Getting Caught Up – Daily Dispatch for 2/5/19

Opening/Random Thoughts

Hey friends, happy Tuesday! It’s been an insaaaane few days for me since my last update. This last Saturday night I went out for my birthday with the family, and apparently had a bit too good of a time, because I’ve lost my voice a bit. You’ll be able to hear it on the Genesis Alpha One videos below, especially. This was made worse because on Sunday I recorded ten videos:

• Three for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II to wrap up this week.
• Two for Genesis Alpha One (I’ll explain why only two in a moment)
• Three for Nomads of the Fallen Star

So my voice is pretty much gone. It’ll make for a likely shorter than usual podcast tonight, I can tell you that, because wow, I sound rooooough. Other than that things are just buuuusy, in a good way. It’s always nice to be needed at work, you know? :) We have a lot to go over in this entry, so let’s dive in.

Today’s Video(s)

This week in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II, we begin the Necron campaign, and boy is it fun. I turn off a few things, to make the gameplay more fun, and overall I am having a LOVELY time with this game. Even when I lose, I don’t feel bad, because I feel like I learned how to do better last time. I also like how different the Necrons are from the Imperium. Their ships are faster and stealthier, and have different weapons and abilities, which requires a slightly more finessed approach than the Imperium.

In these first two videos (episodes six and seven so far), we get introduced to the Necrons, and have our first battle with them (which features asteroid rain, which is so cool), and then take over a bunch of systems. It makes for very fun battles! I just need to get better at managing my finances.

In Genesis Alpha One, you’re tasked with commanding a Terran seed ship to find a new home for humanity. You begin with the basics and a small crew, and in time you expand your ship and clone new crewmembers. It’s a lot of fun, but in turn, it’s also very scary, with aliens being beamed onto your ship from debris and attacking you on planets, it just got too creepy/scary for me to play, which is why there are only two entries. It’s a shame, because I REALLY had fun with the tutorial, which wasn’t as creepy for some reason. Different, less creepy aliens I guess. Anyway, it’s great and you should own it.

Today’s News

Now believe it or not, there are about forty news items I’ve saved just since Friday, so we have a lot to cover, so I’m keeping it simple again this time. Here goes!

Releases/Release News

• Idle Space Raider
  
• Wing Commander Arena (in Japan?!)

New Games Discovered

• Eons of War

Development Blogs/Updates

• Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution
• Astrox Imperium
• Between the Stars
• Star Wars Galaxies: Legends
• Reentry
• Infinity: Battlescape
• Eons of War
• Alliance of the Sacred Suns
• Skywanderers
• It’s Not A Moon

Major Patches/Updates

• Star Explorers
• Sunless Skies and another
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II
• Celestial Command
• Stellar Tactics
• Reentry
• Star Traders: Frontiers
• Alliance of the Sacred Suns
• Fleet Star V
• Allspace
• Galactic Crew

Minor Patches/Updates

• ΔV: Rings of Saturn and another
• Void Destroyer 2
• Quantum Covenant
• Arc Savior
• Worbital
• Rodina

Miscellany

• Freespace 2 Modding is the focus of an article on Rock, Paper Shotgun which serves as a good primer to getting into Freespace Open and some of the big mods for it via Knossos.

Today’s Deal(s)

• Star Trek Bridge Crew is at its historially lowest price on WinGameStore
• Both Fanatical and Steam are having Lunar New Year Sales, with way too much stuff to mention.

What I’ve Been Playing

• Assassin’s Creed: Origins – Because of course I have. I’m surprised I play other things. ;) Yet my attention span is a fickle beast.
• Rodina – Since we’re having the developer on the podcast next week, I fired this up, and wow, it’s come a long way since I played it just six months ago. Targeting is now SO USEFUL.
• Battle Shapes – So this thing is fun. It’s a bunch of short games with an Asteroids-style control scheme. Matches last maybe two minutes, so it’s a perfect quick game.
• Apex Legends – So I tried this, and got so bored. It’s the first traditional battle royale game I’ve played, and wow it was a slog compared to the top-down battle royale games I’ve played. Like, the match I was in took foreeeeever. I’ll keep trying it, because I love the folks at Respawn, but this got me in the mood to play…
• Super Animal Royale – Top-down battle royale at its finest (tied with Geneshift, of course). So fun for a few quick matches.
• Zombasite – The developer has patched a bunch of things since last I played, and you can totally tell now. Gameplay feels far, FAR more efficient and fluid, abilities feel more meaty, and equipment is more varied and plentiful. This game is coming along REALLY nicely.

That’s it for today y’all! Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight on the podcast!