Hailing Frequencies Open – 4/17/17 – Slim Pickings

Hey folks, happy Monday! I hope y’all had a great weekend! I sure did, but sadly it didn’t involve a ton of gaming. On Friday, after I wrote my last hailing frequencies post, I went straight to the Universal Citywalk here in LA to see The Fate of the Furious in IMAX. Citywalk is one of only two true IMAX theaters here in LA, so it was a treat to see the amazing movie on the big, BIG screen.

After hanging out a bit, I went home and felt so drained I didn’t even wanna play a PC game. Seriously. I ended up playing Killzone 2 on my PS3, which I just recently purchased for $2. I’m not a big console shooter fan, preferring the mouse and keyboard to the controller, but Jim recommended these games to me, and when I saw how cheap they were, I figured I’d try ’em. In this game I died a LOT because, again, so not used to a controller for this sort of thing, but I had a lot of fun. The shooting felt great, the levels were really fun and the pacing was just right. I can see why this game got such good reviews.

After I got tired of dying so often in Killzone 2, I decided to pop in the Star Control cartridge into the Genesis and give it a whirl. Wow, that music you guys:

Seriously, even though it’s weeeeeird to play the game with a D-Pad, I had a great time and brought back a lot of great memories playing this version. I also love the Starflight connection via Greg Johnson!

Saturday, I only had time to play the games for this week’s games of the week. First off, Vecitas (I’m gonna try embedding the vids, let me know what y’all think):

Which is just boring and bland and sad. Seriously, it’s so poorly explained, so lackluster and boring that I could barely get through thirty minutes with the thing. The so-called “single player” is just a way to unlock skins in multiplayer, which no one is playing. The controls are weird too, it just felt sluggish all around. Really sad, as I hate speaking negatively of a space game, but yeeesh.

Stardrift Nomads, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of Vecitas:

Fun, varied, fast-paced, challenging and vibrant, I had literally 1,000x more fun playing this than Vecitas, so you can expect more videos of this as the week progresses.

That was all I got to play on Saturday, sadly. Sunday I actually loaded up a little bit of Stellaris, as I wanna give the game another chance now that Utopia is out. I was having a good time, but granted, the early part of any 4X is my favorite, and if I recall, I had the most fun in the early game last time I played Stellaris as well, so I’m keeping my expectations damn, damn low. That was, sadly, pretty much it for gaming, as my weekend was taken up with various Easter-based activities.

Now for news, there’s enough for a bulleted list (part of me thinks I should just make the list the norm…):

• Starfighter Inc (which was funded, yay!) had two posts up, one on technology and the other on ship design.
• Unending Galaxy had a big update, which coincides with a sale!
• The CIC has a great article about Wing Commander Wingmen.
• Remnants of the Precursors got yet another alpha update.
• Finally, there’s a mod that puts Homeworld stuff into Sins of a Solar Empire! RTS INCEPTION BWOOOONG.

Now as for sales, there’s a bunch in Steam’s Weeklongs, including (I’m just gonna list the games, since I’m short on time, you can click the link to get prices):

• Darkstar One
• Void Destroyer 2
• Void Destroyer 1
• Battlevoid: Harbinger
• Navpoint
• Offworld Trading Company
• RymdResa

Finally, Bundle Stars is having a Focus Interactive sale, so once again, Space Run Galaxy is on sale.

That’s it for today folks. Have a great one!