EndWeekGame: February 24

Andrei Dumitrescu: I seem to be caught in a Paradox Interactive designed strategy trap that I cannot get out of at the moment, which basically means that I will be sharing my gaming time for the weekend between Crusader Kings II and the A House Divided expansion for Victoria II.

Crusader Kings II is the more interesting of the two projects, both of them developed in-house by the company, mainly because it has a focus that no other strategy game shares. It is more concerned with families and the interplay between various powerful figures than in the actual states, which are flimsy at the moment.

This makes the game much more personal and every decision I make, from imprisoning a traitorous brother to launching an invasion against a cousin from a long-lost branch of the family, is filled with regret and with care for the long-term prospects of our dynasty.

A House Divided is at the other end of the grand strategy spectrum, with powerful nation states that maneuver around the world in order to catch others unaware and basically turn them into colonies, which is as much fun as it sounds.

Andrei Dobra: Even though I said last week that I’d spend some time with games like Alan Wake for the PC or The Darkness II, I ended up going through the multiplayer mode in the Mass Effect 3 demo.

While I was quite skeptical at first in regards to the Galaxy at War cooperative mode from the sci-fi shooter, I ended up loving the multiplayer action after playing several rounds, especially with my engineer character.

Even with complete strangers, the online matches feel great and, if your squadmates at least know what they’re doing, you’ll be in for quite an experience.

In between Mass Effect 3 matches, I hope to squeeze in some time for other activities such as Syndicate, which was just released this week by EA and Starbreeze, and probably Alan Wake on the PC, just to see if it’s worth my full time until the final version of Mass Effect 3 is released.