Week In Review: 01/30

We cover a lot of news every week, so it’s understandable if you missed a couple of interesting stories here and there. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered: From now on I’ll be posting our Week in Review every Saturday, an easy way to catch up on all the events happening in the industry, as well as the insanity happening here at GI. Enjoy!

As always, Monday started with our roundup of all the new games, movies, music and comic books coming out this week. These include Mass Effect 2, MAG, No More Heroes 2 -- let's be honest, you stopped reading after Mass Effect 2, didn't you?

Mass Effect 2 dominated the news this week. We posted our review of it on Tuesday. We liked it -- so much so that we did a special edition podcast devoted to it. We also posted a trailer for the new DLC, which was a little late to the party. But we're not the only ones who liked it, and all the critical praise has been backed up by some impressive sales figures.

But that's not the only sci-fi tale that got some attention this week. Miller spent the week blowing the doors off of Halo: Reach, including a developer commentary, profiles of all the members of Noble Team, a media gallery, and more! Seriously, I'm not kidding: He also detailed the making of our Halo: Reach cover, and discussed the game in a special edition podcast. If that's not enough sci-fi adventure for you, this week's Respec Radio was all about Stark Trek Online!

Enough sci-fi -- let's talk release dates! Lost Planet 2 got one. So did Super Street Fighter IV and God of War III. That's a lot of sequels, but the worst offender with a new release date is Metro 2033. How have they made 2033 Metros already?!

The last release dates get a bit sketchy: Dead Rising 2 is coming in 2010, along with a ridiculous looking movie... A beta for Command & Conquer 4 is also coming "very soon". Finally, a Fallout MMO beta will start in 2012. Wait, what? Isn't that when the world is supposed to end? Sorry Interplay, according to the Mayans we'll already be playing a post apocalyptic massively multiplayer game called "reality."

Speaking of predicting the end of the world (this is by far my best seque yet), Alex Rigopulos said this week that he doesn't think the music game genre is dying off. We also had more news on Green Day Rock Band and some classic Black Sabbath for Guitar Hero, so maybe Rigopulos isn't wrong...

And I'm done with smooth transitions: Konami released an online jigsaw puzzle battle game called Piece Walker. What else is there to say? As for the real "Peace" Walker, it turns out Hideo Kojima had more to do with the development than we thought.

Now let's talk announcements. Capcom announced Monster Hunter Frontier, but a US release hasn't been confirmed. Good news for Tim Turi, though: Mega Man Zero definitely is coming to America. Gearbox also announced new Borderlands DLC, which includes a raised level cap, weapons, and a plot! Actually the press release didn't say anything about a plot, it's just wishful thinking on our part. Borderlands may also be seeing a retail DLC pack too, but it hasn't been confirmed yet. What was confirmed, is that Episodes from Liberty City is now coming to the PS3 and PC -- the PC version will even have some sweet new features.

What's with the uglies? They're from Annette's exclusive look at Bioshock 2's Splicers. All I can say is that first dude's face needs a bra...

Let's erase that horrible image from our minds with something pretty. Like these trailers of Bad Company 2's single and multiplayer. We also reported on some of BC2's new multiplayer modes, but why not just play the demo for yourself?

Still can't stop picturing that guy? Here are two more pretty trailers, one of RE5's revamped Mercenaries Mode, and one of Red Dead Redemption. You can also read Bertz's new hands on impressions of Red Dead too. We also have some slightly less pretty video diaries, one for R.U.S.E. and one for Skate 3.

We've covered a lot so far, but this week's biggest news story was probably Apple's iPad, which Nick gave us his first impressions of. Meanwhile, Adam revealed how PC gamers are getting the shaft from Ubisoft's new DRM scheme.

We're now on the final stretch: Sega announced Mikami's new game, Vanish, Sony announced its motion controller will have 10 games in 2010, and Reiner gave his impressions on the new Assassin's Creed II DLC. Miller also gave his impressions on this week's new downloadable games in Impulse Weekly, including a pool game for the cool kids, and a word game for the nerds...which I played for two hours last night.

And finally, we introduced a new video feature on the site called Replay, where GI staffers relive fond old memories with some of our (and your, if you request them) favorite games. First up was Twisted Metal, which featured a wiener mobile that can only be described as gratuitous. Speaking of gratuitous: Tim Turi wrote another news story about Sonic. Surprise, surprise.

That ends our first installment of Week in Review. Now that you're all caught up on news, why not check out Annette's latest edition of Blog Herding, which compiles all of GI's latest blog posts in one convenient location?