Mafia

The popular Mafia Wars franchise, which has entertained millions and annoyed just as many, has a new addition.

Dubbed Mafia Wars 2, the sequel to the popular game from social-gaming company Zynga, is debuting today in 16 languages, including Italian, French, and German, in addition to English. Once they sign up for the title, Facebook gamers around the globe will be able to "rise up, get revenge, and build the largest crime empire the world has ever seen."

According to Zynga, players will take the role of a person who has just left prison, and welcomed back to … Read more

There is surely no easier job in the world than that of Italy's minister of tourism.

You are responsible for the most beautiful country in the world, one with the finest food, charmingly well-adjusted people, and a sense of style that influences every living soul. Even your cars don't rust any more.

So why, oh, why would Michela Vittoria Brambilla be getting so worked up about a mere iPhone app? The app, called What Country, is clearly trying to improve international relations.

Its blurb offers: "Want to see the world from a variety of angles? Interested to … Read more

This week, a heated argument breaks out over the cable TV regulatory landscape (we're sure you were just thinking about that as well). Plus, check out footage of a new laser weapon ready for use at LA County jails, and groove to some live music on the YouRock MIDI guitar.

More importantly, this may sound a lot like the classic "dog ate my homework" excuse, but it appears that the gremlins in our broadcast facility actually did eat the video version of this week's show (which aired live on Monday at 3 p.m. ET).

While we attempt to recover the video file, this episode is only available as audio at the moment (see the "Listen Now" player at the bottom of the page). If you need some visual stimulation while listening, feel free to flip through this slideshow of Scott and Dan modeling back-to-school backpacks.

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Mafia II is the long-awaited follow-up to the 2002 cult-classic Mafia. Though it's not necessarily a direct sequel, the game does make the occasional nod to the original as well as iconic films like "Goodfellas."

Mafia II will be available Tuesday for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Jeff: Make no mistake; Mafia II is not Grand Theft Auto in 1951. For starters, Mafia II is not an open-world sandbox game. That said, a quick glance at some gameplay footage would have you thinking otherwise. No, Mafia II is as linear as titles come, and though the city map of Empire Bay is littered with gun shops, clothing stores, and auto repair stations, that is just about all you can do in town.

Instead of choosing which mission to take part in, Mafia II instead threads the player along a collection of chapters that ultimately tell an engaging and highly entertaining story of the title character, Vito Scaletta. The narrative is some of the best we've seen in a game, and we were equally impressed with how well the characters were voice acted. From a strictly storytelling standpoint, we don't think any of the GTA games can touch what Mafia II has been able to convey. … Read more

On Thursday night, rapper Snoop Dogg detonated an armored truck to smithereens in the Nevada desert as a promotional stunt for social-gaming company Zynga's Mafia Wars: Las Vegas title, and that seems to have gone smoothly. But another Mafia Wars marketing stunt is ticking off authorities in San Francisco, according to a blog post on SFGate.com.

The promotion, which entailed gluing dozens of fake $25,000 Mafia Wars-branded bills to the sidewalk in several locations in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood, is designed specifically to spread the word about a "Mafia Wars" contest with a $… Read more

Social-gaming powerhouse Zynga launched its latest game, "Mafia Wars: Las Vegas" earlier this month, and it promised eager players that when the game hit 10 million users, it would celebrate by detonating an armored truck in the Vegas-area desert and live-stream the whole thing on the Web. Yes, really.

Well, the milestone has been hit, according to a release on Thursday, and Zynga has made good on its promise to blow up the truck. Oh, except there's an addition: the truck will be blown up with the help of rapper Snoop Dogg, whose name I will never … Read more

Today on preGame we pick out a nice suit and get our hands dirty with a live demo of Mafia II.

But first, we'll take an in-depth look at the trailer to last week's announcement of a brand-new BioShock game, BioShock Infinite. Does the game take place in the same universe as the original? Will there be Big Daddies in Infinite? Join us as we tackle some of the big questions raised from the thrilling video.

A ton of gaming news to hit today, so we round up the major stories including Mass Effect 2 coming to the … Read more

Update, July 7: This post has been updated to include additional games.

It's time to add a new selection of entries to our list of PC games well-suited for Netbooks. Especially as we expect to see many of these low-cost, low-power laptops in the hands of students during the back-to-school season, it's important to have a little action/RPG/adventure/puzzle break handy when one gets tired of taking lecture notes.

As usual, many of these entries are re-releases of classic games, originally available when even high-end computer hardware was at best comparable with today's entry-level systems. Online services such as Good Old Games and Steam are great resources for these.

One important exception is the new online gaming service OnLive, which takes current high-end PC games, renders the 3D graphics remotely, then streams you the video as you play. It sounds like a crazy idea, but it actually works pretty well, even on Netbooks. Check out our extensive hands-on look at OnLive here.

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It may owe its fortunes to Facebook, but the word is that social-gaming giant Zynga is getting ready to launch its own site in a bid to wean itself from its dependency on the popular social network.

According to TechCrunch, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus hosted a company meeting Thursday afternoon in which he asserted that hit games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafe World and others might soon appear on their own social games site called Zynga Live.

"'Pincus announced at a 5 p.m. meeting yesterday at Zynga that Zynga was going to launch a social game network called Zynga Live,'" TechCrunch wrote, quoting from an anonymous insider e-mail.

The theory here is that Zynga and Facebook are clashing over the percentage that the social gaming giant might have to pay to use Facebook Credits, the social network's nascent currency platform.

"'Facebook and Zynga [have] been negotiating on Facebook Credits and the talks turned for the worst,'" TechCrunch quoted the e-mail as saying. "'In the negotiation process, Facebook shut off Zynga's feeds and threatened to shut down games. Zynga, in the process, threatened to completely leave Facebook and prepared to do so in the previous upcoming weeks."… Read more