14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: It's now just a few days until the launch of Civilization V, the turn based strategy game from Jon Shafer, Sid Meier and their team at Firaxis, and while playing the much hated “waiting game” (it disappoints in the history and mechanics department) I will also try to busy myself with some real world titles before next week comes along.
I have reconnected with R.U.S.E., from publisher Ubisoft and developer Eugen Systems, which I thoroughly enjoyed during the beta stage, and I believe that a few more World War II battles with included mind games are in order.
The game manages to really spice things up, especially in the multiplayer section, through the ruse system, and I find that players, especially those with experience coming from the beta, are really good at beating brute force back by clever use of misdirection and false movement.
Apart from the early paratrooper rush, which can become annoying rather quickly, there aren't too many ways to solve a match quickly and I find that as the situation evolves the game becomes even more complex, with more ways that even to mess with the perceptions and assumptions of others.
The problem is that the people playing R.U.S.E. seem to become better by the moment and if I get to a point where I can't win games I will probably abandon it.
When real time World War II is too much for me I plan to return to an older title, Pro Cycling Manager 2010, from Cyanide.
The sports simulation received patch 1.041, which will probably be the last one, and the community has pulled really hard to create a complex mod that changes almost every aspect of the game for the better.
The PCM Daily Expansion Pack can be found here and any cycling lover will love it for the level of detail it offers and for the chance to relive this year's best races and stages.