14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: I am glad that the second part of December is virtually a desert for big video game releases, as this quiet time allows me to go back and enjoy one of my deepest gaming loves, that for Europa Universalis III, the Medieval-based grand strategy title from Paradox Interactive, which has been occupying significant chunks of my playing time ever since it initially came out in 2007.
The nudge which led me back into the loving arms of historical based strategy has been the launch of the Divine Wind expansion for the game, the fourth one for this particular title (which must be some kind of record for the genre).
Divine Wind introduces new content and new gameplay mechanics for the extreme East, specifically Japan and China, but there are also changes made to how building development works, to the inner working of the Holy Roman Empire and to the trade mechanics.
It's a deeply engaging experience that can suck up a lot of time and has a quite steep learning curve, but Europa Universalis III: Divine Wind is the kind of game that can generate internal stories that are more engaging than any sort of developer-built scenario.
Andrei Dobra: This end of the week will see me enjoy two older titles, Mass Effect 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.
I finally completed my playthrough of the original Mass Effect, and imported my save game and character into the second title, so I really feel like my actions actually had an impact on the universe.
It's a bit tricky this time around with the romance options though, as I would like for my character to stay faithful to Liara, but temptations are aplenty in BioWare's beautiful sequel.
I'm pretty interested to see where the story will take my character and, due to the buzz surrounding the recently announced third Mass Effect game, it's safe to say that I can't wait for the end of next year to see how the whole saga will be ended.
If I can resist the temptation of Mass Effect 2, I might jump into Left 4 Dead 2's co-operative mode with a few friends, in order to hunt the Crass Menagerie achievement for the Great Steam Treasure Hunt, as well as have some good, wholesome, zombie-killing fun.