14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: This week, I am still under the spell of the two big strategy releases of the past seven-day period, Hannibal at the Gates for Total War: Rome II and Rajas of India for Crusader Kings II, which will take up all my time for a number of weeks.
The Second Punic War themed campaign extension is well crafted and engaging regardless of faction choice and I am currently trying to find a good way for Syracuse to stay alive, sandwiched as it is between the might of both Rome and Cartage.
I also plan to launch a Cartage campaign using a tougher difficulty and try to once more beat the power of the Roman Republic.
In Rajas of India, I have decided to launch a long-term campaign using the Khazar Khanate, trying to get to the difficult to achieve result of recapturing Jerusalem, while holding on to my provinces on the steppe.
Andrei Dobra: This weekend will be dedicated to Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Deluxe Edition, probably one of the games with the longest name in my library. I missed the title when it appeared on the PS Vita last year, so I want to take advantage of its re-release on the PC to see if the side-scrolling experience lives up to the Arkham name.
When I am not donning my cape as the Dark Knight, I'll probably jump back into Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, as I still have a few characters who've yet to hit level 70 and I want to try out all the new skills and abilities offered by the expansion. So far, I'm still quite fond of my Monk but, thanks to a great build found online, I'm starting to like the Wizard.
Radu Haulica: This weekend, I plan to go to the old-school roots of the role-playing genre in one of its more modern incarnations. The Divinity: Original Sin beta is live on Steam Early Access and my intentions are to snoop around and cause some havoc, attempting to destabilize the de facto order within the game world, as usual.
Divinity: Original Sin is a spiritual successor to the Divinity series, one that allows the developers to freely express their creative drive, as the game was entirely crowdfunded and thus there are no limits imposed by a third party on what the team should do or how fast they should do it.
To say the game is very ambitious would be an understatement, as you can interact with various pieces of the environment, such as electrifying puddles of water or turning them into ice, not to mention bash down locked doors or set wooden chest ablaze in order to get to their yummy contents.
And that is apart from the massive character customization options and the role-playing opportunities and well-written dialogue, which together with the finely crafted visuals make for a truly engrossing experience.
The latest patch upped the game to beta status, which means that a ton of new content has been added, and I haven't played the game in a while now, so my fingers are a bit itchy for the savory experience of murdering some hapless NPCs.