Week In Review: 03/27

This week Nintendo announced a new handheld console straight from the future, while the GI staff went into editorial overdrive with a bunch of exclusive content. It's time for the Week In Review!

Monday's Weekly Roundup highlighted three games that got good reviews: Just Cause 2 (you can check out exclusive and mind-blowing gameplay footage of it here), Red Steel 2, and Cave Story. The Settlers 7: Paths To A Kingdom also came out this week, which we enjoyed as well. Not a bad week for gamers!

In addition to our reviews, we had a bunch of new features this week. Jeff Cork interviewed the creator of Mario, Zelda, and pretty much every other great idea Nintendo has had, Shigeru Miyamoto. Annette interviewed the freaks behind Pokemon – the developers at Game Freak, that is. She also interviewed Rob Kovacs, an NYC pianist who likes Mega Man also as much as Tim Turi, for The[Crafty]Gamer. Then Joe Juba posted the top ten moments of God Of War. I'm still playing the first one, so I didn't even click on it, but I'm sure it's a good read. Miller's Impulse Weekly covered a bunch of new downloadable games, including the aforementioned Cave Story, and Microsoft's Game Room. He also previewed Hydrophobia, and took a look at why we haven't seen any MMOs on the 360.

The word 'hydrophobia' can be broken down into 'hydro,' meaning water, and 'phobia,' meaning 'we're all going to drown when this room fills up!!!'

This week's Replay featured Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, and is the most hilarious Replay yet – perhaps even funnier than the history of Aperture Science that Meagan posted this week as well. Due to the request from some of our readers, Meagan also posted her Zombie flowchart in poster size, so you can adorn your wall with helpful tips for surviving the apocalypse.

Meagan also got a little more serious this week, with her extension of last issue's feature, The Gender Gap. It takes a look at the disparity between male and female protagonists in video games, and features extended insight from the industry's top developers discussing the intricacies of the problem. If that's too highbrow for you, check out this old blog post of mine featuring a game about pooping your pants. Now everybody's happy!

There's really no way of transitioning from pooping your pants, so let's rewind to the Aperture Science feature, because we had two more Portal 2 features this week. Ben interviewed Valve concept artist, Matt Charlesworth, about redesigning Portal's protagonist, and we posted our special edition Portal 2 podcast, which answers some of the questions you asked us about the game.

Meanwhile in our regular podcast, The Game Informer Show, we talked about Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, and some crazy thing called the Nintendo 3DS.  The announcement of the 3DS, a handheld system that will reportedly deliver 3D gaming without the use of special glasses, leads us to two more exclusive features: An editor roundtable discussion on the portable console and 3D gaming in general, and a nostalgic look back at Nintendo's handheld history with examples taken straight from the Game Informer vault. The last console featured in that story is the DSi XL, which we posted our unboxing and first impressions of this week, too. Finally, we started the Sweet 16 round of Mario Madness, and had to cope with a first round loss for Super Mario Bros. 2, and Mario's Picross – which lost to Mario Paint. How does that happen?!

Not even Einstein could figure out this equation

Now let's get down to this week's other news. We gleamed a couple of new Super Mario Galaxy 2 tidbits from our interview with Miyamoto, including the fact that SMG 2 will feature a traditional world map, and started out as Super Mario Galaxy 1.5. He also talked about possible Zelda/Vitality Sensor compatibility.

Like every week, there was more DLC news to report. We learned more about the upcoming Mass Effect 2 DLC (half of which is now out), and we learned some things about Left 4 Dead 2's The Passing DLC, including one terminal announcement about the original cast. The first DLC for Sonic Racing was also announced – hopefully no one will be dying in that, or Tim Turi may give up the will to live.

We also learned some new gameplay details for NCAA Football 11 and Madden NFL 11. Some new screens of Madden surfaced, too. Monster Hunter Tri, Clash Of The Titans, and Splatterhouse also got the still image treatment, and we saw the boxart for Mafia II, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Red Dead Redemption. Red Dead also got a new trailer, as did these other games: The Witcher 2: Assassin's Of Kings; The Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package; 3D Dot Game Heroes; Red Steel 2; LEGO Harry Potter; APB; and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

Mario and Yoshi are best friends forever! And that's all that's going on in this picture...

There comes a time in every story's life when it must forego the comfort of a segue and charge out on its own. For the following stories, that time is now:

The winners of the British Academy Video Game Awards were announced, with Batman: Arkham Asylum winning top honors. Microsoft confirmed the rumor that you'll be able to use USB storage for the Xbox 360, but not so much that it will negate selling standalone 250 GB hard drives. Another rumor suggests that Final Fantasy IX might be coming to PSN. Warner Bros. is opening a new studio that will be devoted to making games starring DC Comics heroes, and there might be a LittleBigPlanet 2 on the way. The hatch from Lost was discovered in Just Cause 2, which is a pretty cool Easter egg, and Netflix is finally showing up on the Wii, which is pretty cool too. Finally, Ubisoft is offering free games to those affected by its DRM problems, and players can get an exclusive gun in Lost Planet 2 just for playing the demo. It's nice to end your week with a bunch of good news, isn't it?

To see what our editors and the community were up to this week, check out Blog Herding. See you next week!