Assassin’s Creed was one of the few original and interesting new IPs that was released two years ago, bringing a new setting not often explored by games, alongside some original combat and acrobatics. The sequel — and of course there’s a sequel — looks to build upon the success of the first game, and offer something new. While the gameplay remains mainly unchanged, the new setting, in Renaissance Italy looks just as great as ancient Jerusalem did in AC1.

The story continues where the previous ended; Desmond, in today’s time, escapes from the complex that kidnapped him and captured his mind. This time he teams up with the good guys, and gets back in the seat in the machine that sends him back a few hundred years to Italy, during Leonardo da Vinci’s time, where he’ll play an assassin, in order to train himself the skills. We won’t go into detail of the story, but rest assured that it’s pretty well told and written, although the cut scenes and dialogue aren’t exactly top notch. Read the rest of our Assassin’s Creed 2 review

If you’ve played Borderlands, and you really should, you’ve listened to the sweet tunes from the game, and you’ll soon have a chance to throw them on your iPod as well. Gearbox announced that the soundtrack will be released on iTunes on December 8, and includes composers such as Jesper Kyd, Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco and Raison Varner.

However, it won’t include the hit song “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked“, which has been featured in the game and its promo material. Bummer.

2K Games has revealed the cover of the highly anticipated BioShock 2, which is scheduled for a February 2010 release. As you can see above, it’s quite similar to the original BioShock 2, this time though, as the PS3 cover suggests, PS3 owners won’t have to wait a full year to play the game.

Square Enix, the new publishers of Supreme Commander 2, have announced that the Gas Powered Games RTS will be released during Spring 2010 on PC and Xbox 360. As you may recall, the original Supreme Commander was released during Spring of 2007, so a good three years without a great sci-fi RTS. SupCom 2 is set 25 years after the original game, and features a ton of new units, maps and campaign missions, in addition to a much more streamlined game engine.

It’s no secret that Modern Warfare 2 was going to move a lot of dough for Activision, but how much? Well, $550 million, that’s how much, according to the publisher. The game has now sold almost 10 million copies, and has generated over half a billion dollars in revenue in the first five days of its release. While you’re crunching over those number, you can check out our Modern Warfare 2 review.

The latest PS3 firmware update, 3.10, finally adds Facebook support to the console, which includes automatic trophy and purchase updates, which will be posted to your Facebook status (if you want to share that kind of info). Facebook (and Twitter) has been available on the Xbox 360 for a while now, and Sony is looking to add full Twitter support to the PS3 very soon.

Square Enix Europe, formerly Eidos, has announced that Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days will appear in 2010. The IO Interactive developed game continues the story of Kane and Lynch, one killer, one mental patient, who are on the run from the law (and many others). A movie has recently been green lit, starring none other than Bruce Willis as Kane.

There was understandable outrage when Valve announced a sequel to Left 4 Dead, to be released only a year after the original game, giving a hint that it might be a yearly series, something very untrue to the Valve spirit (which is quite the opposite: quality delays). Is there merit to the criticism and concerns? Has Left 4 Dead 2 too little to offer compared to last year? In short, yes, in long: yes, but it’s still a heck of a lot of fun.

The story in Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D 2) followed the same type of story and gameplay as its predecessor, the main campaign follows four survivors, played via online co-op with three other players, where the point is to escape through a maze and myriad of zombies of all kinds. It’s a style of gameplay where teamwork absolutely counts, in L4D 2, it counts even more. Don’t even think about going solo — you’ll be picked to your bones very quickly. The new campaign follows four new survivors, this time they seem to be more varied with better personality, however the AI is still lacking a bit behind, where they’ll often run in front of you, despite that it’s very clear that you’re shooting a very big gun right next to them. But this, of course, is gone when you play co-op — which you should, that’s the whole point, anyways. Read the rest of our Left 4 Dead 2 review

While we wait for Nvidia’s next gen chip, codenamed “Fermi”, the company has followed its old style of re-branding and re-releasing old chips. Well, not quite this time, as the new GT 240 chip is still the same technology, but is built on 40nm process and includes DirectX 10.1 support — at a time where the big deal is DirectX 11.

The new graphics card is mainstream oriented, and should offer decent performance and low power consumption, at a decent price. The chip is outfitted with 96 stream processors clocked at 1360MHz, while the graphics core runs at 550MHz, with idle power load at just 9W. It’ll retail later this week for $99.

The infamous Modern Warfare 2 airport mission “No Russian”, all 5 minutes of it, has apparently been cut in the Russian version of the game, in fear of sparking outrage in the country, but, more importantly for Activision, it could result in a ban. The mission, where the player basically mows down Russian civilians at an airport, has already been altered for the German public, where if you shoot any civilians, it’s game over. Which means that pretty much means the mission is useless in that case.