14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: This EndWeekGame piece is no limited to just the two days, Saturday and Sunday, that most of us get off work out of the seven that make up a week. I'm going on holiday, which means that I have plans to actually try and catch up to my gaming backlog during the coming week. I plan to begin with some adventure games, the Sam & Max series that has been relaunched by Telltale. I have yet to play through all the games and plan to see whether they are as engaging and funny as reviews suggest. I might also get to grips with some Super Mario Galaxy 2, hoping that it's better than the 2007 adventure. I might even return to Metro 2033, which I abandoned earlier in the year.
And, of course, I plan to push on with playing Pro Cycling Manager 2010, the simulation made by Cyanide, just as the biggest real life cycling event, Le Tour de France, is taking place in real life. When I grow tired of managing breakways and winning mountain stages I also plan on turning to Hearts of Iron 3 – Semper Fi for some more strategic challenges. I might even try a bit of Europa Universalis III with the Heir to the Throne expansion. It's going to be a busy week.
Mihail Cernea: After the Electronic Arts disappointed me by delaying Battlefield 1943 for my platform of choice once again, I have decided to pick the games from the Penumbra series. They have highly recommended by some of my friends so I though it was time to finally give them a try. The combination of stealth action and strong physics based puzzles sounds really great to me and this is the kind of project that could happen only on the PC.
While I played only around 30 minutes of it, I can say that it will be a very scary game. Playing it in well lit room in full daylight with people around, I still started to have quite a strong feeling of fear wandering alone in the darkness. A dying battery in the flashlight, the heavy breathing of the player character whenever a strange noise is heard and the eerie atmosphere across the board collaborate to create quite a nerve wrecking experience.