Sunday Almanac: This is the week that will be

“Don’t ever buy knock-off Rogaine, kid.”

What an unexpected blast of releases last week, huh? We’ve got a ton of reviews in the hopper right now: Jacob’s turned in Anomaly Defenders, Alex is working on Banner Saga, Kelsey is on Stalag 17 (remember that one? their website is working now too, by the by), Clancy is doing terrifying experiments on something or other, and I’ve got Card Dungeon and Strategy & Tactics reviews ready to go, with Russian Front not too far behind. Plus — we’ve got a interview with some giants of the gaming industry going up on Tuesday about their next game, which is coming to tablets much, much sooner than some of you might be expecting. Whew. That’s a lotta stuff.

This is probably the last Sunday Almanac for a little while, my friends, so milk all of the lovely linky goodness you can out of this one — print it out and put it up in the dashboard of your Spitfire. I’m getting married in a couple of weeks and will be around sporadically until December, but when I return all tanned and jet-lagged I’ll have a crate or two worth of hyperlinks for you to peruse. Dave and Clancy will be running the show in my absence, but don’t worry. I’ve been programming them for months. Just don’t say “Cochise” around them — that’s the attack word.

Meet me after the jump for links.

• Lego DOOM. It’s the detail on the Cacodemon fireballs that brings a tear to my eye.

• If there’s been a better news headline this year than “US reroutes flights around Alaska beach in attempt to avoid walrus stampede“, I haven’t seen it.

• Wonderful behind-the-scenes view of 80 Days‘ art direction (and Inkle’s process in general) in this Gamasutra post by Joe Humfrey.

• Aretha Franklin still got it, man.

• Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so. In Australia: who fucking knows anymore.

• “Have I benefited from good lighting?” The best light bulb commercial ever made. (via Gus Mastrapa)

• I’m as excited about Civilization: Beyond Earth coming to PC this month as I am about any Firaxis release (i.e. a lot) but Phil has been growing increasing skeptical about it next door at RDBK.

• A truly fantastic interview by PT guest poster Richard Cobbett over at Rock Paper Shotgun with Agustin Cordes about The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the currently Kickstarting title that Cordes says will be the most authentic Lovecraft video game yet.