Weekend Reading - August 25th

This week's links examine everything from eSports in the Olympics to choosing the best 120mm case fan for your water cooling setup. Here we go:

Games

• Borderlands De-make: http://www.wubwub.eu/demake.php
  Borderlands re-imagined as a sidescroller from the '90s.
• Forbes: Guild Wars 2 Lead Producer Chris Whiteside Doesn't Want To Let The Community Down
  An interview with the lead producer of Guild Wars 2, which launches this Tuesday.
• GameSpy: Darksiders 2 PC Team: Sorry About the Lack of PC Features, We're Looking into a Patch
  Gotta love console ports with little attention paid to the menus and video options.
• Verge/Polygon: 'Grand Theft Auto 5' screenshots focus on transportation
  Speaking of console ports...
• PA Report: Sleeping Dogs proves that an unlikely champion of modern PC games is… Square Enix?
  From bad ports to good ones - Sleeping Dogs is supposed to be pretty solid.
• PA Report: Forge looks like an MMO, plays like a 3rd person shooter, and feels like a MOBA title
  I had never heard of Forge until reading this article, and after playing WoW and HoN it looks pretty interesting from the trailer.
• Verge/Polygon: 'Diablo 3' lead designer addresses flaws with difficulty, Auction House, and item drops
  Jay Wilson apologizes for the Facebook outburst earlier in the week and addresses D3's shortcomings.
• Verge/Polygon: The knife throwing, shark jumping, glider bombing of 'Far Cry 3's' open world
  The original Far Cry was pretty innovative at the time, and while I haven't played the second one, Far Cry 3 sounds pretty cool.
• Kotaku: The Subscription MMO Is Dead
  While Kotaku isn't my favorite, I have to agree with this article.

Hardware, Benchmarking, and Software

• Tom's Guide: 45 Free and Useful Windows Applications
  You've probably already heard of most of these, but there are a few good ones in this list.
• Tom's Guide: Is Your PC Up to Date? Benchmark it with These Programs!
  Another list of apps that's more focused on benchmarking.
• Ars Technica: PC laptop buying guide—back to school edition
  Breaks down what's available in the laptop market both by intended use and price point.
• AnandTech: Choosing the Best 120mm Radiator Fan: Testing Eight Fans with Corsair's H80
  I've never messed around with liquid cooling - something about water and electricity not mixing - but Anand's articles are always interesting reads.
• Verge/Polygon: From Half-Life to Portal: The amazing PC casemods of Gamescom
  Here's another thing I could never do but enjoy reading about.
• Ars Technica: Windows 8's new licenses: simpler, saner, better
  Apparently those "system builder" licenses technically aren't valid for yourself, only a third party - better sell your PC to Grandma for a dollar and buy it back.
• Ars Technica: Our favorite "forgotten tech"—from BeOS to Zip Drives
  I had a Zip Drive back in the day - those expensive disks were like floppies on steroids.

Everything Else

• Various: eSports and the Olympics
  Could we see SC2 or LoL in the Olympics in the future?

• Forbes: League Of Legends And StarCraft II Could Become Olympic Sports As Early As 2020 Summer Games
• Reuters: Videogame players, the next Olympians?

• Verge/Polygon: Announcing 'Press Reset: The story of Polygon'
  From the page: "Polygon and Vox Media are proud to present the teaser trailer for 'Press Reset: The story of Polygon,' a documentary mini-series chronicling the journey to create something new."

Have an interesting link? Share it in the comments.