Nook
Eat that, Amazon! Aimed at unseating the Kindle, Barnes & Noble's celebrated eBook reader ups the ante by adding a 3.5-inch color touchscreen LCD that lets you effortlessly browse books by cover photo. While volumes themselves are displayed in grayscale, support for the open ePub format ensures compatibility with thousands of volumes. Better yet, you also get one-million-plus wireless on-demand purchase options (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.), WiFi connectivity, and 2 GB of memory to store your favorite Judy Blume works.
www.barnesandnoble.com / $259
Cirrus 7-Day Weather Forecaster
It's hard enough deciding what to wear-hmm, rock the skimpy miniskirt or those delightful cargo pants-without having to rely on The Weather Channel's dubious wonks. Rather than risk getting rained on playing guessing games, try sneaking a peek at this nifty predictive gizmo instead, which grabs info on impending blizzards and tornadoes for over 150 locations from Accuweather.com. Cheerfully, color-coded signals, text updates and icons convey crucial info at a glance-no PC, Internet connection or hypersensitive old war wounds required.
www.ambientdevices.com / $149.95
Droid
Ballsy ad campaign aside (iDon't really dethrone Apple's category-leading smartphone), let's be honest. There's much to love about this Android 2.0 cellie, the first to truly give Steve Jobs something to sweat about. Thank the slick handset's slide-out QWERTY keyboard, dope 3.7-inch touchscreen and numerous extras from program multitasking to integrated GPS options, a 5MP digital camera and high-speed Web surfing capability. Easy to type, browse the Internet and work on, it's lighter on downloadable applications than we'd like, yet still makes a stunning impression.
www.motorola.com / $199 w/ 2-year contract
Archos 5
Behold the Swiss Army knife of portable media players. Equal parts WiFi-/Bluetooth-ready Internet tablet and mobile multimedia hub, this jack of all trades, master of none outright wows with its extensive list of features. But while extraneous options including GPS navigation, an onboard FM tuner, downloadable Android applications, and Web surfing on a 4.8-inch touchscreen are nice, let's be blunt: it's the basic functions like music and photo playback we most appreciate-especially compatibility with a massive range of video formats.
www.archos.com / $379.99 (32GB), $399.99
(160GB), $499.99 (500GB)
Magic Mouse
Got slapped the last time you gave someone a playful pinch? Try setting your sights a bit lower, if no less easy on the eyes, lover boy, with the world's first multi-touch mouse. While hardly revolutionary in practice, it's still a handy upgrade, letting you tap anywhere to click or move a digit to scroll within a full 360-degree range of movement. Gesture-tracking gimmicks further extend to finger-powered zooming and browsing functions, with the device most useful when shuffling through X-rated photos and websites.
www.apple.com / $69
Bayonetta
Imagine Sarah Palin as a gun-toting witch that's armed to the teeth and out for blood (no big stretch). Congratulations: You've got a good handle on this distinctly Japanese ode to nonstop mayhem, which cements its balletic style with a flair for insanely acrobatic combat moves and ridiculous body-juggling combos. Never mind the chintzy plot or laughable characters. You're here to watch a leather-clad minx do lead-spitting handstands courtesy of foot-mounted firearms, or use guillotines and iron maidens to finish off angelic adversaries in increasingly ludicrous fashion.
www.sega.com / PS3, Xbox 360
Vancouver 2010
Yeah, yeah, we know-Torino 2006 sucked sweaty jock straps, and you could care less about catching speed skating reruns on late-night TV anyway. But like all Olympic-themed outings, as a reflex-intensive, smack-talking arcade gem at heart, this bronze medal winner's worth renting for a weekend, regardless. While the title's repetitious antics won't stay the distance over a long haul, hey . . . It's hard to fault a selection of a dozen-plus carpal tunnel-inducing events (bobsledding, snowboarding, soaring off ski ramps, etc.).
www.sega.com / PS3, Xbox 360
Dark VOID
No need to wonder where your long-promised jetpack future's gotten off to. It's right here in a cheesy, but engaging action-adventure as you fight to save humanity in a parallel universe, flying through the air dueling with extraterrestrial opponents or socking it to them on foot. Introducing the concept of verticality-the need to move and aim upward or downward to survive scenarios and explore attractive futuristic 3D backdrops. It literally adds another dimension to standard exploratory runs and shootouts.
www.capcom.com / PC, PS3, Xbox 360
MX VS. ATV: Reflex
Prefer your off-road racers the way you do women-fast, loose and covered from head to toe in mud? Then prepare for a serious adrenaline rush. While no great advancement over previous editions, the latest simulation to pit bikes vs. buggies scores with a winning combination of destructible terrain, intuitive handling and convincing rider and vehicle physics. So what if depth isn't a strong suit? An emphasis on instant gratification quickly revs up the fun factor, providing hours of down-n-dirty thrills.
www.thq.com / DS, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360
Masseffect2
Controversial sex scene and surrounding scandal-wherein author/radio host Cooper Lawrence admitted she'd not even played the game before publicly attacking it-aside, said galaxy-spanning RPG's predecessor wowed with its gravity and scale. Chronicling hero Commander Shepard's continuing adventures, here, the epic blend of stat-crunching and real-time gunplay tightens controls, adds location-based damage (aim for the nards!), and introduces additional characters with even more complex personalities. A fluid dialogue system and barrage of morally-challenging choices prove singular highlights, promising a monstrously time-consuming saga that's nevertheless out of this world.
www.ea.com / PC, Xbox 360