My first inclination was to remove the PC release of Assassin's Creed 2 entirely from The Week Ahead -- to essentially have it stricken from the record. So full is my distaste for the new set of pointless flaming hoops that the misanthropes over at Ubisoft's have erected for us felonious PC users to jump through. But, to deny you the opportunity to not buy Assassin's Creed 2, to attempt to take the decision making process from you, is no better. So, below and here you will find mention of the game's release.

Please do not buy it. And, for the love of God, don't pirate it either.

Besides, there are better things to talk of this week. Even though my weekend saw what is likely the final Red Ring of Death for my launch 360, I find myself rolling with the whole thing pretty well. After all, I'm finally settling into Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII on a PlayStation system just seems right. And, that is my pick for Game of the Week.

Also of note is the expansion to Dawn of War II titled Chaos Rising. DoW2 was one of those games that I always intended to go back and play more of. The right way to describe my time with that game is to say that I dabbled, and this may be the perfect excuse to go back and flesh out my experience.

Find the full list of this week's releases and a few choice upcoming titles below with links to our affiliate partner Amazon.com.

Everyone has their own individual markers of spring that they dream of in the darkest days of winter as the harbinger of warmth and life in bloom. For some here in the interminably cold north it is the arrival of the first Robin of the year, for others the day when the street sweepers begin their annual cleansing of the salt encrusted roads. For me, it is the week when all the baseball games are released.

It's not that I play baseball, in life real or virtual. When it comes to these games, I simply can not discriminate at the plate between errant pitches or strikes, so I simply swing at everything. I once swung, and I swear to God this is true, at the pitcher throwing to first base. Still it's not what the baseball games are that I care about, but what they represent.

Normally the battle between MLB2K10 and The Show is pretty much all we'd have to talk about this week, but 2010 has proven itself to be anything but tepid and predictable. As you sit and wait for Heavy Rain to work on your PS3 again, you might take out your Sony frustrations with some Battlefield Bad Company 2 action -- though, I'd highly recommend you do so on the 360 or PC.

Bad Company 2 gets my nod for Game of the Week. While Supreme Commander 2 is also releasing this week for those of you with a penchant for RTS games who were not absorbed into the Starcraft 2 beta hive mind, a disappointing demo left me cold, and at this time of the year the last thing I want is more cold.

Gamers, the pure-breeds whose genetic memory is not that of the dusty wind skirting a fertile Serengeti plain but Grues and the relative dangers of being eaten by one, have long desired a more homogenized gaming cycle where the best games were not back loaded exclusively into September, October and November. As far as I can tell, 2010 is the pilot for this long desired retail model.

It's the end of February and we have seen no shortage of top-shelf games hitting our wallets week after week, and if you think it's been bad so far then I highly recommend you avoid looking at March's release list. This week is no exception to the rule as the long awaited Pony Friends 2 and Lovely Lisa and Friends come to my trembling saccharine-starved hands. Squeee!

Also, some previously unknown title called Heavy Rain launches on the PS3. While there is nary a friendly barn animal nor precocious preteen to be found in the game's description, it does seem to have some inventive storytelling elements that someone might consider interesting, I suppose. Ah, heck, let's give it Game of the Week on a lark.

It's pretty easy to peg Aliens vs. Predator as Game of the Week, which is exactly what I intend to do. I don't actually know that much about the game going in -- I've been inclined to keep my distance so I don't have to shove it onto an already over full pile.

But, let's talk about Everquest II for a second. Wait. Where are you guys going? This is an MMO that virtually nobody talks about, but honestly which has improved nicely over time, particularly for a more old school crowd.

I am an unabashed solo play kind of guy when it comes to my MuhMOGs, and so this has not proven to be the game for me, because EQ2 does not ask whether you'd like to play with others. It beats you up until you seek the safety of a group, but if you can find the right people to play with then there are some real adventures and challenges to be had. There is a healthy and loyal community of people playing this game who would make the argument that this, not WoW, is the quintessential massively multiplayer game.

EQII's latest expansion, Sentinel's Fate, takes wing this week.

BioShock was a critical darling, mostly because it sat in Ayn Rand's iron lap, so I'm excited to see how its progeny approaches narrative design.

Less exciting is the addition of competitive multiplayer. There's only so much room in the shooter pool for leggy enthusiasm, which is something these people don't seem to understand. In this case it's akin to building a beautiful, delicate garden ecosystem, and then herding a bunch of functionally illiterate cannibals with flamethrowers into its confines. You can't shut these splicers up: they respawn until mom calls them upstairs for dinner.

Still, I'm confident that the single player experience will be hyper-glorious, and will remain so even as the multiplayer servers turn to dust. T-minus six months! For now, though, a very worthy game of the week.

Space MMOs -- the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Startship Hyp3rl33t. Its continuing mission to explore strange new collection quests. To seek out new loot and new instanced missions. To boldly go where about 20,000 people have gone before!

While I am counted among those trying out Star Trek: Online in the pre-order headstart, I am unconvinced that this MMO can be much more than an intriguing distraction. Yes, Star Trek is on a cultural high right now, and a high-profile MMO with starship combat is a welcome change from endless swords and sorcery, which is why I've bothered in the first place. Still, the narrative of the universe alone almost demands a whole new approach to the min/max, loot gathering philosophies of the typical massively multiplayer game.

Fortunately, ST:O has nestled itself into one of the quieter weeks of what's shaping up to be a busy February, and gets my nod for game of the week. Also this week, White Knight Chronicles on the PS3.

A brief thank you goes out to those of you using our Amazon affiliate links to help out the site. We will be adding a coming soon section for those of you using Amazon's preorder service.

Watching the NFC Championship Game last night, I was surprised and somewhat excited to see an extended Mass Effect 2 trailer nestled into that ratings critical -- and certainly hyper expensive -- 2:00 warning commercial slot. As we sat and watched, my wife looked up and said, "that looks good, but I wonder what the game actually looks like in game."

"That is in game," I replied, and at that moment I began to realize how big EA and Bioware expect Mass Effect 2 to be. While I have not always been leading the Bioware bandwagon, is there a developer putting out bigger games that consistently get attention? Assuming ME2 doesn't tank, this could be two monster hits for one company in a handful of months. Imagine, for a moment, the manpower, the effort, the diligence and the resources it would take to co-develop Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age at the same time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Bioware may or may not be putting out the best video games on the market, but they are without question the best managed development house in the business. Being successful has a lot to do with the guys upstairs making the right decisions and keeping the ship upright and sailing straight through an endless storm. The Doctors, Ray and Greg, are up there with Valve in my opinion from a pure leadership perspective.

While Mass Effect 2 is an easy game of the week for me, I had to double check this week's release of No More Heroes 2 on the Wii. Am I crazy or did that one sneak in out of nowhere?

If you've been anxiously waiting all morning for The Week Ahead so you can finally know what to spend your precious ducats upon, then prepare to be disappointed. Unless you've been aching to get some mediocre jet pack action under your belt, your bank account is safe for at least one more week.

As you may have seen last week, I'm actually playing Star Trek: Online's beta rather than any current release, and while I still can't endorse the game as a day one purchase for the general population, I'm actually having what I would term as "intermittent fun" with it. If my fun were to be quantified as windshield wipers, I'd be on the setting just next to low. That sounds bad, but there's promise in there. I'll probably be talking a little more about the space combat, which is really where the game shines later this week, but for now just know that it's potentially a highlight.

The same, apparently, can not be said about Dark Void's jetpacking fun, or rather lack of fun. Initial reviews are not stellar, which is why despite being released on just about everything I'm instead going to give a half-hearted nod to Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

January holds full the promise of some excellent new years gaming, but probably not for this week. With relatively little competition, Army of Two: The 40th Day gets a perfunctory and default nod as game of the week.

It will not, however, actually be my game of the week. I'm still happily ensconced in the offerings of last year, and have taken a renewed interest in Borderlands. Yes, this was a game with a rich foundation of cooperative play, but to be honest it is painfully underrated as a fine single player game. My travails about the desolate realm of Pandora has been a one-man trek, and I don't really feel like I've missed much as a result.

Also on my play list this week, in honor of the ongoing NFL playoffs, is going back to try out the new Ultimate Team additions to Madden, with the caveat that I recognize the add-on as the dirty money grab it is and I absolutely will not spend a dime to get marquee players who can only be used for 10 games. Do you hear that, EA? You can take my time, but you'll never take my Benjamins!

Happy New Year.

If I'd had a clearer head on my shoulder last week, I'd have given game of the week to the monster Steam Sale that enthralled us with rock bottom prices and warehouse savings. Their prices were so low, they must be INSANE!

My impulse buy reflex was kicking in overtime, and I was sorely tempted to spend hundreds of dollars stocking up my PC reservoir for whatever coming apocalypse might have me holed up in a lead-lined vault for a decade or three. As we enter the new year, however, it is time to start looking forward again and realize that some anticipation worthy titles may be right around the proverbial corner.

Baby new year comes out of the gate wielding serious artillery and ready to kick butt with a better than average first week. Among the games, the first true sequel to one of my favorite RPGs, Divine Divinity. However, Divinity II looks on first glance to be a follow-up title in name alone. Initial reaction seems to be sketchy at best, and I'm likely to wait for a little more info before pulling the trigger.

Sharing the spotlight this week, Darksiders looks very promising. A pure action game that puts you into the fire-branded shoes of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, initial reviews are falling over themselves with joy. Add to the mix Bayonetta, and you've got a pretty serious week of gaming -- so I hope you saved those gift cards you received over Christmas, because it's time to spend some money again.

For me, Darksiders comes out of nowhere to take the week away from what had been a long anticipated Divinity II.