14 DAY TRIAL // This week, the review department of Softpedia Games is ready to deliver long-form evaluations for: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, which offers some interesting innovation to the formula of the franchise and some weird accents, South Park Pinball, which is a must-have for all fans of the cartoon series, and Civilization: Beyond Earth, which introduces some very cool ideas to the long-running turn-based strategy series.
We also have a Weekend Reading piece about the coming important Christmas shopping season and the way the video game industry is positioning itself to attract customers and limit the impact of other entertainment products.
An editorial talks about the way we are moving towards a future where services like PlayStation Now and streaming are more important than retail and another one about PC hardware requirements.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel also has a Gamer Diary which focuses on the innovative elements of the series, including Claptrap the Fragtrap as a playable character with some very interesting random skills.
The EndWeekGame article talks about the video games that we plan to make part of the weekend, and we also have a look at the most important pieces of news from the past seven days.
The most important pieces of news of the week
On Monday, information was offered about the way Flying Lotus plans to expand the music station it is running on the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and the PC versions of Grand Theft Auto V, and the team at EA Sports talked about the transfer issues that were affecting the football sim and attracted the attention of scammers.
On Tuesday, Microsoft talked about the firmware update which will arrive on the Xbox One in November and will include more customization options and more integration for Twitter and TV, and we also got a full rundown of the patch notes for the second title update for FIFA 15.
On Wednesday, Rockstar delivered ten new verified jobs for Grand Theft Auto V, which are designed to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of San Andreas on the PlayStation 2, and BioWare introduced a new trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, focused on followers and potential choices.
The following day, Microsoft said that a smaller firmware update would be offered for the Xbox One in December and we explained how to create a custom background for the device.
On Friday, GTA San Andreas was confirmed as coming to the Xbox 360 with a new 720p resolution and Achievements, while Microsoft revealed that it managed to ship just 2.4 million Xbox One devices in three months.
Finally, on Saturday, the opening cinematic was revealed for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Microsoft talked about a major new IP for the Xbox One, and Bungie talked about a new Iron Banner for Destiny with more challenges.