14 DAY TRIAL // This week my colleague Andrei Dobra is off on holiday and the review load is a little light, consisting only of: Rise of the Triad, a modern remake of the classic first person shooter with some added features, and Castlestorm, an interesting mix of genres that challenges the player’s expectations.
We also have a solo Weekend Reading feature dealing with the way strategy titles like Company of Heroes 2 pit the player’s expectation of fun against the need to learn a series of gameplay moves to succeed.
We also deliver a Quick Look for Planetary Annihilation, a strategy game that seems a worthy successor to Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander even in its alpha stage.
The EndWeekGame piece talks about what I plan to do with my weekend and the free time that comes along with it.
As always we also have a selection of the most interesting news that has surfaced in the previous week.
On Monday the team at PopCap Games working on Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time offers a new developer diary for the tower defense experience while Disney registers a number of new domains linked to Star Wars: Attack Squadron.
Tuesday Irrational Games announces the first story DLC for BioShock Infinite, which is called Burial at Sea and takes gamers back to Rapture, and a former Diablo developer says that the Auction House has hurt the gameplay of the third games in the series.
Wednesday Eugen Systems announced the free Vox Populi DLC for Wargame AirLand Battle, which includes a number of new maps and units, and Treyarch teases more DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 with some weird letters.
Thursday GTA V received a R18+ racing in Australia and the team at EA Sports revealed an exclusive deal with Liverpool linked to FIFA 14.
On Friday a next gen Tomb Raider was confirmed as being in development by Microsoft while Microsoft confirmed an improvement in the GPU of the Xbox One.
Saturday SOE revealed EverQuest Next, with a host of new features, and the team at The Creative Assembly talked about the AI of Total War: Rome II.