The infamous Madden Curse has been crippling EA's cover stars consistently since John Madden himself stopped appearing on them. Call it coincidence, call it an ancient ju-ju; whatever it is, the evidence of stifling a career is in full swing. Don't believe us? Then check out the poor saps below and then tell us it's all BS. Oh, and for all you non-American Football fans, we've even dug a little deeper into other game franchises and picked out some beauties. What have we missed? Let us know in the comments. Enjoy... ...

What’s the best part of any car race? The mad crazy wrecks. Hockey game? When a 6’5” Czech man-beast levels a lesser player with a right hook. Ultimate fighting? The whole thing. We like seeing people destroy each other; it’s in our blood. Or maybe it’s in their blood, and the way it spills everywhere and inspires unanimous ‘YEAHs from stadiums full of adrenaline junkies too timid to risk their own ...

Our Wii’s just hit puberty! House of the Dead: Overkill splatters onto screens this week, and later next month Sega’s following that up with a brass-knuckled punch from the post-apocalyptic bloodbath, MadWorld. We got to play through the first three levels of our most anticipated Wii game of 2009 and we just had to show you the outright nastiness that’s in store. However, one thing we won’t be spoiling is ...

At any games show there are always a handful of titles that are so impressive they fuel an excitable word-of-mouth buzz that rises above the raucous din of the showfloor. And things at Gamescom are no different. We've seen an absolute ass-load of games since we arrived, but we're only talking obsessively about a select few of them. And after chatting with other show-goers, it's pretty obvious which games have had the most impact and left a ...

As we've pointed out ad nauseam in our coverage of Mafia II this week, the first Mafia set a high bar for storytelling in GTA-style crime games. Assuming it follows through on the standards set by its predecessor, Mafia II will likely be as much about the complex relationships between its deeply flawed criminal leads as it will be about shooting mooks in the face and blowing up storefronts.

To give you an idea of what you can expect from this 1940s-'50s mob drama, here's everything we know about the game's main characters so far: ...