Saints Row 2

While this isn't a full review yet, let it be known that if you have a console you should be playing Saints Row 2 right now. If there's one thing I know it is the mindset of gamers and most gamers want to be tough guy jerks where their actions result in little or no repurcusions from society at large. A game like Saints Row 2 fills that role perfectly. Dress how you want, steal what you want, shoot what you want, and perform brutal and sadistic acts of violence that if done in real life would make the Klan or Al-Qaeda cringe. This game knows exactly what its target audience wants and provides it to them perfectly. It is easily the best game I've played since Knights of the Old Republic.

Robocop

Robocop is the best movie from the 80s and someone went off and made a rap about it that is surprisingly well done.

Godfather II.. are they listening to me?

No developers probably don't listen to me but I'd like to think that. The most recent interview for the game Godfather II is out and it sounds like they are doing something that I suggested should have been done in the first game. In particular, the fact that as a rising Don you actually get to manage your family rather than having to partake in every single mission. As I stated in my review:

"As you rise in the ranks of the family you find yourself continually going back to the storefronts for extortion or personally handling the knockdown of warehouses or other families. I would ask though, why? If you get to a high enough point in the family shouldn't you be able to direct others to do the actual dirty work?

Oh sure, you'd have to slap a few people around from time to time to keep your street cred, but instead of making it a "you against the entire mob world" (resulting in the aforementioned huge body count) why not put in some form of an overarching strategy system which allows you to hire your own personal goonsquad.

Take that a step further and it could also allow you to personally command those goons and thugs at a tactical level (think Ghost Recon but for mobsters). I mean did Tesio or Clemenza personally pull the trigger on some mom and pop store for loose change? No, they sent their minions to do it. Sure, Clemenza took care of the head of the Barzini family right at the end of the movie himself but surely lesser jobs can be handled by sub-ordinates."

Now in this preview for Godfather II the developer guy states:

First, we wanted to allow you to build your own family from the ground up. Over the course of the single-player campaign you’ll recruit all of your own Made, spend money on upgrading their skills, promote them, equip them, change their outfits- even make them “sleep with the fishes” if you need to open up a new slot.

Beyond building the family, we also wanted you to actually be in charge of them. You’ll choose how and when to use your Made Men, either by commanding them directly in battle as part of your crew, or doing jobs for you in another part of the world- bombing rival family rackets, attacking their businesses, or defending your own.

And finally, you’ll manage their own criminal empire using the Don’s View – a 3D representation of all three cities showing the status of all the crime rings, all the battles in progress, and the locations of your jobs and contacts. You’ll actively decide which crime rings to go after, hire guards for your critical rackets, deploy your Made Men, and place hits on the rival families.

Sounds like the same thing to me. I'm glad to see the developers are taking this in the right direction. The real problem will be is if they over extend this "control the family" angle to Total War proportions of management. That goes well beyond the boundaries of sanity.