Mark your calenders, and set your lasers on stun. Because Electronic Arts announced today that their upcoming futuristic, alien-killing RPG, Mass Effect 2, will be hitting stores shelves on January the 26th of next year in North America and on the 29th in Europe.

And, as a plan to increase Mass Effect 2’s pre-orders, those how pre-order the game at their local Game Stop in North America will receive a code giving them legibility to receive the Terminus Gear armor and the M-490 Blackstorm(click to view) Heavy Weapon.

However, those that pre-order the game at “other retailers” will receive the Inferno Armor, which gives Shephard “an increase in run speed and augmented damage from combat powers.” 2010 can’t come soon enough.

“Our fans are in for a genuine thrill in the New Year with Mass Effect 2 – the second installment in the trilogy will be of amazingly high quality,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, BioWare co-founder. “BioWare’s fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting this epic sequel, and we couldn’t be more excited to reward them for pre-ordering by delivering some awesome bonus content!”

Gamestop revealed today that North American pre-orders for Batman: Arkham Asylum will receive a code for the “Dem Bones” Challenge Map.

In the challenge map, “Dem Bones”, players will face off against Scarecrow’s army of skeletons. This challenge map will be one of the most challenging maps that the game has to offer, which gives Batman: Arkham Asylum high re-playability. Batman: Arkham Asylum is due out nationwide on August 25, 2009.

It was a recipe for success: one of the biggest franchises in gaming, on the most popular platform available, leaving rest to positive reviews.

Well, that wasn’t the case with Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars because the other day reports started coming in that the title is under has sold 100,000 units in the U.S. – a total of about 89,000 units. That compares to 805,000 units of “Pokémon Platinum” sold on the DS by Nintendo from its March 22 launch through April 4.

But, however, GameStop says that the game is ‘exceeding [their] expectations’.

“‘GTA: Chinatown Wars’ is exceeding our expectations and illustrating the power of the franchise on a new platform,” GameStop spokesman Chris Olivera said in an e-mail to MTV News. “We’ve seen a solid lift in sales of ‘Chinatown Wars’ following the launch of the DSi and believe that the product will continue to enjoy a long life at our stores as the buzz around the new handheld gaming experience continues to grow.”

A THQ rep has confirm with us today that Red Faction: Guerrilla has been given a release date of June 9, 2009.

Along with that, we were told that a demo will be releasing on April 23th with any GameStop pre-order of the game, which gives you about three weeks before its release date. 

In Red Faction: Guerrilla, the protagonist Alec will be able to run, jump, hijack vehicles, and use weapons to traverse across the open world of Mars and fight the EDF (Earth Defense Force).

Weapons in the game will include; machine gun turrets, rocket turrets, remote charges, a sledgehammer, machine guns, along with many others. Red Faction: Guerrilla will feature a third-person point of view - all previous Red Faction games were played from  a first-person perspective.

Update: Apparently, there wasn’t an official announcement for the figures, but you will get them when you pre-order the game from GameStop and Game Crazy.

Original: Over the past few days, game retails have frequent revealed pre-order bonuses for games – such as demos, costumes and wallpapers – but this, by far, has to be one of the best they have revealed.

Today, GameStop and Game Crazy announced both the Afro Samurai pre-order action figures that will be available at there retail stores.

If you pre-order Afro Samurai from Game Stop you will receive an Afro action figure, but when you pre-order the game from Game Crazy you will get a Ninja Ninja action figure.

Update: We have just been informed that GameStop has revealed there pre-order goody, which gives people access to the Killzone 2 Demo. We have also learned that codes granting access to the Killzone 2 Demo will be sent via email starting on February 3rd.

Original: There have been alot of things that shocked us over the past year and well this one is not as cool as it may come on to be, it is still, by itself, a great reason why you should pick up this game.

As we were saying, this really doesn’t make me want to pre-order this game from Best Buy, but it’s still looks amazing. Any-how, apparently in a mailing to PlayStation Network users, Sony and Best Buy have announced the pre-order bonus for the Killzone 2. And here’s where is gets interesting, it is a “free theme”.

The theme will be, and is, exclusive to those that pre-order the game at Best Buy, but before you do that make sure to wait for the GameStop’s pre-order goody to be shown because lets gets real, would be buy a game for a theme that you can get for free?

Also there is also a pack for an outfit from Home that comes with the a Killzone 2 Amazon.com pre-order that gives you a “Exclusive Pre-order PS Home Elements Costume”. Killzone 2 will be shipping exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in February 2009.

First off this isn’t the first time we have seen this happen with the PlayStation version of a Destroy All Humans! game. If you look back all the way in January the PS2 version of Big Willy Unleashed was cancelled. This was because of some “development issues” with the PS2 version of the game. Now, however the game on the PlayStation 3 has also seem to have ran into the same issues.

According to Shacknews, THQ has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 version of Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon has indeed been cancelled. When asked why THQ stated that there was some “development issues” with the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Which means that the game is now an Xbox 360 exclusive.

This information was first found when GameStop removed the listing of the PlayStation 3 version of the game, which was the original report by Shacknews. Also an Amazon listing of the game showed that the game was planned for a Dec. 3 release but there wasn’t a listing stating that the game was in stock, like on the other items pages on the site.

There’s no doubt that Prince of Persia is one of the most promising titles of the year and it seems Ubisoft is just adding to that promise everytime we hear news about the game. After all Ubi did say that they had “something special planned” for PS3 owners because the 360 owners had the chance to pick there achievements. However, one game that the upcoming Prince of Persia video game was compared to the most was Assassin’s Creed – it’s running on that same engine. And we’re guesting that since those game were compared alot Ubisoft has decided to reveal a Altair playable skin in Prince of Persia.

Anyway, the only way that you can get the code is if you are registered on the official Ubi website. Once you have a copy of Prince of Persia, link your Ubi account to your Xbox 360 Gamertag or PSN screen name to access the Altair skin.

Those who pre-ordered Prince of Persia from GameStop will also get a code to access the Prince of Persia Classic skin. Pre-orders will also get a free upgrade to the Limited Edition game, which includes special packaging, a making-of video and the original soundtrack. Although Ubisoft is mum as to what additional skins will be made available, but has confirmed that there will be additional skins for the Prince and Elika.

[Prince of Persia's New Creed via IGN]

Back in April leading video games publisher and developer Namco Bandai Games officially revealed Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Today, Namco Bandai officially revealed the limited edition of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm for the PlayStation 3. The limited edition comes packed with a deluxe SteelBook case featuring alternate artwork with a protective slip cover, each copy of the Limited Edition comes with an exclusive soundtrack music CD featuring 18 original tracks, an individually numbered limited edition Laser Cell depicting Naruto and Sasuke in battle, and two exclusive limited edition collectible cards. The Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Limited Edition will carry a suggested retail price of $69.99 and will be available through GameStop, Best Buy, GameCrazy, Amazon.com and other select retailers.

By now we aready know that Gears of War 2 is one of the must have games of the holiday season and we’re all pretty excited to see what Epic has cooked up for us.

GameStop has just revealed the limited edition box-art for Gears of War 2, the limited edition of Gears of War 2 will feature a collectible SteelBook™ DVD case (which is viewable in the picure), a Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2 and a 48-page hardbound book. Along with the hardbound book it will feature a:

• Bonus DVD including exclusive making-of-the-game video footage, design galleries with audio commentary by Epic Games, and promotional videos including the E3 2008 trailer.
• “Rendezvous.” An exclusive gold-plated Lancer Assault Rifle available during online play.

Rumors, rumors, rumors. They all fly around at will until someone gives you a straight answer….. and sometimes when we want the rumor to be true, they don’t turn out true. But, lets just hope this ones true. According to PlayStation Beyond , Gamestop has posted God Of War III for a March 2, 2009 release date, while the retailer release dates are not usually a reliable source of information. God Of War I and II released in March of 2005 and 2007 respectively, and Chains Of Olympus for the PSP came out this past March. 3 God Of War titles all in March. And so you get the point…….

Update:

Had a little typo just now, I must be smoking something……

Announced for November 2008 by Microsoft, today we can assure you that Gears of War 2 leaves precisely to Europe on 17 of November. Also if you can’t wait to get your hands on Microsoft Games Too Human in Europe, you’ll be getting your hands on the game in current August, August 2008.

As of now there is no official North American release date for Gears of War 2  but it’s rumored for a November 16 release window .

Kotaku has received an email from CEO Dick Fontaine, informing them that President Steve Morgan would be resigning from the company.

Email:

After 7 productive years with GameStop, Steve Morgan has made the decision to reapply his energy and drive outside out GameStop Steve will officially be leaving the company on May 2nd 2008. Steve has stated from the very first day we discussed his position with our merged company that his goal was to head up a company as a CEO. After two and half very successful years as our President he now feels that the time is right to pursue his objective.

Today Rockstar Games released three new screenshots for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV coming this April. These screenshots where exclusive to a few other gaming blog but was released in full size. GTA IV you follows the story of Nikolai Bellic who has come to Liberty City to pursue the American Dream. Grand Theft Auto IV the game is powered by the RAGE game engine and will be releasing worldwide on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

(You can click on the images to see them in there full page glory)