A Gamer's Week: March 7

This week, we've posted both a game diary and a complete review of Dante's Inferno, the videogame from Visceral and Electronic Arts, which aims to take the player to Hell to meet all its wonderful denizens and chat a bit with some famous historical figures. We also have a Weekend Reading piece about how Ubisoft should cut the cost of PC games as it fights piracy and an EndWeekGame segment detailing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Napoleon: Total War.

On Monday, we talked about the expected release date for the Firewalker pack for Mass Effect 2, which is set to arrive at the end of March with a new planetary exploration vehicle and six fresh missions. This just as Blizzard insisted that it still plans to have StarCraft II out before the end of July 2010.

On Tuesday, Sony gave all PlayStation 3 the all clear after the problems that began affecting older consoles two days before. It seems that just the internal clock was to blame and that the issue will not come up again. This just as Nintendo has all but confirmed that it plans to launch a new Zelda Wii game in time for Christmas 2010.

Wednesday was all about the Activision-Infinity Ward scandal, with the publisher saying that Sledgehammer Games, a new studio headed by the people responsible for Dead Space, would be responsible for a new Call of Duty and that a fresh free-to-play MMO based on the franchise would arrive in Asia.

Thursday was about future releases, with Take Two again delaying both Red Dead Redemption, the western, and Mafia II, the crime story, for quite some time. Meanwhile, Square Enix announced that the initial beta stage for Final Fantasy XIV would begin on March 11.

Friday was dominated by new game announcements, with Electronic Arts offering the first details on the second expansion to the Sims 3, which brings greater focus on career options, while Sony and Zipper talked about SOCOM 4, set for the fall, offering the same tactical, realistic combat experience.