video game adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg, shot up an easy win at the box office, even as two of the weekend’s other new releases — The Secret Life of Bees and W. — performed nicely, finishing in line with their respective estimates.

The No. 1 action flick grossed $18 million from Friday through Sunday. Although not quite on par with the debut totals of some other game-based movies, like the most recent Resident Evil films, which blew away more than $23 mil in their premieres, Max Payne’s premiere number is a marked improvement on the first-weekend sums of Wahlberg’s previous two gun-totin’ flicks, last fall’s cop drama We Own the Night ($10.8 mil) and early 2007’s Shooter ($14.5 mil). And here’s another sort of backhanded compliment: It’s a good thing the movie earned as much as it did this weekend, for its lamentable CinemaScore grade of C portends a limited audience in the coming weeks.

The Force has never been with you quite like this.

With a push of a button, Darth Vader’s sinister apprentice can lift a canister and send it careening into a squad of stormtroopers, or rip a Tie fighter from the air and send it spiraling into a tower.

He can even pull down a massive star destroyer and crash it into a planet.

“Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” has quite a bit that fans will find familiar, but it’s the unique ability to manipulate objects and enemies with the Force that makes it a stand-out addition to a long line of entertaining games.

The story for this console-based, third-person actioner begins shortly after Episode III (Revenge of the Sith), then picks up again years later but still prior to Episode IV (Star Wars, or A New Hope, depending on your level of fandom). You play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, Starkiller, as he hunts down remaining Jedi. The tale takes quite a few twists, and adds some nice surprises, so I don’t want to get too into detail.

George Lucas himself had a hand in the game’s story, but I’m not sure how fans would feel about that these days.

Mirror’s Edge is set to have exclusive downloadable content on the PlayStation 3, reports Eurogamer. The game was previously rumored to be a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 3, after a misquote from Sony Europe CEO David Reeves. Publisher Electronic Arts denied the claim, and when Sony chimed in to join on the denial, the company revealed that the PS3 has an exclusive marketing agreement which includes “exclusive downloadable content…offered on the PlayStation Network.”

Details on the content are slim, and it’s entirely possible that Microsoft has a similar deal for its own set of DLC on the Xbox 360. EA tends towards multi-platform releases so as to not play favorites, but the game has generally been demoed on the PlayStation 3 at trade shows. This could end up being Sony’s answer to Microsoft’s exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV DLC.

Quarterback Brett Favre will be available to play as a New York Jet on the day “Madden NFL ‘09” is released next week. We just got word from EA that the game will still ship with Favre on the cover in his old Green Bay Packers uniform, but the following updates will make him a Jet.

Fast work on EA’s part, given that the Favre deal only made the news several hours ago.

Here are the details we got from EA, in the words of a company spokesperson:

**Madden NFL 09 will hit stores on Aug 12 with Brett Favre on the cover in his Green Bay Packers uniform.

**We do not plan to re-issue packaging, but WILL offer a free downloadable cover in the coming days on easports.com featuring Brett Favre in a Jets uniform. Fans can print this new cover out and insert it into the case of Madden NFL 09. Fans can print this new cover out and insert it into the case of Madden NFL 09.

**We’ll have a roster update available on August 11 with Brett Favre on the NY Jets. The game ships with Brett on an all-time greats team, but with the roster update that will be downloadable when product is available at retail, Brett Favre will be the starting QB for the New York Jets. The roster update is not mandatory - unless you are planning an online head to head game, or online league.