It’s been well over a week now since Mass Effect 2 came out and I still don’t have my copy yet, and as you may have guessed, it’s killing me. I loved the first title and I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel, but a little snafu has kept a review copy out of my hands, at least for now.

I’ve even purposefully kept my eyes off of reviews and articles about the game so I can face it fresh when it finally arrives, but it’s starting to make me a little crazy!

Looking back, I’d love to know how many hours I put into the last game. Probably something I don’t even want to think about, but I’m sure, like a lot of gamers, it would be well over 100 hours since I’ve played through it twice.

The non-gamers out there are probably thinking, ‘What, 100 hours? Are you crazy?’, but there is nothing like a smartly written, brilliantly designed game, and Mass Effect was all that, in spades.

Much like a good pair of jeans, there comes a point every couple of years where you’re better off replacing your computer rather than trying to make it work any longer. Maybe if you’re careful you can hold out a few extra months, but while I’ve had one pair of jeans for close to five years, it’s always a matter of a couple of years for me and my laptops, which get the brunt of my worst computer habits.

I’m currently running my 10″ laptop into the ground, after more than four years of use (epic longevity, by my standards), but I’m long overdue for a replacement. When using the internet is even starting to get slow, you know it’s time.

Considering how many amazing little netbooks there are now, I’m seriously considering picking up something small so I can just write on the go and post anywhere. I’m wondering though if anyone can recommend a system they’ve been using? I have some favorites out there, but I’d really like a few suggestions for people who have actually used some of the new netbooks or small laptops. Only musts for me are that it’s a PC, cheap and cheerful, has a decent battery life for its size, and won’t freeze if I’m multitasking.

Any thoughts?

Spike hosted the 2009 Video Game Awards last night, with the top award for game of the year going to PlayStation’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Since I’m not much of a fan of game awards though, I won’t get much into that.

What I will talk about though are the new game trailers that debuted during the show.

Among the trailers, fans got a sneak peek at Crackdown 2, Medal of Honor, Tron: Evolution, Batman: Arkham Asylum 2, The Force Unleashed 2, and of course, Halo: Reach.

The only real disappointment, at least in my mind, was Tron: Evolution, which looked kind of cheesy and like it was lifting a lot of what we’ve seen from other previous Tron games, including the old arcade titles, without investing a lot of new edge into the concept.

On the bright side though the other trailers were pretty awesome. Here are three of my favorites, and you can also check out the first Halo: Reach trailer on the Bungie.net website.

Five days have passed since Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony went up on Xbox Live, and I’m sorry to say I haven’t had a moment to check out what I’m betting is a damn good game.

Sure, I know I should be impartial before I play anything I’m going to review, but let’s just be honest with ourselves; the first chapter in Grand Theft Auto’s downloadable content (The Lost and Damned) was genius. It was also one of the best add-ons I’ve ever played, and even with the somewhat hefty price tag (it was 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live), it was worth every credit.

If you haven’t heard much, here’s a quick intro: In the latest chapter on the streets of Liberty City you play as Luis Lopez, a local hoodlum who works for nightclub owner Tony “Gay Tony” Prince, a man at odds with the local mafia, and trying to prove his worth.

After the grim antics of the last chapter, The Ballad of Gay Tony promises to be a lot more light-hearted with the action, offering up a lot more in the way of explosions, jokes, and lewd behaviour, over the brooding bits that have come before.

When I can get away from the movie theatres this week, I’ll be sitting down to play the game. Until then, here’s the trailer:

It’s drop day, Halo fans, and if you weren’t lined up to pick up Halo 3: ODST at midnight, chances are you’re still trying to decide how badly you want the game.

While I only just got my own copy today, which means I’m still working on a full review, here’s the official trailer to give you a quick sample of what the game is all about. (You can also find out more on the official Bungie website.)

Halo 3 fans probably don’t need much coaxing, but tomorrow, September 22, Bungie’s Halo 3: ODST makes the drop onto store shelves, and I’m very curious what the response is going to be like.

This is a big franchise for the Xbox 360, with some promise of filling in a few gaps, but after Halo 3 it feels to me like the Nintendo-ification of the franchise – that is, what I consider a pointless retread of gameplay we’ve played before, just to pop out another title with a few new tricks.

Last Thursday I had the chance to check out the game at Microsoft’s PR offices here in Toronto, with a couple of dozen other game journalists, and I will admit that it’s not quite the game I expected. It’s in fact better in a lot of ways.

Playing as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper with the United Nations Space Command, you are a rookie, dubbed “the Rookie” in fact, who is seperated from his team. Stumbling across the now devastated city of New Mombasa, which has just had the snot kicked out of it, you’ll try to reconnect the dots, explaining what happened to your teammates.

The clever part, and this is really a great example of developer Bungie’s work, is that each time you find a clue to what happened to your teammates, you jump back to the battle that tore through the city and replay the moment as that individual.

While the campaign gameplay is fairly short, under five hours, Bungie have also changed things up a bit by putting you in the role of soldiers who are not quite as advanced as the good old Master Chief. You take more damage, and will have to be much more careful since you don’t have the regenerating shield of the Chief either.

The game also comes with a new multiplayer mode dubbed Firefight, where you and a team of three other gamers take on waves of baddies. This is made much more interesting thanks to skulls, which you may recall from the other Halo games, that will randomly activate to handicap your fight in different ways.

Although I’m waiting for my review copy, I’m still on the fence about this title. Halo 3 was by no means a perfect game, but it was a high point for Xbox, and so far I don’t see anything nearly as clever coming out of ODST. That’s by no means definitive, since I’ve only played the game briefly, so stay tuned for a review soon.

In the mean time, what do you think of Halo 3: ODST? Are you excited? Did you get a chance to play it tonight at the Toronto event? Whatever the case, let us know what you think.

Ah, the genius of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation at work in this tepid time of summer when nothing else is out there to review. This week he looks at two “2.5D” (as in dimension) games: ‘Splosion Man for Xbox Live Arcade and Trine for the PlayStation Network.

“You can’t have half a dimension you idiots.”

Zero Punctuation: 2.5D Hoedown

This is a bit late, but it’s so good, I had to pass it along all the same.

On August 5, the British-born Australian-based gaming critic Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, AKA the man behind Zero Punctuation, celebrated his 100th Episode over at Escapist Magazine, and there was much rejoicing.

If you’ve never watched it before, each week in the hilarious, animated videos, Croshaw reviews a new game, bashing any title that just wanders beneath his withering gaze. About the only game I’ve ever heard him praise, from start to finish, would have to be Portal, but frankly that’s his charm. He’s a hard guy to please, and he’s willing to mock some of the worst elements of gaming that seem to make up the backbone of the industry (like the whole “Press X To Not Die”).

I’ll also admit it; I love Croshaw and Zero Punctuation because he hates most of the things I hate, including the crap Nintendo continues to pumps out.

One warning though, Zero Punctuation is most definitely not for kids.

Check out more of the episodes over at Escapist Magazine, and otherwise here’s the 100th episode review of Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood.

(If anyone at Escapist is reading this, yes, a free t-shirt would be nice.)

Finally, after a way-too-long wait, Capcom has some good news for the zombie-killing fanatics out there like me.

According to a Capcom press release today, Dead Rising 2 is already in the works for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC (yet another reason that Macs suck?).

“Dead Rising 2 will take the franchise to a new level of zombie-killing fun with tens of thousands of zombies, the all new gambling paradise of Fortune City to explore and conquer plus a host of new in-game objects that can all be used as deadly weapons to stave off the zombie assault.”

Set a number of years after the events in the first game, where players fought the zombie outbreak in a mall, the sequel is in the hands of Canadian developer Blue Castle Games, under the watchful eye of Capcom and some of the original team.

It can’t come out soon enough. Where’s my chainsaw!?

The LG-GD910, Wrist Watch Phone

While I’m stuck in Toronto, missing out on CES in Las Vegas, there are some pretty cool gadgets being shown off to the assembled media hordes. I’ve seen more press releases about electronics this month than I care to count, but the coolest might be LG’s wrist watch style 3G phone, the LG-GD910.

Check out the sample video below, which shows off the cool, new device.

The size might be both a hindrance, and a blessing, but there’s no denying it, it’s the coolest phone I’ve seen in a long time.