Of course, we should note that this is units shipped, not sold. We won't really know the sales numbers until next month's NPD data comes in. But it's fair to assume Square will be putting at least a few million units into the U.S. retail chains during the month of March, and the Final Fantasy name should have no problem selling most of them. Check out our review and details from the launch party for the anticipated RPG.

That "only" attached to the Z rating has been the source of consternation for many a gamer in Japan. Unlike the ESRB's "Adults Only" rating, CERO's Z seems to be applied almost exclusively based on violence standards -- if there's too much blood, you're out. What's worse, while a Z on the box isn't as bad as an AO rating in America (or being refused classification at all in Australia, effectively banning it from shelves), it essentially means that the game cannot be advertised in any public manner within Japan.

The situation came to a head recently when Sony's God of War III was given a Z, even though the first two games both got D ratings in Japan. Game-store owners were, to say the least, miffed. "[The Z rating] basically means I can engage in no practical advertising," one Tokyo-based store owner blogged last month. "There are no TV ads, no videos playing in the store. The best I can do is put up posters and flyers, but no matter how great the game is, you can't show what makes it fun with still images. Capcom [the publisher of GOW 1 and 2 in Japan] spent all this time building up the brand, and now it's all ruined!"

- Yakuza 4 (9/10/10/9, 38 points): We haven't gotten Yakuza 3 quite yet, but the sequel's already out in Japan, and it's apparently a scorcher.

Everybody loved the new game's multi-viewpoint storyline to bits. "The heroes are packed with personality," one wrote. "Each one has different moves, and it's fun to try exercising all of them during the fights. The story has tons of exciting developments for all four characters, and the way they all tie in together in the final chapter is incredibly hot." Another reviewer called it a shame that series hero Kazuma Kiryu "doesn't get much face time," but "getting the story from four perspectives is fresh and lets you experience the town of Kamurocho in a whole new way."

An early look at EA Sports MMA reveals that Strikeforce will be the main promotion featured in the game. You can compete not only in the Strikeforce hexagonal ring, but also have your fighters pound away at each other in a circle cage or boxing ring.

From the looks of the footage, Hakan appears to be a grappler along the lines of Zangief or Abel. Don't let that mislead you into believing he's just another musclebound clod in impossibly tight shorts, however. What separates this new guy from the rest of the pack are his bright orange, Jersey Shore-esque tan and the almost supernatural amount of... uh... lubrication dripping from his chiseled body.

Yeah, Hakan is one slippery fella. And he takes advantage of his trademark greasiness by sliding all over the ring at lightning speeds. The end result looks to be a fighting style that's just as unique as it is vaguely unsettling.

Final Fantasy XIII Launch Party Photo Gallery

A celebration in San Francisco bringing the cast and creators of Final Fantasy XIII out for the game's launch.

The red carpet entrance to Regency Hall, and the start of the festivities.

The new Exotic Racing Series Pack will be launching next week on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network, and will run you 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00). It includes the Honda NSX and the BMW M1 Procar, among others.

You can find the full list below. The pack will be available March 18.

According to the site, a person suffering from Mapathy "no longer derives pleasure from blowing up people hiding in the cockpit or on top of the crane," and it continues, "More than 20 million people may be at risk for Mapathy." Assuming you haven't already jumped ship to Bad Company 2, those symptoms probably sound all too familiar.

Like pretty much every other imaginary ailment with a marketing budget, however, there is a cure for Mapathy: new maps. And according to the teaser site, that cure is headed for Xbox Live on March 30. Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling assures us that PlayStation 3 and PC users will eventually get their hands on the DLC as well, but that announcement is coming at a later date.

"I certainly did some preliminary pre-production work on Black 2 once we finished Black, the first three or four months," Black said. "I moved on quite quickly after that."

He continued, "A lot of the guys on the team I'm working with here now carried on with that and did a lot of pre-production for about a year or so on Black [2], before that kind of bit the dust."

This new heavy weapon apparently "ionizes targets with a non-visible laser to ready them for a high-voltage electrical attack."

The description continues, "As the lightning-like bolt hits its first target, a sophisticated auto-targeting system paints succeeding targets with the ionization laser, allowing the electricity to take the path of least resistance and arc between them.