Spacey Gamey News and Deals – 12/5-10/12

Hey y’all, happy Monday! I’m mostly back, and while I’m not feeling 100% — maybe 70-80% — but that’s well enough to try and get y’all caught up with nearly a week’s worth of spacey gamey newsey goodness! There’s a lot to cover here, so let’s dive in. :)

• First off, there’s a buncha EVE Online news. According to their blog, the MOMA exhibit they’re in opens today, along with an entry on their in-game holiday celebration. Finally, VG247 has an interview with the game’s lead designer about the recently released expansion pack and much more.
• In Star Citizen news, they have a Friday Update which, among other things, shows off renderings of the MISC Freelancer ship (the ship I kicked for). It looks AWESOME. I’ll also embed the video after the cut. There is also a three way interview by Gary Whitta of both Chris Roberts and David Braben (Part 1, Part 2), which must’ve been awesome to do. I’ll also embed videos after the cut. Finally, PCGamesN has an interview with Chris Roberts on embracing Kickstarter and other stuff.
• Next, congrats to the Predestination folks, as their Kickstarter was fully funded! YAY! They also have a new update showing how planetary exploration works, which I’ll embed after the cut.
• The Kickstarter for Limit Theory has a really juicy update about how NPCs and the contact system works. That same update also has announced new stretch goals, such as planetary and faction ownership. There’s also an interview with Josh over on VG247.
• The sequel to GalCon, named GalCon 2: Galactic Conquest, has also launched a Kickstarter campaign of its own. This time it’s going to be Free-to-Play apparently. Yay?
• The Dominion Kickstarter has a link to this survey asking folks what they’d like to see in the game, to help them “target their efforts’. A noble goal. They’ve also added new vessels to their pitch, updated their FAQ and added a screenshot comparing their Earth to a NASA photo, which is cool.
• The Kickstarter for Colonia has two new videos (only one I can embed) showing off research and production, which look nifty!
• The folks over at God Mode have a review of Miner Wars 2081 that was generally positive.
• The good people at 4xgamer have a great review of Drox Operative. Out of Eight games has some impressions as well, along with a video (which will be embedded after the cut)! That reminds me, I should get to mine! Oh, so much to do, so little time! ;)
• Vendetta Online has a new update which adds a huge 39-mission tree. That sounds awesome! I should maybe try this out.
• Another game that got an update was Gratuitous Space Battles, which includes all sorts of fixes and additions you can read about on Cliff Harris’ blog.
• There’s also an update for Star Conflict, which adds a new game mode called Combat Reconnaissance and more. Sounds nifty! They also have a new dev diary video, which I’ll embed after the cut.
• In other update news, Gemini Wars got a teensy-weensy update that fixes a few little things.
• Final update, Sword of the Stars II got one that fixes a lot of bugs. All clear my eye.
• The peeps over at RTS Guru have revisited Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion after the latest patch, which they seemed to like quite a bit.
• Dirkson has an article over on IndieDB talking about how big space is and how that relates to ScrumbleShip.
• Over on Space Sector, author dayrinni (their spelling, not mine, or else the D would be upper case), has the first in a series of making a 4X game that involves setting the stage.
• Rock, Paper Shotgun has a wonderfully cynical article regarding Elite: Dangerous. ;)
• The Star Command folks have posted an update on their Kickstarter page that the game should have a soft launch in January. Finally!
• There’s a little new update about Oresome over on their IndieDB page showing some newish visual effects.
• Ensign-1 has a new update that detailes a new camera, factions and music. I’ll embed the included video from the update after the cut.
• Finally in gamey news, VG247 (linking a lot to them lately) themselves linked to a site called RGB Classic Games. The cool thing is they have tons of old games you can play right in your browser using a Java applet, which works awesomely. The only reason I include this is because they have a few space games, such as Astrofire and EGA Trek. There are a lot of classics here folks, so check it out.

The only deal I could find for today was an EVE Online – 30 Day Starter Pack at Green Man Gaming for $4.99.

Finally, the Concept Ships blog has some fantastic spaceship art from Kian Ng and Smyk Vitaliy.

That’s it! WHEW! I need some more sleep after that. I promise to get back into regular content soon folks, have tons of reviews, previews and such I need to work on, but the holidays are nuts and being sick didn’t help. Thanks again for your patience as I strive to balance out this blog with life in general. :) Have a lovely day y’all!