His enemies tremble at the sight of his purple bikini-briefs

For all us schmucks who didn’t get to go to Penny Arcade Expo last weekend (and you may end up thanking yourself, considering apparently there was honest-to-goodness swine flu going around), there have been plenty of sites accomodating enough to give you the low-down on goings on.

Two that caught my eye today are both off Giant Bomb.

The first is a gameplay demo of Mass Effect 2, which on top of looking drop dead gorgeous, seems to have been able to integrate the old and the new quite smoothly.  Community manager Jay Watamaniuk explains all the new features, and covers quite a few questions as the demo works it’s way through.  From the sounds of things, while Shepard’s companions from Mass Effect 1 may not star in the game, they will shape segments of the storyline.  We can only hope it’s better than KoToR 2‘s “Wait, wasn’t Revan a female?” kind of mechanic.  I’m sure it will be, as those bringing forward their games will have a lot to look forward to regarding their previous decisions.

A few of the new biotic and weapon powers get shown off, along with new elements of the conversation mechanic.  Apparently, via the use of a quick-time event, you’ll get a few opportunities to “cut conversations short” with the game’s Interrupt system.  According to Jay, players won’t know for sure in exactly what manner the conversation will be cut short, only that using the system probably lends itself to Renegade style players.  A majority of pistol headshots, would be my guess.

The second trailer that caught my eye was the gameplay demo of Ron Gilbert’s Death Spank.  Billed as a cross between Monkey Island and Diablo, Death Spank is a comic RPG from the father of SCUMM himself, and to hear Hothead Games’ Joel DeYoung tell it, Ron Gilbert went out of his way to be involved in every aspect of the game.

It shows.  The visuals look great, using a rather odd combination of both 2D and 3D artwork.  The dialogue system is classic LucasArts adventure, filled with Gilbert’s sense of humour.  According to the video, there will be more than enough references to previous Gilbert games, but apparently we still won’t find out the secret of Monkey Island.

Also?  Local multiplayer co-op!  Bless you, Hothead!

Both work a look, so check them out (check out Mass Effect 2, check out Death Spank)

A lot of havoc taking place at Penny Arcade Expo this weekend, but amongst it all, apparently we won’t be hearing anything about the third installment of On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness (or so Joystiq reports).

While you think it’d make sense to reveal the next episode’s release date at an expo run by the game’s creators, apparently it’s just not to be.  Apparently no real indication as to when it might be announced either, other than a vague statement by Mike Krahulik:

When you hear the announcement, you’ll be like ‘oooooh.’ It’ll make sense.

-Gabe, placating masses

Oh well, we can only wait it out then.  At least they haven’t forgotten about it completely.  Thanks for the heads up, Joystiq.