In case you give a damn about Volition's non-Red-Faction projects, here are some screenshots from their Saints Row 2 sequel, coming this year on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The folks from Cryptic Studios will just have to pardon (or ignore) me if I'm wrong, but this sounds an awful lot like the Marvel MMO that was confirmed as cancelled just a couple of days ago. They may have lost Microsoft's support, but the makers of City of Heroes / City of Villains are still determined to waste our time with another superhero MMO game of super-dubious quality - renamed called Champions Online. Game Informer will have the first look at the game in their March issue, and they say it's coming on PC and consoles. That doesn't really fill you with hardcorish feelings, now does it?

Great week so far, with plenty of games revealed out of the blue, like Red Alert 3, a new KotOR RPG or, by the way, a new Lord of the Rings game in the works at Pandemic (probably something more action this time). And the list goes on, as we learn from Eurogamer, with some new titles included in Atari's quarterly earnings report. And then some!

First off, there's a new expansion planned for Obisdian's RPG sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2. The second add-on should be relased between this April and March 2009; or to narrow that down a bit, let's assume it comes out in October - one year after the first expansion Mask of the Betrayer (which in turn came out one year after the original NWN 2).

Also during the next fiscal year, Atari intends to release a certain PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 game called Airborne Rangers. Right, like the classic "action simulation" game by MicroProse. That was two decades ago, so I don't think anyone would mind a shiny remake, or something.

There are several other gamelings listed in Eurogamer's story which don't sound worthy of our time, and they say Atari also has one or two "hardcore" projects which were not mentioned in the report. All of these will start getting proper announcements in the weeks to come, the publisher promised. Great, that should give me plenty of time to forget about this, and fake getting excited all over again.

I'm sure this won't come as a surprise anymore, but Microsoft is full of bullshit. And especially the company's senior VP of Interactive Entertainment, Don Mattrick is (no wonder, he used to be president of EA after all). Speaking on the latest Major Nelson podcast, he outright proclaimed that Grand Theft Auto IV will have "downloadable content and online multiplayer support (...) unique to [the Xbox] 360". That doesn't leave much room for interpretation, if you ask me. It's like saying that GTA IV would not playable in online multiplayer on the PS3. Which, with the risk of repeating myself, is utter bullshit.

Responding on this matter to GI.biz, a Rockstar spokesperson clearly explained that "both versions will support online multiplayer capabilities". So there you go, put down that hammer and leave your poor PS3 live to see another day. Or even 75 days, until the April 29 release of Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 and PS3 PS3 and Xbox 360.

- Super Smash Bros. Brawl sales top 1 million in Japan, making it the fastest selling Wii game to reach that sales figure over there. We should start stocking up on booze early, for when it launches over here (next month?). An insane Wii session is sure to ensue.

- Devil May Cry 4 demo hits 1 million downloads on Xbox Live, through some questionable math (25,000 downloads a day since January 24 isn't even remotely close to 1 million). No wonder Capcom's game owns the UK charts.

- Sam & Max Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead launched on GameTap today. Tomorrow also on Telltale's website, along with a demo.

- Darkeden free vampiric MMORPG launched by Joymax, along with a new Daden Market (the item mall of Darkeden). From the communique, "players can log in today and slay vampires, fight humans, or crush oysters". Oysters?... Oh, I'm sorry, ousters.

- Need for Speed ProStreet has a new Porsche demo on the PC, featuring the Porsche GT2 and GT3RS cars, and Porsche's Leipzig test track. No use, there can be only one NFS: Porsche Unleashed!

- WorldShift beta up on FilePlanet for 5,000 gamers. "Subscribers only". F.U.

- Dynasty Warriors 6, now armed with the Gold status, will invade US retail on February 19.

- Battlefield, Halo veterans form Tyrant Studios in Seattle, setting out to "change the way games are made" with their combined tyranny experience. I don't suppose their motto is "Liberté, égalité, fraternité"?

- "More churches" in Resistance 2! I loled.

- Red Faction III was confirmed during THQ's latest investors call. Exactly one year after CEO Brian Farrell practically said the same thing. Only this time, we know with relative certainty that it's developed for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. By Volition, duh.

- Steam reaches 15 million accounts. For some odd reason, players keep making new accounts after getting their asses banned, or forget their password. Or username.

- Activision confirmed various sequels for their top franchises, from Call of Duty, to Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, Bond and other kiddie games. Or we could've just said "Activision confirms Call of Duty 5", since we don't give a crap about any of the others.

- The Club demo is out of for the PC. So is the full game, but only on the PS3 and Xbox 360 momentarily. Good luck clearing 2 GB for the demo!

- "We at EA blew it" (with Bullfrog, Origin and Westwood). No, you didn't blow it. You fucked it up. You fucked it up!

- Okami Wii is completely playable by now, but Capcom is still not giving a firm release date. March? Maybe. By the way, this game should've been made for the Wii from head start.

- StarCraft II and WoW: Wrath of the Lich King also playable, if you can hold your breath until the end of June, and find your way inside Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational event from Paris.

Law breakers and enforcers alike, you should all know that the girls at Take Two have finally made up their minds about a release date for the much anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV. Finally, as in... yet again. Last time we’ve heard from them, the game was bound for release somewhere between February and April - and now it seems they have nailed it down to April 29.

Well, at least according to the optimistic guys behind The Stick of Joy. Have fun stealing cars in the virtual world, I’m pretty sure it’s a huge training ground for the real-life thing.

- The reason why 2K Games cancelled Civilization Revolution for the Wii is now elucidated. The reason why MTV writes about games remains a mystery.

- Devil May Cry 4 (PS3, Xbox 360), Assassin's Creed DS, Sins of a Solar Empire and others are releasing this week. Next week, Duke Nukem Forever. Or when it's done.

First checkpoint reached, yay! Every now and then (hopefully every day), we'll use a checkpoint like this to quick-save the stories that we wanted to write about in more detail, but could not do so due to various perturbing factors - booze, WoW and/or animes come to mind. We'll probably drop the intro, though, and skip straight to the one-liners.

- LucasArts president Ward steps down. Darth Vader lols. Yoda is not amused.

- Nintendo announces a new Cobalt/Black DS Lite. Needs more desu.

- Mercenaries 2: World in Flames delayed. Battlefield: Bad Company also delayed. And so is my Zul'Aman raid tonight. Needs more healers.

- Turok released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Dinosaurs are still having difficulty procreating, this time due to stressful gunfire and castrating explosions.

- EA expects PS3 to outsell 360 in 2008. I expect the sun will rise again tomorrow.

- American McGee reveals a new "[Unreal Engine 3] based, big publisher, multi-platform, twisted tale project". Grimm half-way done. Alice is still insane. So is McGee.