Both guides will be available on September, 14, 2010.

For those who follow the game company Rare, you know that they are very vocal when it comes to Kinect via director Nick Burton. Burton is encouraging gamers to “go and have a go on Kinect” Burton also said…

“Until people play Kinect, and they play it for more than a couple of seconds, which is unfortunately what you get in the trade shows… But you know hardly anybody’s getting a chance to play it.”

He furthers, “It’s one of those things you’ve got to have what I call your Kinect moment, when you realize… And we see this, we saw it at gamescom and E3, people go, ‘Oh, it’s way better than I expected. It’s way more high fidelity than I expected.”

“You watch the Live leaderboards when these things come out. There will be people… We’ll be there going, ‘How the hell have they gone that fast?’ or ‘How have they got that big score?’ That will be the hardcore doing that.”

While we all know that Microsoft does somethings right and some wrong, this one might make some people pretty upset. Microsoft announced earlier today that starting November 1st, the annual cost of Xbox Live Gold memberships will increase. Xbox Live Gold will now cost $59.99 a year, a $10 increase from $49.99. A 3 month subscription will now be $24.99 instead of $19.99, and 1 month subscriptions will rise to $9.99 from $7.99.

“Since launching Xbox LIVE in 2002 we have continually added more content and entertainment experiences for our members, while keeping the price the same,” wrote Microsoft’s Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb on his Xbox-themed blog. “We’re confident that when the new pricing takes effect, an Xbox LIVE Gold membership will continue to offer the best value in the industry.”

Despite Capcom being accused of being racist, Capcom has said that will move forward and learn from their mistakes. For those who don’t know, Resident Evil 5 was very controversial because the game was set in Africa, which led to lots of African Zombies to be killed. Capcom denied any of those allegations even though it seemed like it was obvious through trailers, and the game itself. Melody Pfeiffer, the PR Manager for Capcom said this:
“Since the RE5 controversy, we have become much more aware of how important it is that we are part of the asset creation process early on so that we are able to have a say in the end product.”

“We are also designing a lot of our own assets from this side of the pond so that we are able to make strategic pieces of content that make sense for our market. We are working really closely with our producers in Japan to construct these materials for the West and they are open more than ever to hearing our thoughts and ideas for assets.”

Note to Capcom: Now you know exactly how Rockstar Games feels whenever a new GTA comes out.

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Gabe Newell of Valve was asked about the possibility of a real life Half-Life movie. Newell claimed that the idea has been talked about since the first Half-Life was shipped out to stores. Apparently there were also meetings with representatives from Hollywood with Valve executives, but talks fell through because all of the pitched ideas were “downright bad”. Newell had this to say.

“Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they’d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story,” said Newell. “And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of.”

“That’s when we started saying ‘Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie, or we’d have to make it ourselves.’ And I was like, ‘Make it ourselves? Well that’s impossible.’ But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that.”