Weekend Reading: October 13th

Here's some stuff to keep you entertained this weekend.

Games

This week's featured gaming articles include coverage of what's arguably the current most-played game in the world (League of Legends), a couple of high-profile releases from this past week (Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown), and previews of some games on the horizon (Grid 2, Hawken, NFS Most Wanted). I feel like most of these titles are going to end up in my backlog at some point, much to the dismay of my wallet.

• Tom's Guide: 15 Killer Game Demos You Have to Try


• Various: League of Legends Fiasco
  
  • Verge/Polygon: 'League of Legends' developer investigating cheating accusations, changing stage setup
  • Forbes: Internet Meltdown at LoL World Championships Shows eSports Has a Problem
  
  
• Various: Dishonored Coverage
  
  • Forbes: An Interview With The Creators Of 'Dishonored'
  • PA Report: Dishonored is the story of a man, a little girl, and the people he’ll kill to keep her safe
  • RockPaperShotgun: Wot I Think: Dishonored
  
  
• PA Report: XCOM is a gamble on a hardcore genre, and there is more riding on its success than you think


• Joystiq: Grid 2 drives forward years later after tech upgrade


• PlayHawken.com: Announcing the HAWKEN Closed Beta


• Verge/Polygon: 'Need for Speed: Most Wanted' trades in-game rivals for a more human opponent

More links after the jump.

Hardware and Peripherals

Nothing too extremely exciting here. I'm looking forward to the release of Intel's Haswell processors (not that my i5-2500K is anywhere close to needing replacement), though we won't see them hit the market until March or April of next year. The Samsung 840 looks pretty interesting, and SSDs with TLC NAND could provide acceptable performance on the cheap. Finally, while I was surprised to hear that Logitech finally released a mechanical keyboard, I'm not sure it's worthy of a $150 price tag. I don't know if backlighting, a wrist rest, and a numpad is worth an additional 70 bucks beyond the 80 dollars I paid for my CM QuickFire Rapid.

• AnandTech: Samsung SSD 840 (250GB) Review


• TechPowerUp: Intel Readies Nine Socket LGA1150 Desktop Boards for Q2-2013


• AnandTech: Intel's Haswell Architecture Analyzed: Building a New PC and a New Intel


• AnandTech: Logitech G710+ Mechanical Keyboard and G600 MMO Mouse Review

Everything Else

Time for the random stuff. Apparently Steven Strasburg is a fan of eSports. Apparently Sony is suing the actor who played a prominent role in much of their Playstation advertising. Apparently we might see a Battlefield Bad Company TV series. Apparently Blizzard wanted to make a Diablo for the GameBoy.

I'm confused.

• VentureBeat: Sony sues Kevin Butler actor (update: Sony comments)


• Deadline: Fox To Develop Action TV Series Based On Video Game ‘Battlefield: Bad Company’


• USA Today: Stephen Strasburg helps pitch competitive gaming


• PA Report: The power of review scores: how critics have more control over sales than we think


• PA Report: How the Nintendo Wii broke the power of game reviews (before consumers got back in line)


• Ars Technica: Op-ed: Why on-disc downloadable content isn't the crime it's made out to be


• Valve: Valve Playtester Survey


• Joystiq: (Not) Getting noticed on Steam Greenlight: Incredipede's story


• PA Report: We play alone together: Why conventional wisdom about single-player games is wrong


• Ars Technica: Op-Ed: Prepare for Windows 8 induced user rage


• Ars Technica: “Can you fix my Windows 95 computer?”: How to troll a tech support scammer


• Shack News: Author: Blizzard wanted a Diablo for handhelds

Have an interesting link? Share it in the comments.