14 DAY TRIAL // Florian Totu: We're seven days away from Christmas and I couldn't care less. The Team Fortress 2 War update has gotten my blood boiling, and there's no quelling it. It has nothing to do with the outcome of War, or my favoring one class over the other and ending up disappointed. It's just that this has generated such a huge amount of hype for me, that I can't contain myself. I haven't played TF2 in ages, but I plan to get right back at it and get out when my fingers bleed.
Valve has managed to create something truly unique with this update. Online games don't really get huge patches and major changes, except for MMORPGs, and, even if they do, they never get this much work put into them. And, even if it may sound shallow, the biggest thing about this update was the way it was advertised. The witty idea it got behind the update, as well as the entire story it put together to go with it show just how important it is to do something from top to bottom.
While some may see this as nothing but a gimmick, they need to see that the simple fact that they know about the War update, and just how much they know about it, proves that it was a great idea. Valve has really managed to do something unquestionably brilliant, and we can only hope other developers learn from this.
Andrei Dumitrescu: With Christmas approaching fast and with less time for gaming as the preparations get more intense, I plan to spend the part of this weekend that I can playing Europa Universalis III from Paradox Interactive. The game received a new expansion a few days ago, called Heir to the Throne, which significantly enhances the options available in it. You can control almost any nation throughout the Middle Ages, but, now, everyone, even the smallest of minors, has much more options related to how they approach warfare and internal development.
There is also a new system dealing with successions to the throne, which allows for more interesting battles for those countries that do not have clearly defined successors with strong claims to leadership. But the biggest change lies in the new Casus Belli, which allows for some of the wars to be more historically accurate and for games to develop in a more natural manner.