Mass Effect 3 gave me a sad. This is a good thing. You see, BioWare has been up to something with this series (and Dragon Age), something relatively new to video games. Mass Effect 3 has thrilled me with its action-packed, cerebral combat sequences and satisfied my need to tinker with character leveling and squad management. But most of all, it’s thrown around more genuine emotional weight than any video game I’ve played.

Sounds hyperbolic? Allow me to back it up.

Until Hasbro’s mysterious new Nerf guns are announced this summer, we have to bide our time with the few new guns that have come out over the season. Fortunately, one of the new guns is a pretty nice addition to the Nerf arsenal. The Nerf Rayven is one of Hasbro’s two new “Light it Up” blasters (the other, the Lumitron, is basically just a Praxis with no stock). Its big gimmick is that it can charge and fire glow-in-the-dark darts. Its actual advantage is that it’s a solid bullpup semiautomatic carbide Nerf gun that takes magazines.

I don’t care what anyone says (or what that horrible Justin Bieber holiday music video almost did). Steampunk is cool. The aesthetic is fantastically goofy but classy, the ideas are interesting, and the trend calls back to the grandfathers of science fiction, who relied purely on speculation with only the most tenuous links to limit it. Unfortunately, it’s not particularly useful or socially acceptable to wear outside of a convention or awesome theme bar. Until now.

ThinkGeek has once again come through with something strange and awesome with Capt. Jules’ Extra-Ordinary Telescope Ring. It’s a piece of steampunk jewelry. It’s a magnifying glass. It’s a telescope. It’s not a floor wax and a dessert topping. ThinkGeek sent us one to try out. It’s still not very socially acceptable to wear outside of a convention or awesome theme bar, but it’s actually kind of useful.

This might be the most regularly entertaining but utterly useless product I’ve reviewed for this site. ThinkGeek took Star Trek’s door chime intercom and made it a $30 gadget you can hang on your wall. It’s not an intercom or a doorbell or anything really useful like that, but it does make a loud swoosh noise whenever you open or walk through the door next to it. Every time.

If you’re an RPG fan, the Nintendo 3DS finally has a reason to be part of your gear. Well, a specific 3DS reason and not one of the many, many great JRPGs available for the DS. Tales of the Abyss is now on the 3DS, and even though it doesn’t add any content or make use of the 3D well, it’s still a must-have game for any genre fan.

If you haven’t played a Tales game, or only played Vesperia or Phantasia or… well, any of the other Tales games besides Abyss, you’re going to be in for a treat. Tales of the Abyss is as interesting, entertaining, and accessible as its PS2 version, and for this nearly ex-JRPG fan who’s been resigned to mostly obscure NISA and Atlus releases, it’s great to see the classic overworld-scouring, evil-fighting, world-saving action that used to be at the heart of JRPGs.

I like Tekken. I burned through so many quarters playing Tekken 3 at summer computer camp collegiate programming seminar. Tekken hasn’t been on a Nintendo handheld since the Game Boy Advance, and it hasn’t been 3D at all until now. The Nintendo 3DS now has its own Tekken game, Tekken 3D Prime Edition, and fight-to-fight it’s a faithful recreation of the Tekken arcade experience.

Outside of the ring is another story, and a short one at that.

Is it 2005 again? Sony has a new PlayStation handheld out and the launch lineup includes Hot Shots Golf, Wipeout, and Lumines. That’s fine, because Lumines is just short of Puzzle Quest in terms of addictive, you-will-see-the-game-when-you-close-your-eyes puzzle action. Lumines Electronic Symphony is the newest version of the game, and one of the more compelling launch titles for the PlayStation Vita, even if it is the same game you played so many times before.

Lumines Electronic Symphony is a music puzzle game, and like all music games and most puzzle games, that means it’s only a slight step forward in its gameplay made more interesting by new tracks and skins. It’s not a bad thing, but if you were expecting new gameplay mechanics or varied music, you’re going to be disappointed. That said, it’s still as addictive as it was when it first hit the PSP in 2005.

ThinkGeek went through Portal madness over the last year, coming out with a slew of products with Valve based on the game and its sequel. The talking Cave Johnson portrait and talking plush turret have been flying off the shelves like they’ve been coated with propulsion gel, but ThinkGeek was nice enough to send us a PotatOS science kit. It’s pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, like the cake wasn’t, PotatOS is a lie. The secret of the device is that it runs on a CR2032 battery. The potato is just used as a conductor to complete the circuit between the two wires, which results in PotatOS talking. That only makes it slightly less cool from a science perspective, and since with a bent paperclip (or a few wires and a switch from Radio Shack) lets you make a plastic potato hold the device just as well as a real one without it starting to smell funny after a few weeks, it’s a pretty good trade-off. It’s just not a science fair project.

Oh, and the PotatOS kit comes with a science fair backdrop written by the Portal development team, and it’s pretty great. Photos below and a video of everyone’s favorite malicious AI above. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to work on turning a Mr. Potatohead doll into GLaDOS-Borg.

I love Nicolas Cage, especially when he’s completely freaking out. I also love the Crank movies, because watching them feels like completely freaking out. When I heard that Ghost Rider 2 was getting a sequel, I thought it was stupid. Then I heard it was going to be directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the guys who did Crank and Crank 2 (and Gamer, but I’ll forgive them).

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is an awesome movie. It’s not a good movie, but between Nic Cage Nic Cageing as hard as he can and Neveldine and Taylor channeling Sam Raimi, it’s awesome.

Well, against my efforts to break up with Star Wars and avoid MMOs, I’ve started Star Wars: The Old Republic. Star Wars meets World of Warcraft. That can’t possibly be a life-destroying game. I’ve gotten to level 5, so I can’t offer a full, or even remotely thorough review, but I can give my first impressions. No PVP, no advanced classes, no vehicles, just the bare basics of what the game is and how it looks.