Peter Molyneux has issued a warning about this week’s upcoming Fable III reveal:

We’re making some announcements about Fable III and there’s some… Wow, there’s some very, very big things happening in Fable. Bigger than you think. And it’s going to really upset people. I’m really scared when I go out and tell people what it is they’re going to get super pissed off, they really are. But it’s the right thing to do man, I’m sure it’s the right thing to do.

Cel-shaded, perhaps? Only playable with the Natal camera? Download only and split into chapters? Set in World War 2? Let the speculation begin.

UK Charts

It’s the start of a new week, which means a new top 40 chart with new entries to talk about. There’s no less than four this week, EA’s Dante’s Inferno goes in at #4, geek sim Star Trek Online at #11, muddy racer MX vs ATV Reflex at #18 and The Sims 3: Design & High-Tec Stuff at #20.

The top 3 remains unchanged – Mass Effect 2 at the top of the pile followed by Just Dance and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. MAG has dropped from #4 to #7 in its second week of release while Army of Two: The 40th Day has now left the top 10 going from #9 to #14.

Bayonetta and Darksiders seem to both be doing a swift exit – they’re now at #36 and #37 respectively. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the only re-entry of note reappearing at #35. I’m assuming this is because Sainsbury’s are selling it for a stupid £6 – along with some other big name Wii games – in their current entertainment sale.

This Weeks Games

Typical – you spend ages waiting for a decent Wii game and then two come at once. Deep sea diving sim Endless Ocean 2 and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers are two very different games though. Both got good reviews in NGamer Magazine, and are available on Game’s website for £24.99 each.

Now forget all about fish and gender confused characters – Dante’s Inferno is this week’s big release. Even though it’s from the team behind Dead Space, reviews have been mixed – Eurogamer gave it a 6; GamesRadar a 7. EA have kindly put out a PSP version of it too.

Two other multi-format games are also hitting shelves today – movie tie-in Astro Boy: The Videogame and Mx vs ATV Reflex. Reviews of Astro Boy have been very poor (the Wii version is apparently a conversion of the PSP version, of all things) and the DS iteration in particular has been given a right mauling. THQ’s Mx vs ATV Reflex has fared a lot better – the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions have scored highly, although the PSP and DS version aren’t really worth investigating.

There is something worth a look on PSP though: RPG Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days. The first Disgaea has a very strong cult following, plus this sequel is available for a nice £17.99 on Play.com.

Next week: Bioshock 2, Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll, Star Ocean: The Last Hope – International, Phantasy Star 0, Karaoke Revolution, Half-Minute Hero and Reel Fishing: Angler’s Dream.

Ninety nine games for £9.99. Sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? Now what if I told you they were crusty old Commodore 64 games, albeit good ones that people may remember like Bomb Jack, Ghouls & Ghosts and Paperboy? Still interested? Then you’ve probably got a soft spot for all things retro. Which is good.

The Speed Link Competition Pro USB PC joypad – which comes with a disk containing 99 C64 games – is available to pre-order now on Play.com, with a mooted 19th February release date. No drivers are needed, claims the blurb.

There’s a few licensed games on the disk too, such as Gremlins and Thundercats, which makes me wonder how official/legal the contents of the disk are. As such it might be an idea to get your order in now before it gets pulled.

The chaps at GamesRadar have churned out a feature listing 30 PC games that are now legally free to download. There’s some really nice forgotten gems including three Amiga games from Factor 5 (R Type, BC Kid and Katakis) and Core’s Mario Kart-alike BC Racers. There’s also links to free downloads of Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Slug and Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die.

Have a read of the full feature and see if anything takes your fancy.

A new episode of The Simpsons – Million Dollar Maybe – aired on US televisions at the weekend and featured a spoof Nintendo Wii, uncannily named the Funtendo Zii.

Mr. Burns plays what I’m guessing is Zii Sports, and then shoots some Nazis in a generic war game. If you live in the US you can watch the video online on either Hulu or on Fox.

If this piques your interest then you should probably read our history of The Simpsons videogames. Don’t eat a cow, man!

I don’t think I ever finished Alien Hominid and I only got round to downloading Castle Crashers about two months ago, but that doesn’t stop me from being excited about the announcement of The Behemoth’s third Xbox Live Arcade game – Battleblock Theater.

Alien Hominid was a side scrolling shoot’em up; Castle Crashers was a scrolling beat’em up. This looks more like a platformer, but not in the traditional sense – the video shows more than one character on the screen at once and you can use items to progress. During the clip one of the characters pulls a fan out and uses it to blow the other player up to a higher level.

The plot is pleasingly daft too – you find yourself washed up on an island where countless people have been made prisoners and forced to star in a sinister play. There’s something about a giant evil cat, a hat and a green gem too.

More information is going up on The Behemoth’s website over the next few days, so you know where to go if you want any of this to make any sense.

UK Charts

Another dimension, a new galaxy, intergalactic planetary – Mass Effect 2 has gone straight to #1 in the chart pushing Just Dance to #2. Sony’s MAG charges in at #4 while Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars has failed to make the top 40. It does though enter the Wii chart at a respectable #6.

It looks like Bayonetta is already on its way out of the chart, dropping from #14 to #25 this week. Dragon Age: Origins is back in though at #31.

Will Dante’s Inferno – this week’s big release – be able to topple Mass Effect 2? Find out in seven days time.

Codemaster’s GTA-alike Heist – or Hei$t as it’s also known – has been officially canned. It’s not much of a surprise as nothing has been heard about it for ages, although IGN did enquire if it was still coming out in August 2009 and was told that it was still on its way.

“Codemasters is focusing its future portfolio on high quality titles that will, in the majority, be developed and produced by our internal studios” stated Californian-based developers inXile entertainment.

I just had a look on the ‘net and ShopTo.Net, Game and Amazon are still offering it to pre-order. Maybe somebody should tell them?

This Week’s Games

2010 could well be the year of the greatly improved sequel – Army of Two: The 40th Day was better than the first game and Mass Effect 2 – out today on Xbox 360 and PC – has been getting a run of 10/10s. Bioshock 2 is out on 8th February too and previews suggest that it’s even better than the original.

This week isn’t just about superior sequels though – MAG (Massive Action Game) on PlayStation 3 is the first ever console title to let 256 players shoot each other at once. There hasn’t been many reviews yet, but those that have been lucky enough – just two websites so far, according to GameRankings – have given it good reviews.

The same goes for the Wii-exclusive Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars which currently has an impressive average review score of 85%. Dead Rising’s Frank West is in it, so you should probably buy it.

Next week: Mx vs ATV Reflex, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, Endless Ocean 2, Dante’s Inferno and the apparently utterly rubbish Astro Boy.

A few months back gaming sites were suggesting that if anybody was planning to make and release a game on the Xbox Live Indie channel in order to make a bit of cash, they would be better off focusing their talents elsewhere. Not many people were downloading them and Microsoft’s support was poor, it was claimed.

Since then Microsoft have added a new pricing scheme and also included avatar support and a rating system. GamerBytes have done some in-depth research with the programmers themselves, and with these changes now firmly in place they report that there is now plenty of moolah to be made.

The best selling game of 2009 was I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES 1NIT!!!1, which I had a few words to say about back in September. So far it has been downloaded 160,000 times and cashed in around $112,000 (£69,366). For a game coded in somebody’s bedroom, that isn’t bad going. Avatar Drop and RC-AirSim were the second and third best sellers in 2009, netting their creators $81,900 (£50,714) and $129,000 (£79,880) respectively.

You can read their full, and rather interesting, report here .

UK Charts

Raise your hands in the air like you just don’t mind – Just Dance is #1 for the second week running. It’s now the first Ubisoft game since the original Assassin’s Creed to hold onto the top spot for more than one week. The knowledgeable bods at Chart Track also point out that the top 10 chart is made up of games from only three different publishers this week with Nintendo publishing no less than four of them.

Predictably, Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero doesn’t enter the top 40. The best it can do is a #31 placing in the Wii budget chart. Dark Void – also by Capcom – fares better, going in at #33 in the multiformat chart. It’s at #16 in the PlayStation 3 chart and #17 in the Xbox 360 chart. Seeing reviews have mostly been around the 6/10 mark that doesn’t seem too bad to me.