Spacey Game News and Deals 7/1/14: Brace for Impact!!

Helloooo my friends, and welcome to…*gasp*…the news!! It’s been a while since I did one of these, and for good reason! I’ve been buuuuuuuusy, not only making new content for the site in videos and such, but also with work and life! I’ve said I’ll do these posts as I’m able, and lookit, right now I’m able. ;) There’s a TON to go over (I’ve like, 100+ links saved, thanks Pocket!), so let’s not waste any more time and dive right the frak in.

• AI War – The folks at Arcen have announced a new expansion pack for the game, called Destroyer of Worlds! This will include nomad planets, new ships, new map types and more! I can’t wait to get my ass kicked by it! ;) In related Arcen news, their website has undergone a revamp (which you can read about here), and the soundtracks to most of their games are now up on Spotify.
• Xeno Galaxies – I know I mentioned this in the Q&A from a few days ago, but I wanted to reiterate that their Kickstarter has launched and is worthy of a visit, if not your money. ;)
• Remember Tomorrow – Back in the 1990s, a Russian 4X game was released called Remember Tomorrow that was apparently pretty damned good, but it never made its way out of Russia nor did it ever have an English version. Welp, an enterprising developer named Vladimir has undertaken the massive task of making this into English, and you can download a fairly complete version here. It’s pretty fun so far, so check it out!
• Distant Worlds: Universe – You can find reviews for this amazing game over at Eurogamer, The Armchair General and Digitally Downloaded.
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion – In an interesting story, the folks at Rebellion apparently filed a lawsuit against Stardock back in 2012 against use of the word “Rebellion” in this game’s title, citing confusion. I love these “confusion” cases. Anyway, a judge has ruled that use of the word “Rebellion” is protected under the first amendment. Pretty cool, huh?
• Star Citizen – Tons of news for this one. From the official site alone, we have word of the team reaching $47 million in crowdfunding, a video taling to recently-acquired gaming icon Tony Zurovec, a galactic guide to Stor-All, work-in-progress shots of the Retaliator bomber, more info on the wonderful-looking Freelancer vessel (including this amazing commercial), shots of an updated HUD for Arena Commander (which is good because the current one is a bit wonky) and so much more. Elsewhere, The Mittani have their own impressions of Arena Commander, Blue’s has a link to their E3 presentation video (which, like all videos, will be embedded after the cut if possible), and Polygon has a short interview with Chris Roberts. Finally, Stick and Rudder ask how complex is too complex for the game? Wheeeew!
• VoidExpanse – A new blog post shows off one of the upcoming ships in the game, the Death Bringer. It looks damned sexy. They also followed that with a bunch of new screenshots.
• Gangs of Space – The devs have announced that they’re closing the alpha phase of testing for their game for the time being, in order to study what they’ve learned from it.
• Deep Space Settlement – These crazy cats keep pumping out the awesome looking visuals, starting with a massive recap of all their animated gifs and such (which is an awesome idea). They’re also showing off a black cruiser, some asteroids, some awesome looking dogfighting, a random video showing off an SFX test and, finally, a vine supercut, whatever that is. Can’t wait to actually, you know, play the thing. ;)
• Shallow Space – Their blog has several updates, including an awesome look at fighters, some battleship action, some gorgeous nebulas, a treatise on how perfect is the enemy of progress, a look at a revised UI, two picture galleries and a small short story called The Gift along withits follow up. They also just added some sexy new screens over on IndieDB.
• Interstellaria – A new post has details on the diplomacy system in the game.
• Void Destroyer – A massive new update, called Iternation 20, is on the way, and it adds nearly two dozen new ships, heat seeking mines, new missions and much more. Check below for two videos looking at the updates.
• Rodina – I forget if I said this earlier, but you can now vote for the game on Steam Greenlight. Besides this, a new version has been released which include internal ship fires…yay? There’s also word on the new room system being worked on, which looks cool. This reminds me I should revisit the game with a new video.
• VoidSpace – Yup, another “void” game. These are getting harder and harder to keep track of. ;) This one is an MMO currently doing a Kickstarter, so check it out.
• Star Nomad – I was contacted by the author of this top-down open space game a little while back, and it’s kinda fun based on what little I’ve played of it. The Wing Commander CIC, of all places, has a note on it as well because the developer is apparently a big Privateer fan. ;)
• Rhythm Destruction – The author of this game also contacted me to let me know of the game’s existance, and it appears to be a top-down rhythm-based schmup, which looks pretty cool. I’ll post some impressions soon, but you can get it on sale on Steam right now.
• Sirius – The developer of this little Freelancer-esque game let me know their game existed the other day, and you can download the latest version for free. Check it out!
• Elite: Dangerous – Ars Technica spent some time with the premium beta recently, and seemed to enjoy it. Also there’s word the regular beta will be released at the end of this month. Yay!
• Last Federation – Over on Game Wisdom, this game spurned an article about making informed decisions, something the game isn’t the best at helping one with…or so I think anyway.
• PULSAR: Lost Colony – Over on Kickstarter there’s word of an improved ship with new features such as the engine switchboard and a usable scientist character. Videos are below.
• Approaching Infinity – Looks like these guys will now be published by Shrapnel Games! Congrats to them!
• X Rebirth – According to IncGamers, a recent update (2.20) not only brings fixed missions, controller problems and so on, but a 64-bit executionable as well. At least there’s some progress, I guess?
• Wing Commander: Privateer – Over on the Escapist, they have a review of this classic and amazing game that isn’t as flattering as one might hope. ;)
• Wing Commander – Apparently you can now get the game on original game and the third game both on Origin, according to the CIC. Yay?
• Evochron/Arvoch Series – Shawn has published two new videos on YouTube showing off a radar prototype concept and a control/thrusters indicator prototype, both of which you can also find embedded below.
• Beyond Beyaan – The fleet overview screen is now done, and boy does it look sexy. ;)
• Starship Corporation – A new YouTube video shows off the addition of manual weapons firing at small asteroids and boarding shuttles. Nifty!
• Dominium – They’ve posted the fourth part of their look at the game’s stellar cartography. Yay maps!
• Horizon – Apparently a new patch has been released that adds a new instancing mode for simultaneous combat, better AI boarding and more. This reminds me that I should actually play the thing.
• Gratiutous Space Battles 2 – Cliffski has posted a massive new screenshot from the upcoming space battle sequel. This reminds me that I need to cover this as well, which I need to despite my complete suckage at it. ;)
• Predestination – A massive new update on Kickstarter shows improved planetary gameplay, diplomacy and more. Yay!
• Tiny Trek – An update over on Kickstarter shows varied ship layouts, control sliders and more.
• Eterium – A new teaser video shows off some of the upcoming free content DLC.
• Starsector – There’s a new blog post showing off markets in the game, which look awesome!
• Artemis – According to a post on Facebook, new version 2.1 includes bug fixes, enemy space stations and plenty more.
• Deadrock Divide – You can now download a demo of the alpha for this game, which I highly recommend.
• Space Pirates and Zombies 2 – Over on Steam, Andrew posted a huge post describing the meta game. Check it out, it’s a great read.
• New Games – Since the last news post, I’ve discovered (through various people and sources, thank you folks) a bunch of new games, including Imperia, Dreadnought, Outlier: Open Skies, SpaceCom, Beyond Space (which apparently was formerly a mobile game), Silent Star: Blast and PixelTrek, all of which look great. :)
• Greenlit Games – One June 11th and June 25th, a bunch of new games were Greenlit on Steam. This includes Blue Libra, Exo Miner, Retrobooster, Ensign-1, Planetship and others! Congrats to all of the games that will find their way on Steam!

FINALLY, if you missed it on the recent Steam Sale (which I didn’t have the energy to cover at all, sorry), Soldak is having an Independence Day sale in which you can get Drox Operative for $9.99 and Invasion of the Ancients for $4.99, which I believe were the same prices they were on the Steam sale. WORTH IT, folks, totally.

That’s it. OMG that took several lunch breaks to put together, but it’s done! YAY! Enjoy, folks!

https://youtu.be/VmOdga9oxe8