14 DAY TRIAL // Florian Totu: I'm still wrestling with the second playthrough of Mass Effect 2, looking for different choices to make, but today my attention was captivated by a brighter light. Actually, two brighter lights. One of them was the multilayer demo for Rebellion's Aliens vs Predator, which, at a first look, turned out to be an amazing experience, and the second light was Bad Company 2. I know the game isn't out yet, but I managed to squeeze a closed beta key for the PC, and I plan on going wild and seeing what the title has to offer. It's easy to say that I have high expectations of the game, for I'm a Battlefield fan since the first iteration in the series.
Bioshock 2's launch is a few days away, so, yesterday, I reinstalled the original one, but did so to more than just get into the spirit of Rapture. For some reason, the first game never really got to me. There was something about it that just made me want to put it back in the box, find the darkest corner in the house and leave it there. Which was strange, since I didn't really find anything wrong with the title, there was nothing I hated about it. Even so, I never finished it and I really wanted to get through with the first one before I started Bioshock 2. But, with the BC2 beta key obtained and the multiplayer demo for AvP, the chances of me playing Bioshock 1 this weekend are statistically zero.
Andrei Dumitrescu: Having already finished Mass Effect 2 once, I plan on spending most of the weekend going through it again. My first playthrough was that of a completionist: I recruited all characters, chose all the upgrades, made all the right choices to gain the loyalty of my team and then went in and dispatched the Collectors and the puny end-boss without breaking much of a sweat. I finished most of Paragon, but with a healthy dose of Renegade points, mostly from the bad things I chose to do via mouse choices within the dialog.
Now, I plan on having another go at the game, this time as a completely unprepared Shepard. I will probably not reactivate the Geth, I will leave the Krogan in his tank and I will perform only a limited number of loyalty quests, maybe for two characters. I will also decline to update the ship I use and see how that affects the endgame. Doing this will also mean having two nice, complete saves to use when Mass Effect 3 rolls out.