The three short movies willl focus on the story of Ezio's father, Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, and will be a prelude to the Assassin's Creed II storyline, offering insight into the Assassin's Creed II storyline and characters.

Ubisoft was unclear about how this storyline will fit in with the Playstation Portable's Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, which was said to be the only thing connecting the first console game to the second.

The short films will be discussed later this week during a Comic Con panel.

"Ubisoft has detailed its vision for convergence over the past two years. Now at Comic-Con we are exclusively revealing one of the first building blocks to this strategy with Assassin's Creed: Lineage," said Yannis Mallat. "We'll be discussing the links between the game and the short film series with some of the key players of the project. We are thrilled to be able to share the results of our efforts with the Comic-Con audience."

As always, we'll be hitting up the San Diego Convention Center for this year's Comic-Con, snapping up video game and toy exclusives, then funding our various criminal enterprises with the profits reaped from scalping these trinkets on eBay. Unfortunately, it looks like this will be available for the masses on toysrus.com on July 23rd, so our hording and profiting plan may not work.

The Jazwares urban vinyl (that's the JUVI part) Metal Sonic will set serious Sonic fans back $17.

SDCC Exclusive Metal Sonic JUVI [Plastic & Plush via Destructoid]

BioWare's epic fantasy will be making the rounds at various comic cons and consumer expos across the glob starting in July and ending in early September. Here's the lineup:

July 22-26, San Diego Comic-Con (San Diego, California)
August 13-16, Gen-Con (Indianapolis, Indiana)
August 19-23, GamesCon (Cologne, Germany)
August 28-30, Fan Expo Canada (Toronto, Canada)
September 4-6, Penny Arcade Expo Seattle (Seattle, Washington)

Last year at PAX, there was a pretty spiffy Dragon Age booth set up near the entrance to the exhibit hall. BioWare reps were demoing the game for small groups of 10-20 at a time and giving everyone who got in a lurid orange t-shirt that's probably one of the softest swag shirts I've ever touched. It was probably one of the longer lines I've waited in next to the Fallout 3 hands-on exhibit.

This might be the only chance fans have to actually play the game before it comes out — BioWare hasn't said a word about an XBLA or PSN demo so far — so if you live near any of those venues and really want a look at the game before buying it, go check it out.

BioWare to Unleash Dragon Age: Origins 2009 Summer Tour [IGN]

Seen here in Recon armor and in a lovely "safety orange" paint scheme — no batteries required — the Grifball Spartan also comes with a bomb, Gravity Hammer and sword hilt, perfect for recreating Grifball matches on your living room floor. Only 6000 of these lil' guys will be produced, then sold for $15 at Comic-Con.

Collectors, please note that my fee for picking up extras while at the Con has increased. 2009 pick up rates are now 95% of cost and under no circumstances do I cover VAT fees.

EXCLUSIVE 'HALO' ACTION FIGURE AVAILABLE DURING SAN DIEGO CONVENTION [Spawn.com via Joystiq]

They're also giving away posters! Hopefully, said posters feature Wonder Woman and Sonya Blade for extra poster-kissability. For those who aren't able to make the trek to Comic-Con, perhaps these day old MK vs. DC in-game screenshots will soothe the pain.

Mega Man's plight is very similar to my own. In every Mega Man game, he faces totally insurmountable odds, giant robot armies coming from every which way. that's sorta' like me. As an educator, an artist, a producer, there generally is always an obstacle trying to prevent me from achieving a goal.

Interview with rapper Random [Capcom's Scarlett - Your Girl on the Inside]