14 DAY TRIAL // Andrei Dumitrescu: Bad rain is predicted for this weekend, the Premier League is on pause for international matches and the cycling season is over, so I have nothing left to do with my weekends but play video games, which seems like a good idea considering the high-profile titles that are arriving week after week.
My main interest is XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the new strategy game from developer Firaxis and publisher 2K Games, which at the moment seems on path to be one of those titles that I will play through a few times with different tactics and overall aims.
The new XCOM cannot be compared with the series that inspired it, but I truly believe that this is the kind of game that will need to be enjoyed even by those players who cannot connect with the genre.
I have so far played single-player XCOM, but I am also planning to jump into one or two multiplayer matches during the weekend and see how I perform against a human opponent.
I am also returning to one of my favorite games from this year, Crusader Kings II, and I plan on sticking with it until the next expansion, which is linked to the Byzantine Empire, comes out in a few weeks or possibly months after that.
I had forgotten just how addictive CK II could be, especially after the first couple of decades passed away, with betrayals, wars, internal politics all competing for my attention and all offering interesting choices and future possibilities.
Both XCOM and Crusader Kings II are strategy games and, as much as I love the genre, it can get tiring and when that happens I plan to move to Dishonored, from Arkane Studios and Bethesda, and see whether this spiritual success to the Thief series is just as challenging and rewarding.