14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: The fall launch season is now in full swing, and somewhat counterintuitively, I have no plans to play any of the big launches of the moment, like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, because I have unfinished business with Total War: Rome II – Emperor Edition.
I have finished the new Imperator Augustus campaign with Lepidus, the clear underdog, and Octavian, the historical favorite, but I seem to be unable to make solid progress with Marc Anthony, mainly because I get caught in long-running wars with Parthia and its allies and I am unable to focus on my wars with the other two members of the Second Triumvirate, and I tend to also fail to help my beloved Cleopatra in Egypt.
When ancient combat gets a little tiring, I plan to engage a little more with Ancient Space, which offers a space-based strategy experience that’s a little too rare in the video game industry at the moment.
Andrei Dobra
This weekend, I'll be doing quite a bit of gaming on the Xbox One, as I'm jumping into Chariot, the new puzzle platformer from indie studio Frima that's just been released on the Microsoft console and is even free for Xbox Live Gold members via Games with Gold.
When I won't be traveling through caves, I'll probably go back to Shadow of Mordor, as I want to have some more adventures in Middle-earth and decimate the Urok ranks by killing captains and warchiefs. Hopefully, I won't die during this process and give them a chance to mount a comeback, but that's the joy of the Nemesis system.
Radu Haulica
As the week draws to a close, all I can think about is that pesky life will encroach on my gaming time once again. This weekend, I intend to dust off Endless Space and give it another go, after toying with Amplitude Studios' latest creation, Endless Legend. Endless Space left its mark on me, being a marriage of minimalistic design and space empire building extravaganza, making me feel things I haven't felt since Master of Orion 2.
Kinky, right? In any case, Master of Orion 2 is the go-to benchmarking tool for appraising any new sci-fi 4x video game, and Endless Space passed the test with flying colors, so I guess it's time to see whether they managed to implement rally points in the interim. I usually play a sort of turtle-savant game, where I try to max my science + economy output while crossing my fingers and hoping not to get invaded, so this time around, I'll try to make the spirit of Attila, Scourge of God, proud of my warmongering attitude.