A Busy Week – Hailing Frequencies for 1/12/18

Hey friends, welcome to Friday! Sorry I’ve not written more of these this week, but it has been a really weird week. I had a big certification test on Monday, and I failed it, which threw me off. Then I worked from home on Tuesday (which threw me off more) to record a podcast at noon (not our usual time, which ALSO threw me off), so let me tell y’all, it’s been a weird week. Not a bad one, mind you, but a weird one. I began writing this on Thursday and then, for some reason, totally ran out of steam, which why I’m finishing it up on a Friday! Huzzah!

First up, let’s talk videos! The last few days covered Warpath 97 and the beta of Warpath 21st Century. The beta is indeed beta, because it’s AI isn’t anywhere near as good as Warpath 97, but hopefully it’ll get finished. I have no idea how old/new the beta is, but I still had fun playing it. Overall, this is such a unique series. Rather than sticking you planetside (or godside, whichever floats your boat), THIS 4X puts you right in the thick of it, as you command the one ship that can mine, colonize, fight and so on. It’s really fast-paced and a lot of fun, and I’m sure it’s a great time in multiplayer.

On Wednesday night, I spent much of my gaming time trying to get Freeworlds: Tides of War — an AMAZING Freelancer total conversion — to work. They’d just updated their launcher, so after the last unsuccessful attent, with the help of Kalis, FriendlyFire and their Discord server, I FINALLY got the thing to run after shutting down both antivirus and antimalware programs on my machine. Crazy, right?  Anyway, after I got it running, I joined some of the folks in their server as they toured me around galaxy a bit. Navigation in Freeworlds is INSANELY different than vanilla Freelancer. Rather than just flying into trade lanes or jumpgates, you have to plan hyperspace jumps. It makes navigation far more hands-on. Also, rather than missions in the game, you fly to a place where enemies spawn, and take them out and then get paid per each kill. The spawns are dependant on level as well, so because we went in with someone flying a TIE Defender, we had a really tough spawn. It was fun though, and I do plan to play more. I also played a little Path of Exile, which is fun to just jump into every once in a while.

Last night we played a bit of Starblast, which was originally a browser io game (and still is), and it was due to the fact that it was an io game that it has no tutorial or any explainer information of ANY kind on how the game works, what the modes are, etc. Basically, it seems to be an arena-based shoot and mine sort of thing with some varied game modes. Hunter and I had a decent amount of fun, but with no progression or anything, it didn’t feel like we needed to keep playing. I’m sure it’s a fun game for some types of folks, I just don’t think I’m one of them.

This weekend I was GOING to play the 2001 RTS game, Far Gate, but I tell ya, it’s impossible to capture well. A lot of games of this era flicker like mad when you try to capture them in full screen (using either OBS’ Game Capture or Display Capture modes), so I’ve found running the games in a window fixes the problem. Sadly, I can’t get this game to run in a window at all. Interestingly enough, the game’s developer is still around, so I emailed them for help. I even tried using my last resort, Nvidia’s Shadowplay, but it didn’t pick it up at ALL. Seriously, didn’t record a thing. So I’ve come up with a plan B game in case I don’t hear back from the original developers. That’ll likely be the only game I play this coming weekend besides some time with Tactics Ogre on the Vita (which I’ve just restarted since it’s been ages since I played last and I had a hankering).

Now with all that spouted out, let’s get to some news, shall we?! :)

• Elite Dangerous has laid out some of the upcoming stuff for their first Beyond update, including a new ship and wing missions! Who knows, maybe it’ll be enough to get me to reinstall the thing. ;)
• Stellaris is getting a new expansion in “early 2018” called Apocalypse which is alllll about war! They also have a new dev diary to talk about its new features.
• Endless Space 2 is having a modding contest, and it ends in a couple of days, so check it out!
• Astrox Imperium has another AMAZING devlog video. Man I want this game so bad.
• BossConstructor has some new free DLC which adds a Bussard Ramjet, more galaxy generation options and more!
• Infinity: Battlescape has a new dev update with a lot of new pretty pictures to gawk at.
• Star Explorers’ latest beta now has perpetual worlds and more!
• Evochron Legacy got a fairly substantial patch with a wide variety of improvements.
• Morphite got its abandoned update, which adds randomized temples and more.
• Interstellar Rift has a small development update talking about drone bays.
• Origin Space posted a development update outlining some of the fun things coming to the game, like a sandbox mode! Yay!
• The Spatials: Galactology has a massive new dev update talking about new antagonists and more! They also got a massive new patch with planetary invasions!
• Interstellar Transport Company has a fairly big patch with improved AI and performance gains.
• Star Traders: Frontiers got a new patch with a ton of little fixes. They also have another, smaller patch!
• Void Vikings has a new patch which adds new enemies and improved AI!
• Scrap Galaxy has a new patch with rebalanced levels and more!
• Thrust & Shoot : Flight School has a new patch which revamps its first mission.
• Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls got a new patch with dozens of fixes and changes.
• Avorion announced the winners of their holiday fighter building contest.
• Finally, Concept Ships has some fantastic art from Darek Zabrocki and Klaus Wittmann.

That’s it folks! Have a lovely weekend!