A Gamer's Week: 4 – 11 April

Since it's the week that follows the Game Developers Conference, some of the headlines came out of that meeting of minds, while others were completely unexpected or unannounced, like the new site for Assassin's Creed 2. Take a look at the most interesting stories of this week.

On Monday, we spotted a trailer for Armored Princess, the expansion for one of the most interesting role playing/turn-based tactical combat games launched last year. It has new monsters, fresh areas and a princess that has grown up and is a fighter now. Oh, and there's also a pet dragon. Meanwhile, Activision reaffirmed its pretensions to the title of Evil Empire of Gaming by announcing that Modern Warfare 2, which is due out in fall, would certainly be the best sold videogame of the year.

Tuesday was dominated by talk related to the new teaser website for Assassin's Creed 2, which is very Michelangelo-oriented, with a small Easter egg added for those with patience and web cameras. The developer also talked about another sequel, Beyond Good & Evil 2, claiming that the game could have been done by now, had it not been for the attention to gameplay and detail given to the title.

Final Fantasy XIII gets a demo this month (don't get too excited, it is only for Japan), so some people had the opportunity to take a look at its combat system that is deemed to be more akin to that of Final Fantasy X than that of FF XII, which is a good thing in our book. After getting annoyed by dog killing in Call of Duty: World at War, PETA is interested in the treatment of seals in World of Warcraft.

Benefiting from the popularity of football these days, owed to the sublime matches of the Champions League, Konami announced that Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 would be coming this fall with a host of improvements. Meanwhile, Creative Assembly said that it planned to finally release a patch for Empire: Total War, dealing with unit balance, gameplay tweaks and naval invasions. Let's hope they get it out before fall.

On Friday, we took another look at Assassin's Creed 2, providing all the details that we had related to the game. In short, it's in Italy, you can swim, there are more weapons and an even deeper mystery. After a long period of silence, we also heard about Borderlands, which is apparently not embracing the cell shaded look and still coming in 2009.

Other than that, be sure to check our reviews section, which is occupied by Vin Diesel this week, and the Weekend Reading piece, which has just come out to satisfy your hunger for more gaming-related stuff.