14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: It's a three-day weekend this time around as we gather around symbols like trees and family in order to celebrate Christmas and this means that, between things like friends, long meals, a few walks in the snow, there will not be too much time for gaming.
But, as I have already detailed in this Weekend Reading piece, I plan to try and introduce my family and some of my non-gamer friends to the miracle of strategy and personal interaction that is Neptune's Pride, a gaming gem which does not require much time or much computing power but does require some serious brain work.
And, if I manage to get actual free time, I will be playing the 1.9 final release of Dune Wars, the excellent mod for Civilization IV that brings a host of factions to life in lore and mechanics, to wash away the regret that even with the most recent released big patch the experience in the fifth installment of the turn based strategy game remains one that is limited by Artificial Intelligence faults.
Andrei Dobra: During the extended Christmas holiday, in-between celebrating all that is good and nice in the world, I'll also be taking down Zombies and saving the Universe, through Left 4 Dead 2 and Mass Effect 2, respectively.
Seeing as how the holidays are about getting people together, I see no better way to celebrate in than by grabbing my Steam friends and going co-operatively against the undead horde in Valve's brilliant first person shooter.
After that, I'll be continuing my playthrough of Mass Effect 2, this time tackling some of the downloadable content released by BioWare and grabbing some new companions before the story missions take over and force me to push the narrative forward.
Overall, in between killing zombies and aliens, this Christmas will be filled with some great experiences.