14 DAY TRIAL // Hello and welcome to a new edition of A Gamer's Week, our regular round-up of the most important pieces of news in the gaming industry as well as the most important original features we ran here at the games section of Softpedia.
First up, you can check out the review of the surprisingly interesting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, a magical-themed Gears of War clone that will no doubt delight fans of the book and movie series.
After that, you can enjoy our ongoing Pro Cycling Manager 2011 Tour de France diary series, which continues into some of the most arduous stages of the famous cycling competition, but also check out our quick look at Transformers: Dark of the Moon and kick back with a Weekend Reading piece on the regular summer drought of blockbuster games.
We kick off the weekly recap with Monday, when we saw a pretty serious report appear that said an official announcement of Grand Theft Auto V was just around the corner. What's more, another rumor indicated that Electronic Arts wouldn't be bringing its upcoming Battlefield 3 shooter to Valve's Steam, instead keeping it as an exclusive for its own Origin digital distribution service.
On Tuesday, a pretty big rumor indicated that future PCs that would run Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system might have the possibility of playing Xbox 360 games without the need for an actual console. While that was some pretty serious speculation, the producer of EA Sports' FIFA franchise came with some solid facts about the future of the series, saying that the studio still had plenty of ideas for next year's FIFA 13.
On Wednesday, we found out that Activision is taking some serious precautions with the testing process of the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and has even flew in a team of professional glitch finders in order to inspect the new shooter. The first actual details about Dawn of War III were also posted, saying that the real-time strategy title would let players customize pretty much every aspect of their in-game armies.
Thursday saw Infinity Ward community strategist Robert Bowling detail the rigorous testing process endured by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, promising that the final game will be extremely stable and without any major glitches. Sony also released a formal statement about the new version of its PlayStation 3 console, saying that new owners are going to have to connect it with an HDMI cable to a HDTV if they want to enjoy Blu-ray playback in high definition.
On Friday, Activision finally confirmed an official release date for the Call of Duty: Black Ops Annihilation DLC on the PlayStation 3, as the new map pack is going to be deployed on July 28. This is also the day when the NPD group published its sales data for the month of June. The Xbox 360 once again reigned supreme in terms of consoles, while L.A. Noire dominated the top ten video game chart, followed by Duke Nukem Forever and Infamous 2.