All around the world the Christmas season has traditionally a time of giving. Some give to “Da Family” and others give to friends and acquaintances, but there are some who choose to give to charities to help those who are not as privileged as they are.

This Yuletide Season Zynga has chosen a charity and asked that the members of Mafia Wars help. The charity that they have chosen is called FATEM and is based in Mirebalais, Haiti. The group is dedicated to bringing information technology to the people of Haiti which will help with economic advancement in the area. The group also supports the general education of Haitian children and ensures that these children receive meals that will help them grow and learn.

For you contribution Zynga has chosen to offer a special Limited Edition item that you can use in Mafia Wars at the cost of 25 Godfather Points.

Haitian Drum – 44 Attack – 46 Defense

As Mafia Wars players I can guarantee that none of us know what it is like to go without a meal or live in live in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti is the 7th poorest nation in the world and we have the chance to help Zynga bring needed food and technology to the country.

The cost of the item is 25 Reward Points. Many of us have that many saved up from leveling but using these points will not help the people of Haiti. You can purchase 42 reward points for a measly $7.00, less than most of us pay for a fast food meal. If you can afford it please invest in the future of another country.

Help Zynga change the lives of the children of Haiti if you can.

The year of 2009 is about to come to an end and I for one must say that it has been quite a good year.

Even though Mafia Wars experienced some glitches and hiccups in the later part of the year the folks over at Zynga have done a great job of fixing most of the problems that we have encountered.

The New Year looks like it is going to be a good one as well as far as Mafia Wars goes.

New Years Job

Expect a brand new featured job starting December 28th and continuing through January 4th. According to Zynga “This job will give you even more options than before including choosing different missions with different payouts.”

Bangkok Expansion

Originally the Bangkok Expansion was slated for release during the Christmas holidays but has been pushed back to a January 2010 release. Personally I am happy to see a game provider that is willing to make sure that an expansion is ready instead of pushing it out before it is ready. Bravo Zynga!

Other 2010 Features

Multi-Item Gifting – Zynga will be making it much easier to strengthen your Mafia Wars mafia. This feature will most likely migrate into other games which bear the Zynga brand as well.

Translations – Mafia Wars will become available to many more players throughout the world by offering it in many more languages. Once again I foresee this opening up other games as well.

Robbing – Zynga has heard the voice of its players and will be reintroducing robbing in 2010 with and new format.

Developers Days – This is in my opinion one of the best ways to improve any game. Zynga plans to hold meetings between the development team and player base in order to come up with new ideas.

Beta Testing – It seems that Zynga has decided that do more in the way of beta testing. You can never test enough when putting out a quality product. Everyone needs to keep in mind that even though a product goes through an extensive beta process there will always be the inevitable problems once the product goes live.

Free Stuff – It looks like we will be getting more free stuff in the way of weekly giveaways, rewards, contests, and more. Hey, free stuff is always good.

With 2009 coming to an end very soon I took some time to reflect back upon the year and realized that in the Mafia Wars world 2009 was a good year. We saw many new features and even though some were very good and others not so good, all in all we had fun and it was great. 2010 is almost upon us and I think that it is going to be another great year.

The new Mafia Wars limited time job, The Last Score of 2009. As advertised, there will be 3 different jobs you will have to choose between.

Each time you do a job, you get a little bit of job mastery. I am assuming there will be a nice item available once you reach 100% mastery.

After you do a job one time, you will be locked out either 5 minutes, 4 hours, or 8 hours, depending on which job you picked. After that time has passed, you can collect your reward and choose a different job. Read the rest of this entry

Thanksgiving is a special event at Zynga and they have once again spread the spirit to Mafia Wars. From 12:01 am, Thursday, November 26th through Monday, November 30th at 11:59 pm all jobs and fights have a chance to drop holiday themed items.

Here is a quick list of the items along with their stats.

Weapons

Stuffed Turkey: 19 attack, 25 defense

Mashed Potatoes: 24 attack, 21 defense

Pea Shooter: 26 attack, 12 defense

Cooked Goose: 15 attack, 27 defense

Electric Carving Knife: 34 attack, 10 defense

Armor

Lucky Wishbone: 16 attack, 36 defense

Food Coma: 20 attack, 42 defense

Vchicles:

Gravy Boat: 40 attack, 24 defense

Out of all of these I think that the Food Coma is hilarious. How many times have you eaten Thanksgiving dinner and everyone rushes to the living room to watch football and are sound asleep before the first quarter is over? It was always that way as I grew up and the tradition of “Food Coma” is alive and well still in my family. Oh well I guess that the condition saves us from the boring games that are the usual fare of the Thanksgiving celebration.

Additionally, even if you already have everything, you can get 2 free reward points associated with the event. Every time you get an item you can publish it for your friends to get 2 free reward points.

Yes, the American holiday of Thanksgiving has already arrived in Mafia Wars. While it may not be a four-course meal at your parent’s house with all the fixings, players of the Facebook game can now give Thanksgiving gifts to their mafia. From weapons (Turkey Silencers, Potato Masher or Tomahawk) to a defensive Pigskin Helmet to a Parade Balloon in the shape of a smoking mob boss, there’s something that will fit the tastes of everyone in your mafia.

There are five new Thanksgiving-themed free gifts available for Mafia Wars. Here is the loot list:

Weapons:

Turkey Silence (28 attack, 13 defense)
Tomahawk (23 attack, 19 defense)
Potato Masher (26 attack, 17 defense)

Armor:

Pigskin Helmet (18 attack, 24 defense)

Vehicle:

Parade Balloon (14 attack, 28 defense)