14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: This weekend can have only one game dominating it: Dragon Age: Origins. The BioWare epic has been downloading for the better part of today and, after messing around with the Character Creator and finishing Dragon Age: Journeys twice, I feel that I am ready to sink about 20 to 30 hours in the coming two days into the role-playing game. I'm pretty sure that the tactical combat and the party-development options alone will keep me up late at night and will give me nice dreams afterwards.
If I need a break (and that is a very big “if”), I think I might actually jump into something like ArmA 2. I found Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising a bit disappointing and the most recent beta patches seem to have fixed, at least on paper, most of the problems that plagued the military shooter when it first came out. The shooting will probably nicely complement the more cerebral nature of Dragon Age: Origins.
Florian Totu: I must confess, I too have been subjugated by Dragon Age: Origins. Last week, it was Borderlands, and now it's this. For two weeks in a row now, all that I've been doing is come home from work only to plant myself in front of the PC and play until things suddenly go dark and I blank out. I need a change of pace, but I don't really see one in sight. After spending four hours in the Dalish ruins so I could finally defeat a few werewolves and ghosts, four hours that were dedicated to the second level of the ruins alone, I really don't see myself stopping. It's not that I'm a sucker for punishment, which I am, it's just that I really want to collect the fruits of my hard labor.
The mystical forest from Neverwinter Nights 1 turned me into a fairytale-forest fanatic. In every single BioWare game that had a forest, regardless of context, I rushed to it in hopes of reliving the experience of the first title. The problem in Dragon Age was that the difficulty of the level was in no way explained, so I ended up facing a challenge well beyond my level. Still, nature has blessed me with an intellect that has an affinity for messing with the AI, so I haven't found a single game in which I can't exploit this skill. Oh, and spoiler alert, Whiterfang is hot. On the other hand, I still have the Ultimate Sith Edition from Star Wars The Force Unleashed lying around, so I might try to give that a spin too, but I'd love to find time for a more rustic R&R, I might even try a bit of reading (haven't done that in a long time).