Your Facebook friends will help you in the sequel to Mafia Wars. They'll help keep you safe while you take a bat to the knees of some Facebook stranger.

Sorry, Facebook strangers, that's the way it's going to work. At least I won't know your name or any real information about you as I step over your corpse and rob your casino.

I do believe that Mafia Wars 2, which I saw a preview of late last week, will prove to be the most anti-social social game the CityVille power-house Zynga have ever asked people to click on. And therefore.... the most fun.

Mafia Wars 2 is a violent, crime-filled Facebook game, a much more graphically rich game than the original Mafia Wars... and by "graphically rich" I mean both that it looks more like FarmVille than the original Mafia Wars did and that it's, well, got pools of blood.

Your first building in Mafia Wars 2 is a casino. Your first purchase is a gun. You're a mob guy, five years out of prison, having taken the fall for a big crime, etc, cliché, etc. You can lay out buildings across a plot of land just outside of Las Vegas (see the screenshots in the gallery above), as if this was FarmVille, except that instead of barns and wheat, you're building the "Crystal Lab" or a "Growhouse."

You'll be able to head to Casino Row, one of about eight zones that the game will launch with in the coming weeks, all of them full of people for you to shoot or be shot by. It's a violent life, being in the mafia, and this game is a celebration of that. The folks at Zynga showed me an encounter in the city, a fight between the players and Dom Bonelli, a "boss" character who took a few clicks to be shot to death.

"The game is pretty dangerous," Mafia Wars 2 producer Ian Wang, told me as he played through the action. I thought that was just a marketing line. But compared to other Zynga games, this one is like swimming with sharks while bleeding from a lacerated arm. The game creators let you arm yourself. They let you pick a fighting style, and collect and craft weapons that will give you a distinct attack and defense set-up. The reason that they're giving you more choice is to make it more interesting when people start attacking. You fight bosses like Dom Bonelli, but you also have unfriendly computer-controlled people trying to set fire to your casino. This is worse than some pest in your farm because, as Wang described it to me, "you can lose just about all the resources you have." Fail to protect your money in a dirty bank and it can be stolen. People can rob the factory where you create illegal DVDs or beat up your henchmen.

The "people" causing you a lot of grief in Mafia Wars 2 aren't merely computer-controlled enemies. They'll often be real people, thanks to the unusual multiplayer mode that makes this new Zynga game so unlike the other Zynga games.

You'll regularly be able to enter into player-vs.-player combat. It's not synchronous. Zynga isn't there yet (it'll be crazy if/when they are). But this is close. There's a place in the game called The Boneyard. It's the place featured in the top screenshot in this post. It's a desert, filled with junk and teeming with the characters of other real Mafia Wars 2 players. They'll prowl around, itching for a fight. You'll be able to wage battle with them, relying on the mix of attack and defense skills you armed yourself with and hoping the behind-the-scenes calculations in the game make you the winner of a one-on-one fight. You'll be clicking away, hoping for critical strikes and dodges (on your part) and, if victorious, you'll see them die. Their character doesn't really die. They weren't even in control while you were fighting. But after they fall, you'll then be able to invade their game, start sledgehammering their property and rob them.

Zynga will have some mercy on its players. A person's buildings can only be destroyed five times. Even if they're killed and sacked by numerous other players, they can only lose up to half of their potential earnings before the next time they log on. You might get semi-wrecked while playing Mafia Wars 2 but you won't get wiped out. You'll also be able to recruit friends to protect your properties.

Back to the idea of the The Boneyard for a moment... once you go there, your character will then appear in other people's games. It will fight on its own, but should he or she be defeated, you'll have strangers invading your game, trying to rob your stuff. These people who you fight with, either because you attacked them or they attacked your character, will appear in a wide list of enemies across the bottom of your screen. You'll be able to go after them again. You'll even be able to mark them as rivals and keep them from ever falling off your list of enemies. "We want to enable social interactions not just with your friends but with people you fight and people who fight you," Wang told me.

As I said above, though, you'll never know the real names of the strangers you fight in this game. "We want this to be a game but not actually dangerous," Wang said.

At least once during my demo of Mafia Wars 2 I heard the words I expected to hear: "It's not like GTA." Those words came up when art director Christy Schaefer was explaining how stealing cars in this game is click-based and doesn't look like it does in a real-time action game like Grand Theft Auto. But the comparison is begged anyway, because this game is dipping into that same well of illicit influences as Rockstar Games' notorious phenomenon. This is most likely not a Zynga game your mother-in-law will be playing. Not unless she's fancied herself a vicious crime-lord, which I hope she hasn't.

The game will operate by many standard Zynga systems. You'll be limited in your actions by a diminishing energy bar that will replenish either if you wait or if you pay. You'll still be requesting help from Facebook friends via those messages that some may find annoying even if they're now mostly hidden in an app notifications area. The stand-out features, as I saw them, were 1) the slightly deeper combat which seems aided by the added nuance of being able to equip various combat gear 2) the intriguing emphasis on aggressive multiplayer conflict and 3) the eyebrow-raising subject matter.

The people at Zynga have shown me many of their new games this past year, including Empires & Allies and an expansion to Frontierville. I'm not surprised by much of what they say to me. But not until I saw Mafia Wars 2 did I ever hear one of Zynga's people say, as art director Schaefer did, "I just reviewed this awesome gatling-gun animation. It 's just amazing. ...the death animation is just millions of bullet holes and the guy falling over..."

Mafia Wars 2 will launch on Facebook in the coming weeks.

Dallas-based id Software has a big title coming out tonight, so Tim Willits, Matt Hooper, John Carmack, and other key members of the Rage team will be hanging out at a GameStop, just like everyone else. Show them some love.

Spider-Man: Edge of Time hits stores tomorrow, bringing the worlds of the Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 clashing together violently. Then the kicking starts.

This is just Activision's way of reminding us all the game is coming out tomorrow, as the differences really don't seem all that significant. Amazing beats folks up with agility, 2099 beats things up with more agility and nifty gadgets, though in the year 2099 we can probably assume everyone has those gadgets, and he's fighting crime with the future equivalent of an iPod.

But hey, Spider-Man: Edge of Time! Tomorrow! Be there!

In 2009, From Software introduced gamers to a whole new world of pain with the PlayStation 3 exclusive Demon's Souls, a game that challenged the growing player handholding trend in favor of gripping that hand firmly and slicing it off at the wrist.

It was a painful experience, but it was a good kind of pain. The sort of pain that lets you know you're alive. A game where accomplishments are real accomplishments. A game where you could hand the controller to your teenage nephew and laugh as he died again and again.

Now From Software returns to dole out more punishment with Dark Souls, this time letting Xbox 360 players take their licks as well. The developer promise an even more difficult experience this time around, and the assembled video game reviewers prove themselves masochists of the highest order.

Strategy Informer
Let's get one thing straight: Dark Souls hates you. It hates who you are and what you stand for. It hates your friends, it hates your spouse, it hates your family, it hates your pets, it hates every single little thing about you right down to the fact that you even exist. It's not your fault - you didn't upset it, you didn't insult it's mother or it's religion... the only thing you really 'did' was want to play it, and for that it hates you so much it will do it's very best to kill you. Often.

Game Informer
Some frustration in Dark Souls arises from how this generation's games have conditioned us. Gamers are used to handholding tutorials that walk you through every aspect of a game's mechanics. Dark Souls doesn't waste time explaining things. You encounter the first boss within 10 minutes of starting the game. He's huge. He wields a giant club that can take away half of your health bar or more in a single swing – and this isn't one of those battles you're supposed to lose. After a quick detour, you're fully expected to defeat this monster as one of your first acts in this deadly world.

Eurogamer
So yes, Dark Souls is hostile and cruel - but it's not heartless or soulless. Far from it. Designer Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team will test the limits of your patience and concentration, but the reward they offer in return is rare indeed: the gradual discovery and mastery of a world of vast scope and immaculate fine craftsmanship, a world saturated with secrets, magic and awe. If you have the stomach for it - and can look past the game's initial, somewhat misleading disregard for you - Dark Souls offers dozens upon dozens of hours of hair-raising adventuring. It's founded on superlative sword combat and an intricate world design that owes more to the hand-drawn maps of early Metroid and Zelda than the random dungeon crawls of Rogue and Diablo.

Edge
Dark Souls starves you of information, thereby stoking your hunger to explore and untangle its opaque narrative and mechanics. Random notes about items and weapons flash up on the post-death loading screen, which you will parse with the fervency of a Talmud scholar. The game's unique online features, however – players can leave pre-programmed hints and warnings on the ground, which populate other players' worlds – undermine the dopamine rush of hard-fought epiphany. Many will relish the company of these ghosts. If Dark Souls has difficulty tiers, there are just two: Insane (online with hint graffiti) and Teeth Gnashingly Impenetrable (offline).

Gamespot
As you can tell, Dark Souls is complex, sometimes extraordinarily so. Everything you do has consequences, but sometimes, those consequences are a mystery. And that's part of the joy. You never know what is around the bend or what fate might befall you if you don't take care as you make your way through this extraordinarily challenging game. At one point, I had bizarre froglike creatures breathe a cursing mist all over me, causing me to become cursed. Becoming cursed means losing half of your health bar, and lifting the curse involved sprinting through the murky New Londo ruins, avoiding ghosts while seeking the special healer who could lift the curse. After idling for too long in a demon's abode, a bulbous growth sprouted on my head, and I could no longer equip a helmet. Now I have a giant tumor growing on my neck instead of a head and no access to the defensive benefits of the black-hemmed hood I love so much!

The Telegraph
It is a game that brazenly proves game design fashions are just that; transient, fleeting trends that, in attempting to lay down a set of rules only throw down a new challenge for how things might be done. No video game released this Christmas runs contrary to prevailing fashion as hard or fast as Dark Souls. And no video game is quite so exciting or exhilarating.

I have a nephew who's a bit of a sneaker enthusiast. He's done the whole line-up-at-midnight-for-new-Dunks thing, despite the fact that he's got size 14 feet. He's also a gamer and I took him to see a demo of NBA 2K12 earlier this summer. And, while he was polite enough not to ask about the in-game footwear in this year's edition of 2K Sports' b-ball franchise, I know he was burning to inquire. There was smoke coming out of his ears. Well, Tony, this one's for you.

The kicks connosieurs at Sneakerfiles and Deftronic have posted a walkthrough (shoethrough?) of the sneaks that'll be available in the game and it's a luxurious stroll through a whole lot of NIkes and a smattering of Converse. While hardcore collector may rage or swoon at the selection, two things strike my non-Nike-wearing self:

1. It'd be great to have some kind of cross-promotion integration with Nike's NikeID customization portal that lets you import your unique designs in to the game. Then, you could have posterfication highlights that show off your singular shoe pair.

2. Could shoe updates be yet another form of micropayment DLC crack? I have to think that a fair amount of 2K12 players would shell out 3 bucks for a half-dozen new styles every three months or so?

Last thought: Those new Back to the Future Nikes? Time Rewind power-up. You're welcome, 2K Sports dev team.

NBA 2K12 - THE KICKS. [DEFTRONIC]

No, that's not my beautiful house in the picture above, with its color coordinated pillows, strategically scattered magazines, and perfectly misplaced popcorn, but with the low profile KEF T205 Surround Sound Speaker System in place it sure sounds like it.

The KEF lifestyle photograph taken inside my modest apartment would feature scattered shipping boxes, various implements of child amusement, the odd fast food bag, and 100 percent more lazy-ass cat, all coated with a thin layer of Swiffer-resistant dust. Mine is not a home one takes product shots in; on particularly bad days one might consider shooting the resident to put him out of his misery.

But clear yourself off a spot on the Big Lots clearance couch, grab the Xbox 360 controller, crank up the volume on the (oddly new-ish) audio receiver for some Gears of War 3 with the KEFs connected and you'll find yourself transported to a much happier place, where the popped corn falls gracefully to the table top and nothing remotely smells of animal urine.

It's amazing the difference a $1,800 surround sound speaker system makes.

My apartment might not be sort of place you'd expect to find an expensive surround sound speaker system, but it really is the perfect location for KEF's ridiculously thin T-series speakers. Here, amidst the collector's edition boxes, shelves filled with paperbacks, DVDs, Blu-rays, HD DVDs, and action figures; here where the stacks of things are arraigned in even bigger stacks, a set of 35 millimeter deep speakers is a godsend. Mount them on the wall and the sleek and simple design could almost pass for art. Set them on their small included stands and you can hide more clutter behind them. KEF even makes a set of Selecta-mount floor stands that automatically adjust the crossover, because speakers sound different standalone than they do up against the wall.

Feel free to flip through the gallery for full specs on the speakers included in the set.

After much staring at my wall with power screwdriver in hand, I opted to use the included short stands for my frontal installation, with Selecta-mount stands for the satellites. Connecting the speaker wires was slightly more complicated than I'm used to (I'm a spring guy), involving a pair of small holes in the back of each unit and allen wrench to turn screws and lock the wires down, but the end result is a wired connection that won't tear out if a clumsy oaf of a reviewer trips over them four or five times a day.

The only complication arose when I went to install the subwoofer. The T-2 subwoofer is a powered affair bereft of standard speaker connections. Instead it uses an RCA-style plug, which my poor Best Buy special combo DVD surround sound receiver would not accept. So I spent $200 on a Pioneer VSX-520-K 5.1 surround sound receiver, just so I could review and then return this set of speakers. Considering I'll have to replace the KEF T205 system with something compatible after they go back to the manufacturer, this has been one expensive trial period.

But so completely worth it.

I didn't expect sound this rich and detailed to come from speakers this thin. I grew up in a time when the bigger and deeper the speaker, the better they sounded, or so it seemed. It was a time when speakers bigger than your person were a status symbol. Entire walls were dedicated to vibrating cones of sound. And it was only one wall, because surround sound was listening to Jimi Hendrix flip from left to right ear in your headphones, wondering when the acid would kick in.

I fully expected to be disappointed by these wafer-thin speakers. Even as I unpacked them, marveling at the slim profile and sexy faces of the speakers, I was imagining tinny audio boosted only by the deeper powered subwoofer. Those expectations were shattered within 30 minutes of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Yes it's a horrible movie, but the sound is perfect for putting a surround sound system through its paces. When the Michael Baybots took up arms, the air was filled with high-pitched whirring, deep thrumming base, and the sort of warbly clicking noises that make your throat go all wobbly when delivered via capable devices.

And the KEF T-Series speakers proved more than capable. Those unique electronic sounds took on new life when streamed from these magical panels. The high-frequency crisp well-defined, the mid-range faithful and clear. Low-range sounds were somewhat weak at first, but flipping the H-2 subwoofer's bass boost switch to +12db solved that problem in short measure. The sounds swirled about me fluidly, nary a dip between channels to be heard, and cranking the volume up to potentially evicted levels angered my neighbors with its surprising lack of distortion. Voices lost in the cacophony of clashing robots in my older audio setup were found once more, and soon the ramblings of Shia LaBeouf had me reaching for a video game, if only to shut him up.

The T205 system performed just as admirably with video games as it did movies. Its brilliant reproduction of Call of Duty: Black Ops' directional sound cues made playing single-player zombie mode even more unbearably terrifying for me (I am enough of a zombie mode pussy as it is). The KEF folks suggested I try out Dead Space 2, which proved a harrowing experience for all the right reasons. Combining Visceral's award-winning sound design with speakers of this caliber is not for the faint of heart.

The system's most glorious moment, however, came to me by way of a much more recent title.

After playing through Gears of War 3 with the KEF T205 Speaker System, I don't think I'd be satisfied playing it any other way. I've never been a big Gears fan, but the third installment grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I give the team at Epic Games a good portion of the credit, but KEF definitely played a huge part. As the game played out on my screen the world of Sera came to life through sound. The urgent sound of gunfire. The deep, guttural voice of the Savage Boomer, commanding his living projectiles to dig. The reassuring footsteps of your companions behind you as the enemy advances.

And that one scene. The one I won't talk about, with the tanker. I just sat there, mouth hanging open as the power of the music and the moment took me where it would. Would it have been as moving and powerful coming from a lesser surround sound system or my television's built-in speakers? It's too late to find out now; I've been completely spoiled.

Between its outstanding performance, sleek and simple design, and the technology behind its slender form factor, the KEF T205 Surround Sound Speaker System isn't just a set of home theater equipment that costs $1,800 — it's worth $1,800. It's not something I see myself being able to purchase in the near future, but it's certainly something to aspire to. For now I'll just work on my popcorn scattering.

The KEF T205 Surround Sound Speaker System is available now at KEF Direct for $1,999.99. Amazon sells the system for $1,799.99. Other configurations are available. Selecta-mount stands sell for $279.99 per pair.

Here's the full set I tested. It's got three taller T301 speakers for the left, right, and center channels, a pair of shorter T101s for the satellites, and the T-2 powered subwoofer.

Here's what's going on on the inside.

They're just crazy thin. It's amazing the sound KEF crams into this tiny space.

I'll go ahead and let KEF explain how the hell they got the drive unit this thin.

Extensive use of finite element analysis has allowed the development of a new type of twin-layered diaphragm that, despite being as little as 5mm in depth, behaves pistonically over the whole of its working bandwidth. Driver depth is further reduced by a concentrically attached suspension and a compact Neodymium magnet assembly. The result is a new class of drive unit, of high acoustic performance and extremely compact dimensions, that allows exciting new possibilities for loudspeaker system design.

Model: T-2
Design: Closed box powered subwoofer
Drive units: 1 x 250mm (10in.)
Frequency response: 30Hz - 250Hz
Amplifier: 250 Watts built-in Class-D
Maximum output (SPL): 110dB
Low pass filter variable: Fixed 250Hz, 2nd-order
Low level signal inputs: RCA phono socket
Internal volume: 12.7 Litres
Power requirements: 100 - 240 V ac ~ 50/60Hz
Weight: 13kg (28.6lbs)
Dimensions: (H x W x D) 380 x 370 x 177 mm (15.0 x 14.6 x 7.0 in.)

Model: T101
Design: 115mm (4.5in.) dual layer MF / 25mm (1in.) aluminium HF
Drive units: 115mm (4.5in.) dual layer MF / 25mm (1in.) aluminium HF
Frequency response: 80Hz - 30kHz
Crossover frequency: 1.7kHz
Amplifier requirements: 10 - 100 W
Sensitivity (2.83V/1m): 90dB (wall mount) / 87dB (floor stand mount)
Maximum output (SPL): 107dB
Impedance: 8Ω
Internal volume: 0.7 Litres
Weight: 1kg (2.2lbs)
Dimensions: (H x W x D) 330* x 140 x 35 mm (13.0 x 5.5 x 1.4 in.)

Model: T301
Design: Two and a half-way closed box
Drive units: 2 x 115mm (4.5in.) dual layer MF / 25mm (1in.) aluminium HF
Frequency response: 80Hz - 30kHz
Crossover frequency: 1.7kHz
Amplifier requirements: 10 - 150 W
Sensitivity (2.83V/1m): 88dB (floor stand mount) / 90dB (wall mount)
Maximum output (SPL): 110dB
Impedance: 8Ω
Internal volume: 1.4 Litres
Weight: 1.5kg (3.3lbs)
Dimensions: (H x W x D) 600 x 140 x 35 mm (23.6 x 5.5 x 1.4 in.)

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to rule on a request by the video game industry for $1.4 million in attorneys' fees tied to the landmark video game freedom of speech decision earlier this year, opting instead to kick the request down to the circuit courts.

The Court chose not to rule on the request for attorneys' fees and expenses connected to the video game industry's win in the constitutional test of a California ban on the sale or rental of such games to minors, the Scotusblog.com reports. Instead, the court referred the request to the Ninth Circuit Court "for adjudication."

The Supreme Court sided with the video game industry this summer in a 7-2 ruling, declaring a victor in the six-year legal match between the industry and the California lawmakers who wanted to make it a crime for anyone in the state to sell extremely violent games to kids.

The law in question would have made it a crime to sell ultra-violent video games to minors in the State of California. It had been ruled un-Constitutional by lower courts.

If you're interested in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association et al. you should go back and read the analysis and news on that June ruling.

No grants, five CVSGs [SCOTUS]

Datel, the UK-based video game peripheral manufacturer that loves to piss off Microsoft, takes controller cheating to the next level with the latest iteration of its TurboFire 360 controller, complete with built-in "Combat Command LCD interface".

Microsoft and Datel don't get along very well, mainly due to the fact that the UK is in the habit of crafting unauthorized third-party controllers that sync directly to the Xbox 360, something licensed third-party accessory makers rarely get to do. Between the low cost of not having to deal with Microsoft and the programmable features offered up in previous versions of the TurboFire (Wildfire in the UK) controller, Datel is making a pretty penny on these babies.

And they'll likely make much more, now that the TurboFire EVO is available.

Rather than worrying about tossing additional buttons on the controller face or relying on a PC interface to activate special features like auto-fire, sniper mode, and pre-programmed combo moves, the EVO here has a convenient screen built right into the unit. Players can map their own button layouts, rapidly select control modifiers on the fly, or even connect to a PC via USB cable to download the latest custom game profiles.

While I see no reason to own one of these myself, it does bring back fond memories of the days of the Dreamcast, when we were certain tiny video screens in our controllers were the way of the future.

The TurboFire EVO is available now at the CodeJunkies store for $54.99.

Before he died of dysentery, commenter Fernando Jorge had a rather fine idea about the rebirth of a classic educational PC game, and he knew just the developer to handle it.

The Oregon Trail could be an amazing game if remade nowadays, and it would be the perfect job for Rockstar.

Imagine this, a road game. You have this huge open world and one instruction: "go west". No maps or flying arrows pointing the way, just a compass. The player would have to figure out how to get across a river, find a way down a cliff, and find food and a place to sleep.

Just this massive 20 hour journey that lets you choose your own way west through unknown wilderness. A game where you'd climb up a hill, look back the path you came from and think, "There was I five hours ago when a cougar almost killed me".

Rockstar loves open world games and they love filling their games with pointless daily life tasks and mini-games and in an Oregon Trail game these things would fit perfectly. Couple that with their great story writing and it could be a character driven story about 19th century America with the cynic but human sensibility Rockstar has.

Right now there are very few story driven games that aren't about conflict or violence. Video games could use more of that and an Oregon Trail remake made by Rockstar would be perfect in so many levels.

Video editor and action master Yung Lee can't seem to make it to an anime convention without getting his ass handed to him by cosplayers.

First Bowser and Sheik double-teamed him at Anime North, and now his visit to FanExpo 2011 takes a turn for the worse, as everyone from Star Wars characters to anime girls try and take a piece of him.

He's probably just asking it.

Epic Cosplay Action [YouTube]