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If there's one thing this trailer for the upcoming Prince of Persia movie shows, it's that maybe video game adaptations haven't sucked because they had the wrong people. Maybe they sucked because they never had this kind of money.

To: Luke
From: Owen

What the headline said. Though I will add that Jim McMahon's appearance in the Super Bowl Shuffle spoof ad for Boost Mobile got the first big laugh out of me for this year's ad slate.

This weekend's highlights:
Kotaku 'Shop Contest: Proto-Natal Edition
Unsurprisingly, Dante's Inferno Not Available in Middle East
DLC Removal Threatens Halo 2 Farewell
Stick Jockey's Super Sim Spectacular
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Will Feature WWII Level
BioWare Responds to Self-Censorship Charge on Mass Effect 2 Sex

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Modern Warfare 2's "Care Package" patch already has released for PS3 and PC; via Twitter, Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling says it was submitted on Friday to Microsoft for certification on the Xbox 360.

The fixes and changes this patch will provide:

• Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized.
Fix for "infinite care package" exploit.

• Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry.

• Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s.

• Fixes to prevent various XP hacks.

No specific date was announced, but Bowling said it won't be much longer until the glitch this solves is "a thing of the past"

Modern Warfare 2 Care Package Patch Sent to MS for Certification [VG247]

I've never been a fan of the football. But I still watch the Super Bowl every year. Why? The commercials.

If you're like me, than feel free to hang out in here and talk about them.

EA Sports is mighty proud that its Madden NFL simulation has correctly predicted the Super Bowl winner all but one time since it's run the promotion. But how did its predictions for the season, made back in August, turn out?

To recap: On Aug. 4, a full month before the first regular-season kickoff, EA announced the division winners, playoff teams, MVP and all-Pro selections returned by a simulation using Madden NFL 10. Granted, this was before the preseason even kicked off - before Brett Favre announced his return to Minnesota, which absolutely changed the NFC dynamic. Still, let's grade how they did.

The Madden sim accurately named just three of eight divisional winners and one of four wild card participants. Overall, it did get seven of the 12 playoff participants. And none of its playoff team predictions finished worse than .500. Given how the year started for the Titans and Panthers and how it ended for the Steelers and Giants, that's actually pretty good.

EA Sports said the AFC division winners would be New England, Pittsburgh, Tennessee and San Diego. Only New England and San Diego panned out. EA Sports said the NFC division winners would be Philadelphia, Arizona, Atlanta and Chicago. Just Arizona won its division, although Philadelphia made the postseason as a wildcard.

For the wildcard teams, EA said Indianapolis and Baltimore would get bids in the AFC. Both did visit the playoffs, but Indianapolis won its division with a 13-3 record. In the NFC, the Madden simulation said New York and Carolina would make the playoffs. Neither did; both finished 8-8.

That means the Madden simulation's division winners' combined, real-life records were six games worse compared with the records of real life division winners in the AFC (42-24 to 47-17). They were 7 1/2 games worse in the NFC (39-27 to 45-18).

Now, for the individual honors. The variables at work here make picking even a majority of actual NFL All-Pro first team selections a real longshot. But Madden only got three out of 25 right - Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson, 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis, and Browns kick returner Josh Cribbs. None of the awards Madden picked - MVP, Offensive Players and Rookies of the Year, Coach of the Year, etc. - came true.

What does this tell us? Dunno. The game's on. But it's one thing to simulate one game between two teams of 50 players and make five correct predictions in six years. Quite another to simulate a few hundred football games and thousands of events and come up with anything close to reality. It's probably an unreasonable expectation, especially considering how the rosters vary over the season.

So with that, enjoy Super Bowl XLIV, and feel free to talk about it in the comments here.

And, apropos of nothing, on Friday Luke and I were talking about Rules We'd Like to See Added to the NFL. Being that he's an Australian who enjoys American football, he's got a pretty smart perspective on this sort of thing. I said I wanted to see a rule where a punting team that catches its own punt on the fly is awarded a free kick from placement on the spot it is caught - similar to the mark in Aussie rules. Luke pointed out the total destruction awaiting anyone attempting such a catch, and a fair-catch rule in such an instance would almost defeat the point. It would increase scoring and make the kicking game more relevant, however.

Luke instead said he'd like to see a penalty rule similar to rugby, in that for certain infractions (say, 10 yards or more) the ball is kicked across the sideline in the direction of the offending team's territory and where it goes out of bounds is where play resumes. While pass interference (fresh set of downs, and a spot-of-the-foul placement) is the closest U.S. football comes to this, I like Luke's idea better for adjudicating the game's harsher penalties.

The wait is over for BioShock 2. The viral marketing is over for Dante's Inferno. 2010 gets its first big head-to-head multiplatform release date. Which one (if any) are you picking up?

Star Ocean The Last Hope: International, Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity and Stargate Resistance are other titles highlighting the week. The count: seven for PC, six for DS, four for Wii and 360, three for PS3,

Monday (Feb. 8)
Family Party: 30 Great Games Winter Fun (Wii)
N.E.O. Online (PC)
Star Ocean The Last Hope: International (PS3)

Tuesday (Feb. 9)
Best Friends Tonight (DS)
BioShock 2 (PC, PS3, 360)
Dante's Inferno (PS3, 360)
Rock Blast (Wii)
Scene It? Twilight (DS)
Shiren the Wanderer (Wii)
Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity (PC)
Square Logic (PC)
Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll (Wii)
The Daring Game for Girls (DS)
World Cup Of Pool (DS)

Wednesday (Feb. 10)
Bookworm Adventures (DS)
Darwinia+ (360)
Stargate Resistance (PC)
Windchaser (PC)

Thursday (Feb. 11)
Galcon Fusion (PC)

Friday (Feb. 12)
World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars (360)
Zorro: Quest for Justice (DS)

Each week throws off several new video game lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial. What's better? A list of those. Here's a roundup of the rundowns out there.

•The 50 Greatest Gaming World Records [Games Radar] When I was nine I decided I would set the world record on Atari 2600 Defender. (The reverse in that game was a great way to slow things down when you had too many enemies on your ass. I used it repeatedly.) I rolled the score twice and then realized the polaroids of a screen rolled twice are indistinguishable from ones rolled once. Or even three or eight times. Plus I didn't even know what the record was. So I gave up. That's the only thing keeping me off this list.

•The 25 Worst Video Game Stock Photos [GameSpy] This is a common complaint, and despite that, stock photos of people playing games still suck, if not insult the intelligence. Maybe it's because actually playing a game is just not that dynamic of an activity. GameSpy has 25 of the most egregious depictions.

•10 Games You'll Miss for First-Gen Xbox Live [Technologizer] Luke got this discussion started last week after Microsoft announced it was ending online support for its console. Here's another writer's list. I absolutely forgot about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. I really did enjoy that game. Crecente sent it to me back when I was going through a rough patch in 2005. Very good memories.

•"Sorry, I'm Dead": 30 Most Memorable Video Game Quotes [OC Weekly] Lots of old standbys here, from "A winner is you," to "All your base." While Duke Nukem's kick-ass/chew-bubblegum/out-of-the-latter delivery is indeed iconic, everyone knows Rowdy Roddy Piper said it first in They Live.

•10 Games of the 90s That Have Aged Well [Site] The Kartel started this subject last week with seven games from the 2000s that have aged well. Now they move back a decade, to the 1990s. Counter Strike, Starcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Street Fighter II, all very good choices.

Country fans have already gotten their share of the spotlight in the weekly Rock Band Music Store update, and now it's the metalheads' turn. Joining Megadeth's 1986 album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? this week is the

Sega and Rebellion Developments have assured PS3 gamers that matchmaking issues present in the Aliens vs. Predator multiplayer demo will be fixed soon.

GameStop posted an image of the rear cover for the Final Fantasy XIII case for Xbox 360, and "game content download" is one of the highlighted features. Is this a confirmation of DLC?

Honestly, I'm not sure. (Get a closer, if pixelated, look here) I've emailed a Square Enix rep but it's the weekend. I went back to a few of my most recent cases from 2009 for games that featured DLC. Dragon Age: Origins, Assassin's Creed II, Brütal Legend and Madden NFL 10 all carry the "game content download" designation. (Curiously, Borderlands does not.) That all speaks to a wide range of content.

The last we heard of this, Square Enix was considering DLC but its plans were "unclear." That was as of August. Sounds like things may have cleared up?

Gamestop Unveils Back Of Final Fantasy XIII Case (Xbox 360 Version) [GayGamer.net]