Mafia Wars 'No Crime Like the Present': Everything you need to know

If you took a look at your Operations today in Mafia Wars, you might have noticed a massive Christmas Tree plopped where your normal group missions should be. Do not be alarmed, this is Zynga's new, elaborate holiday event to ring in Christmas mobster-style, "No Crime Like the Present." In this special, limited time event, players will have to get into the holiday spirit like any self-respecting mafia member would: hoarding and stealing, of course. Mixing a little bit of gifting, stealing and protection, this event is going to take plenty dedication and team work if you want to nab the grand prize weapon: Auld Lang Syne (110 Attack, 135 Defense).

Peek behind the break to get a detailed look at how this huge holiday event works.
Holiday Gifting
Before you do much of anything involving Presents, we recommend getting your tree to the max level as soon as possible for it to hold the maximum amount of Presents: 45. (This becomes vitally important later, trust us.) To make your tree shine brilliantly at Level 5, you will need to collect large amounts of each Decoration: Ornaments, Lights and Candy Canes:

    Level 2: Three of each Decoration (increases capacity to nine)
    Level 3: Four of each Decoration (increases capacity to 18)
    Level 4: Six of each Decoration (increases capacity to 30)
    Level 5: Eight of each Decoration (increases capacity to 45)


That's a total of 21 for each Decoration, which adds up to a grand total of 63 gifted items.Thankfully, you can send these Decorations to your mafia members through the Free Gifts page as well as request them, making the task slightly less tedious. However, what you can send from that page is a Holiday Sack, which may contain one of seven items: any one of the three Decorations, any one of the three Presents or a Lump of Coal. If the person you're sending the Holiday Sack too has already maxed out their Christmas Tree, then that narrows down the possibilities to one of three Presents or the Lump of Coal (a weapon with one Attack and one Defense). After you've decked out the tree with blinding holiday bling, it's time to pilfer those Presents.

Rewards List
This is done exactly how decorating the tree was, but you can send Presents directly from the Christmas Tree menu. When sending or receiving a Gift, you have a random chance at getting or giving either a Blue, Red or Green Gift. This directly effects your chances at winning the 11 available items, most of which have impressive stats, thankfully. While there are five common items that can be found inside any of the three varieties of Presents with lesser stats, there are six items that can only be inside one of the three Presents with numbers that match some Italy-grade items. Here's where you can find the rarer holiday items:

    Blue Gift: Shadow Transporter (77 Attack, 60 Defense); Bengal Tiger (72 Attack, 99 Defense)
    Green Gift: Mobile Garage (55 Attack, 79 Defense); 40mm Bunker Buster (101 Attack, 68 Defense)
    Red Gift: Achilles Salvation (69 Attack, 100 Defense); ET Hybrid (63 Attack, 75 Defense)


However, we don't recommend opening these Presents before New Year's Day. If you can't wait long enough and have the maximum amount of Presents come Jan. 1, you'll receive the grand prize. Unfortunately, that won't be so easy considering anyone can steal Presents from any Christmas Tree. Luckily for you, six friends can be enlisted to protect your Presents with their statistics contributing yours. So, make sure you recruit only your most powerful friends to keep your tree safe.

Tree Robbery
If you want to steal your own Presents, Christmas Trees will randomly appear on the Robbery Page with varying difficulty based on the mobsters protecting it, but you'll always need at least five mafia members and six Stamina to rob one. Also, Zynga added a News Feed to this Operation's home page so you can track who did what to your Presents and retaliate accordingly. With the threat of your precious Presents being stolen, we know where you're going to be this Christmas.

FrontierVille Fanny versus Bess decorations appear; the heat is on

So, which team are you on? In an obvious (and almost painful) nod to Twilight, Zynga has released both the two Mystery Crates found yesterday and a slew of decorations to FrontierVille in honor of a mini-event of sorts. Except instead of sparkly vampires against eternally shirtless werewolves, it's Fanny versus Bess. It's your job to take a side--if you're willing to put some Horseshoes behind your decision.

Here are all the decorations that were added in light of this strange event:

    Bess' Lasso – 4 Horseshoes
    Bess' Diorama – 3,800 coins
    Bess' Flower – 2,850 coins
    Fanny's Desk – 4 Horseshoes
    Fanny's books – 3,800 coins
    Fanny's flowers – 2,850 coins


Luckily, only two of these items cost Horseshoes. While there isn't any major event tied to these decorations, I'd imagine that something much bigger is cooking. A cage fight? A triathlon, perhaps? Well, whatever is, we'll be all over it.

[Source and Image Credit: FrontierVille Info]

Have you picked any of these decorations in the game yet? Which side are you on--Fanny or Bess?

FarmVille: Rio decorations land on the farm for seven days only

    Modern Cottage     Tropical Macaw
Between its very own Angry Birds game and a promotion in FarmVille, you'd think Rio would be done its campaign for exposure, but nay. Just when you though it was over, Zynga has released another set of items to promote the release of the animated cinematic experience. These seven items will be in town for another seven days, so join us behind the break to catch a glimpse at the rest of them and how much they'll cost you.
Beach Ball     Blue Umbrella

    Modern Cottage – 25 Farm Cash
    Tropical Macaw – 15 Farm Cash
    Beach Dog – 250,000 Farm Coins
    Yellow Umbrella – 20,000 Farm Coins
    Red Umbrella – 20,000 Farm Coins
    Blue Umbrella – 20,000 Farm Coins
    Beach Ball – 5,000 Farm Coins


Red Umbrella     Yellow Umbrella
While the most exciting decorations costs Farm Cash, as always, at least the Beach Dog is available for coins albeit a quarter million of them. Either way, make a decision quick on which of the items you'll snag because they're only here until next Tuesday.

[Source and Image Credit: FarmVIlle Freak]

Which of the seven Rio items would you buy? Are you going to see or have already seen Rio? What did you think?