New game releases of May 27-June 2

What with the holiday and all, here's Release List to start the week. This week brings long-awaited racer Grid 2, intriguing RTS Wargame: Airland Battle, Insomniac's shooter Fuse, the Wii U Virtual Console release of Mega Man X, and more.

Read more: Our full list of next week's new releases »

The classic RTS campaign is a stodgy affair, with mission following mission and maybe a side-mission or two if you're lucky. R.U.S.E. developer Eugen Systems has gone a little more exciting with its next game Wargame: AirLand Battle, using a dynamic campaign where you can hit regions across the campaign map as you please, but each decision has a consequence.

Watch: Political ramifications and bonuses »

Microsoft continues to expand the Halo universe. They just recently announced a Halo TV project with Steven Spielberg for Xbox One, and are planning the next two installments in 343 Industries' Reclaimer Trilogy (i.e Halo 5 and 6). But now we find out about another project called Bootcamp that is unrelated to any of that.

Read more: Halo 3 and PC mentioned »

Weekend. PC games. Download. Cheap. Buy. This weekend's deals include Tomb Raider for $14, Payday for $5, Chivalry for $8, Torchlight II for $10, SimCity for $32, and a lovely bundle of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization IV Complete, and Civ V Gold for $20.

Read more: Our wide selection of this weekend's deals »

Greenheart Games, developer behind the indie title Game Dev Tycoon, enjoyed a burst of publicity after its piracy protection made headlines. That has resulted in some shifting for the studio and feedback on the game, so the studio has outlined its plans for the future.

Read more: Steam Greenlight and going full time »

Things have been awfully quiet from Beamdog after the release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition late last year. We know they are working on DLC for the game, and also a Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced, so we contacted the company to find out just what was going on in the land of Faerun.

"We're hard at work on BG2:EE and it is going well," Beamdog president Trent Oster told Shacknews. "Phil (our design lead) mentioned to me there is over 350,000 words of new content."

Read more: DLC still coming for BG:EE »

It was a murky world, the Parisian nightlife of the 1920s, but sometimes a little shadow can be useful when you're an 8-year-old girl's glamorous imaginary friend. Publisher Focus Home Interactive today announced it's picked up Contrast, a puzzle-platformer where you can shift into shadow to pass obstacles in the unreal world.

Watch: Pretty and puzzling Paris »

In the sports sub-genre of "men hitting each other," you might have noticed Fight Night Series has gone a bit quiet lately. EA Sports head Andrew Wilson says that's because the company has refocused that team towards its recent acquisition of the UFC rights.

Read more: 'Right now, UFC is where our fighting focus is' »

For the sake of full disclosure, I never played the original Sanctum. The 2011 title from Coffee Stain Studios was one of the first games to blend together the tower defense and first-person shooter genres. But you don't need to have a full knowledge of the series to appreciate what the Swedish indie developer has created. Sanctum 2 offers a superb shooting experience, though one that's meant more for friends than solo players.

Read more: More shooter than tower defense »

Most video game special editions range around $100-200 on the high end. Grid 2 developer Codemasters has decided not only to outdo that figure, but to blow it away with a world record that is unlikely to be topped anytime soon. The Grid 2 "Mono Edition," which only goes to a single customer, costs a cool $190,000.

Read more: A race car (with a bonus video game!) »

Jeff Cannata is a man on an island (a Hawaiian one, that is), which leaves host Garnett Lee to captain the S.S. Weekend Confirmed alone. He's joined this week by his hardened crew of "Indie" Jeff Mattas, the Escapist's Andrea Rene, and Double Jump's Christian Spicer. Their destination: The fabled isle of Xbox One. The team discusses Tuesday's reveal event, what we know about the new console, and dive into the pile of unknowns and what-if's. After discussing the hardware, features, and rumors, everyone discusses reader reaction and how the Xbox One will fare against stiff competition from Sony and Nintendo. The show ends with some non-Xbox related Finishing Moves.

Listen: Weekend Confirmed Episode 166 »

Microsoft and Motorola have been continuing to trade legal blows over the last few months, and Microsoft recently scored a victory in the long-running patent war. The International Trade Commission ruled yesterday that the Xbox did not violate Motorola's wireless communications patent.

Read more: 'This is a win for Xbox customers' »

Devolver Digital surprised many with their announcement that they'd be reviving the long-dormant Shadow Warrior franchise. After all, it wasn't the most fondly remembered game, as the 1997 first-person action game was more recognized for racist caricatures and outdated stereotypes. However, Devolver and Hard Reset developer Flying Wild Hog says that their reboot will be a complete reinvention and will start with a clean slate.

"The teams at Flying Wild Hog and Devolver Digital were big fans of the original game," said Devolver Digital's Nigel Lowrie. "It brought some great gameplay innovations and a really unique setting and aesthetic to shooters. We think it would be incredible to reinvent the Shadow Warrior world in a modern arcade-style shooter with some new combat innovations of our own that expand upon what was started in the original game."

Read more: The sharp tongue of Lo Wang »

Call of Duty: Ghosts was the biggest (and one of the only) gaming pitches Microsoft made at its Xbox One announcement. Activision has once again thrown its lot in with Microsoft for exclusive content, and Activision Publishing head Eric Hirshberg has talked about how it plans to leverage some of the console's features.

Read more: 'You're going to see voice integration, voice commands via Kinect' »

When Electronic Arts announced exclusive rights to publish games with the Star Wars license, the news was met with some degree of cautious optimism. EA has taken its licks in recent years, but that could also mean we'd get some games that fans have been asking about for a long time. A new Battlefront game, for example, would carry a lot of weight, and EA CFO Blake Jorgensen recently hinted at just that possibility.

Read more: 'The opportunity to do a new Battlefront is very exciting' »