Clippings: Belisarius, Dolphins, and Woolly Dinos

Big week in strategy game news – CA has announced The Last Roman, the first add-on campaign for Total War: Attila. TLR will cover Justinian and Belisarius’ attempt to reconquer the West; here is the announcement video (complete with developer interviews) and here is Rob Zacny’s summary.

Meanwhile, a new round of Hearts of Iron IV previews is up; Three Moves Ahead has a detailed discussion; and quill18 has posted almost 30 minutes of gameplay footage. My take-aways are: (1) the current (alpha) build needs a lot more work; (2) beneath the glitches, there is a lot of potential; and (3) I’m glad the game has been postponed until 2016.

In other news:

• PC Gamer visits a three-floor electronic mall in Taipei. Taipei’s not the only Asian city with similar attractions; any tech/PC/gadget lover passing through Kuala Lumpur should drop by Low Yat Plaza, which contains seven floors of goodies.
• The Flare Path has a fascinating piece on the first flight simulators, created in the late 1920s!
• PCInvasion interviews the developers of Expeditions: Viking.
• The Playstation Blog outlines Wattam, the upcoming game from the creator of Katamari Damacy.
• USGamer previews Abzu, a very pretty (seriously, check out the official website) underwater exploration game.
• Finally, here is an adorable trailer for Yoshi’s Woolly World (h/t frogbeastegg). So cute! And there’s a “mellow mode” for platformer-challenged players, such as me!