14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: I cannot yet fully give up Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution although I finished the campaign with two races and played quite a bit of multiplayer with the new standalone expansion.
I still have the Orks to use in all the missions, enjoying their mindless humor and weapon descriptions, and I plan on getting the Imperial Guard hero to at least level 10, seeing how the unlocks progress.
But most of my time will be spent with Dragon Age 2, the new role-playing game from developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts, guiding the destiny of Hawke and hoping that the unreliable narrator technique is used in a surprising manner by the developers.
I've so far played about 8 hours of the game and it's pretty close to the well-known BioWare formula, although the writing is better than average at some points and there are some set piece battles that seem tough and challenging even on Normal difficulty.
And if I have the time I also plan to reinstall the latest Pro Cycling Manager and the all new 2011 PCM daily mod for it and win some races with the new Leopard team.
Andrei Dobra: After a very long wait, I'm finally able to delve into Dragon Age 2 head on and see how BioWare manage to improve on Origins and take the story of the Dragon Age world to a new level.
I'm already rolling two characters, a male mage and a female warrior, but I'm probably going to see the female one to the end and then get back to the mage.
I'm enjoying quite a few pre-order bonuses, which made vanquishing enemies a bit more simple, but the game still has lots of surprises up its sleeve.
I won't finish the game this weekend, as my completionist nature will certainly demand that my character explores every corner of the game world and attempt any sort of quest thrown at it.
So far, I’ve been really impressed with the faster gameplay and the revised interface, and, while it may not resemble Origins, I'm pleased with what BioWare manage to release after just 18 months since the original game.