Space Game News and Deals – 11/28-30/12

Hey y’all, happy Friday! SO, SO sorry about the lack of news for the last couple of days, lots of busy work stuff that had to be finished and I just had neither the time or the energy. Things have slowed a bit now, so now I can get caught up, so let’s dive in, shall we?

• The BIG BIG news is that Drox Operative has been fully released! YAY! If you have a beta version of the game, you can download a patch to bring it up to 1.000. I’ve spoken about the game at length, if you’re curious to read my thoughts, so if you’ve been waiting for the final version before diving in, now’s the time to try it. Don’t forget there’s a demo too that let’s you get up to level six.
• The next piece of big news is that Steam has announced their next spate of Greelinght-approved titles, and both Blackspace (which is continuing despite a sadly-failed Kickstarter campaign) and Kinetic Void made the cut. Congrats to both teams!
• Next up, Miner Wars 2081 was finally released, and you can get it on Steam and GamersGate, as well as view a launch trailer (also embedded after the cut). This is the mostly single-player version of the game, the MMO will be along later, FYI.
• In Limit Theory news, the folks at Rock, Paper Shotgun also interviewed Josh about his game. ;) There’s also a new update on Kickstarter showing off a video of the ship editor, which I’ll also embed below. :)
• The Kickstarter for Predestination announced that they’ve been 50% funded — yay! — along with revealing new concept art and more. Check it out.
• PC Gamer has an interview with Notch where he speaks of 0x10c, kickstarter and a bunch of other fun stuff. Thanks to Blue’s for the tip.
• According to the dev blog for Star Trek Online, the next update for Season 7 will bring promoted user-generated content, the ability to NPCs and more. Thanks to VG247 for the tip.
• Thanks to Rock, Paper Shotgun for letting us know there’s now a demo for the cool looking spacey shooter Retrobooster, which I have to try. ;)
• GOG has made a bunch more of their games Mac compatible, including Master of Orion 1+2, Star Control 1+2 and Star Control 3. Very cool stuff. I also just noticed this, but they must’ve added the soundtrack for Master of Orion 2 as well, since it wasn’t there when I originally downloaded it.
• There’s a buncha Endless Space news! First, their second free content update was released, called “Echoes of the Endless”. This adds exploration awards, random events, new heroes and tons more. To help celebrate, Steam is having both a free weekend to play the game and is selling it for 50% off as well. Gamasutra has an article looking at the background of Amplutude Studio, and finally, 4xgamer has a nonsensical review of the latest release, which is pretty funny. ;)
• There’s also been a ton of EVE Online newsiness as well. First off, Retribution will be deployed on December 4th, and some new dev blogs have been released detailing corp hanger changes, UI improvements, and the new safe logoff system. They’re also going to be included in the first round of games for an exhibit at MOMA in New York City dedicated to video games, which is very cool.
• Both Star Conflict and the X3 Series have seen updates.
• Finally in gamey news, there’s a new dev diary for Elite: Dangerous talking about how the galaxy evolves over time, and it’ll also be embedded in the cut.

Now, in deals, there’s a bunch to discuss.

• There’s a new bundle at Bundle Stars which includes Star Wolves 2. Currently the price is $6.88 for all of the games.
• If you’d like Star Wolves 3: Civil War, the new Indie Gala bundle lets you get it and other games if you pay currently more than $3.94.
• You can pre-order Iron Sky Invasion for 60% off at Green Man Gaming, bringing the price to $15.99.
• Finally, you can get the amazing Hardwar on sale this weekend at DotEmu for $2.40.

These are some fantastic deals, all told (well, I dunno about Iron Sky yet, but the rest are really awesome).

That’s it folks! I hope y’all had a lovely week, and may you have a fantastic weekend ahead!