For many pro athletes, there is nothing like being bestowed the honor of cover athlete for a high-profile sports game. Some fans, however, want their favorite athletes to have nothing to do with box art--particularly that of the popular Madden NFL series. The "Madden curse" is infamous among sports gamers and pro athletes, with several cases of pros having injury-ridden or statistically awful seasons the year they appear on the cover of a Madden NFL game.

Last year's cover athlete, the formerly durable Shaun Alexander, broke his foot and saw his NFL record for rushing touchdowns broken by San Diego's Ladainian Tomlinson after just one year in the record books. The previous year, Donovan McNabb graced the cover of Madden NFL 06 and fought injuries all season long. In the biggest case for the existence of the curse, Falcons quarterback Michael Vick broke his leg in a preseason game shortly after Madden NFL 2004--with Vick on the cover--hit store shelves.

San Diego Chargers fans are now trying to take matters in their own hands. Their cherished runningback, last year's Most Valuable Player Tomlinson, is one of the leading candidates for the cover of Madden NFL 08, and the fans would like nothing more than to see the honor go to someone else.

One man has started the Web site SaveLTFromMadden.com (and an accompanying MySpace page), complete with a crossed-out mock-up of a Madden NFL 08 cover with Tomlinson, in an attempt to keep curses as far away from the athlete as possible. The site's main point is an online petition directed toward Electronic Arts asking the publishing giant to not put Tomlinson on the cover of Madden NFL 08. As of press time, the petition had 606 signatures.

Chargers fans won't have long to wait to see if LT will be tackled with "the curse." EA will unveil the new Madden NFL 08 cover athlete tomorrow night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Libraries are taking the first step to becoming cool. A three-branch public library in Kentucky will add games to its stacks of books and microfiches this month, reports Kentucky's Community Recorder.

Each of the Campbell County Public Library's three branches will carry games for different systems within the next few months. The Fort Thomas branch will host Xbox 360 games, the Newport branch will carry Wii games, and the Cold Spring branch will be stocked with PlayStation 2 games, says the newspaper.

The collection will lead off with about 50 family-friendly titles, such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 and Kingdom Hearts II.

However, don't expect to pick up any of the Grand Theft Auto games at the book barns. "We won't be collecting the violent games with the harsh language," said Dave Anderson, manager of the Cold Spring branch.

Last week, an online petition decrying Capcom's decision to make Devil May Cry 4 a multiplatform game attracted numerous headlines, just as many derisive comments on message boards, and even the attention of the publisher's senior director of strategic planning and research. This week, another petition--one that's actually petitioning a publisher to take specific action--received attention from its target publisher, and might even achieve its goal.

2K's official BioShock site Cult of Rapture was updated earlier today with word of an online petition asking the publisher to put out a collector's edition of Irrational Games' upcoming first-person shooter for both the PC and Xbox 360 worldwide. In the posting, 2K's Elizabeth Tobey informed the masses that if the petition receives 5,000 signatures, she was told the company would indeed make a limited edition of the game. She did not, however, indicate what additional bonuses would be included in the proposed Collector's Edition.

As of press time, the petition had received 2028 signatures.

Ever since Second Life went online in 2003, more and more reports have surfaced of real-world fortunes being made via virtual property sales in the game. Just last November, a language teacher Ailin Graef became a millionaire by selling land plots in the life-sim game via her Wuhan, China, office.

Now, some real real-estate heavyweights are using Second Life to boost their own bottom line. The latest edition of Fortune reports that Coldwell Banker, one of the biggest real estate companies in the US, has opened an office in Second Life. The opening follows a mass purchase by the company of "extensive tracts" of property on the game's main continent. Coldwell Banker has since subdivided it into 520 parcels and tends to offer it at reasonable rates to frugal gamers.

"A small number of land barons mostly control real estate in Second Life, and we thought we could bring real estate to the masses," is what Coldwell Banker senior vice president of marketing Charlie Young told Fortune.

But while Coldwell Banker intends on gleaning some income from its Second Life realty sales, its primary purpose is publicity. "In the end this is about buying and selling homes in the real world," said Young. "We're trying to figure out how to reach what we call the 'new consumer.'" To that end, all income from Second Life sales will be used to buy more land in the game.

SAN FRANCISCO--Shortly before tonight's launch event at the Metreon entertainment complex, God of War II director Cory Barlog conducted a video interview with GameSpot News. During the course of the brief chat, he shed some light on the series spawned by the original God of War, which has sold over 1.67 million copies in the US alone. And even though God of War II isn't on sale until midnight, it is a preordained hit. According to a Sony rep, over 1 million units of the PlayStation 2 game have already been shipped to stores in anticipation of steep demand.

Foremost amongst Barlog's revelations was new information about the God of War PlayStation Portable game, which was initially revealed by a flyer inside boxed retail copies of God of War II. Unlike fellow PSP fantasy-action-adventure Prince of Persia Revelations, which was merely a reworked version of the console title Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Kratos' first portable adventure will feature an original story.

"We're not gonna do a port," emphasized Barlog. "This isn't gonna be God of War I on the PSP, this is gonna be an all new adventure that ties into the overarching story. So if we go on to make a God of War III, the PSP [version] will tie directly into what we're doing in the overall story. ... My big strategy for this entire franchise is that there's never going to be some solo, separated thing. Everything's going to deal with the overall plot."

Hot on the heels of an Entertainment Weekly story saying the God of War movie script has been finished, Barlog confirmed the film was headed into development. However, he was still cautious.

"It's just like every other Hollywood thing, it can be in development," he warned, "But does it make it out development and actually get made into a film? I hope it does."

Luckily, the chances of God of War avoiding development limbo improved significantly this weekend, when the very of God-of-War-esque 300 made a whopping $70 million in three days.

For more video Q&As with leading game luminaries like Cliff Bleszinski, Ray Muzyka, Goichi Suda, and Peter Molyneux, visit SIDEBAR: The GameSpot News Blog.

With the Game Developers Conference winding down on Friday, GameSpot News caught up with Sony's Santa Monica studios creative director David Jaffe for a few quick questions.

Jaffe talked about his passion for working on downloadable games, how he handles the drama surrounding the PlayStation 3, and his participation in this year's Game Design Challenge (which was ultimately won by the Russian designer of Tetris and Hexic, Alexey Pajitnov).

In addition to his entry in the Game Design Challenge, Jaffe was in San Francisco to show off his latest project, the downloadable PS3 game Calling All Cars. For more on the upcoming release, check out GameSpot's hands-on impressions from the show.

Even before Gears of War cleaned up at the 2007 Game Developers Choice Awards its lead designer, Cliff Bleszinski, was in high demand. On Wednesday afternoon, there was a half-hour wait at the Epic Games to speak with the iconoclastic developer. But while it was a hassle to try and get some face time with "Cliffy B," in person he proved an affable fellow--albeit laser-focused on his message.

It being the Game Developers Conference, Bleszinski's message was lock-step in line with that of his employer, Epic Games. The North Carolina-based developer was there hawking the Unreal Engine 3, the toolset with which it made both Gears of War and the forthcoming Unreal Tournament III.

Even though UE3 is licensed by a host of publishers and developers, including Electronic Arts and THQ, Bleszinski and Epic Vice President of Marketing Mark Rein put on a presentation to help sell it. To impress upon attendees that the toolset can do much more than "first person shooters with a lot of metal and stone," they trotted out Monster Madness, an bright-colored, Smash TV-style top-down , UE3-based shooter for the Xbox 360.

Following the presentation and the aforementioned wait, Bleszinski sat down with GameSpot's Tor Thorsen to talk about Gears updates, UE3, and more.

There's an Xbox 360 game on the horizon that is about to cripple the workforce of the US. That game is Mass Effect, the latest role-playing game from BioWare.

Due out sometime this year with a main storyline that will eat up about 40 hours of gaming (not to mention the additional time spent on side quests and space exploration), many a gamer will become engrossed in its cinematic presentation and science fiction storyline.

GameSpot News' Tor Thorsen caught up with BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to talk about their schedule for GDC as well as the latest on Mass Effect.

If you are a fan of Master Chief, you owe a lot to one Alex Seropian. Seropian co-founded Bungie Software and was instrumental in the creation of Halo: Combat Evolved--a franchise which has gone on to become one of the most successful in game history.

Seropian isn't a one-trick pony, however. The affable game developer has gone on to found a new company, Wideload Games, which released Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse and will release the upcoming Hail to the Chimp with upstart publisher Gamecock.

GameSpot News caught up with Seropian on the eve of the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and asked him about future Wideload projects, how Halo has helped (or hurt) his career, and why on Earth he would enter the next-generation of consoles with a party game featuring anthropomorphic animals.