A Gamer's Week: July 3

It's the start of July and this month is best known in the video game world for offering the last chance for a pause in gaming before the big line ups of the fall season come closer and closer.

But there's no time to rest here at Softpedia as we deliver a review for Duke Nukem Forever and one for Red Faction: Armageddon while also starting a Gamer Diary series about Pro Cycling Manager 2011, linked to the start of the real world Tour de France.

We also have a Weekend Reading piece about how a digital distribution war between Steam and Origin could play out and an EndWeekGame article about our free gaming time.

And, as always, we have a selection of news for the week that passed us by.

On Monday, Epic Games offered information on what unlockable content loyal fans of the long-running series will be able to get in the upcoming Gears of War 3 while a huge amount of hacked Battlefield Heroes accounts were posted by LulzSec just as they announced their retirement.

Tuesday was dominated by news that the big DirectX 11 patch for Crysis 2 on the PC has finally arrived, delivering some high-resolution textures with it, while a new report said that an announcement for the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation should be made in 2012.

On Wednesday, World of Warcraft got another big patch, 4.2, complete with new raids and redesigned content while Naughty Dog acknowledged and then fixed some issues with the Uncharted 3 beta.

On Thursday, Nintendo talked about how the hardcore gaming crowd will be drawn to the new Wii U while the developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 talked about how a steady 60 FPS gives them an advantage over Battlefield 3 from DICE and Electronic Arts.

Friday EA Sports offered some info on new commentary options for FIFA 12 while Dead Rising 2: Off the Record got a launch date.