Too Drained for a Witty Title – Hailing Frequencies for 12/18/17

Welcome to Monday my friends! I apologize for the lack of posts and such of late, but remember when I had a sick day last week? Yeah, it was all downhill from there. I was somewhat delirious on Friday, I kid you not. Just really knocked on my bottom, I was, by this cold/virus thing I have. Even after getting around thirty hours of sleep over the entirety of the weekend hasn’t helped me feel any more energetic or rested: I still feel sooooo exhausted.

But it wasn’t all lying around on my butt though, I did get SOME work done. ;) I spent time with a game that both surprised and delighted me: Orbital Racer. The game has both an arcade mode — with powerups and such — and a simulation mode — without powerups and a far more realistic Newtonian flight model — but as a newbie, I stuck with the arcade mode for now. My plan is to get good enough with the arcade mode that, after finishing some championships, I might start another character in simulation mode. This game is, seriously, so damned good. Even though I’m in arcade mode, it’s still super challenging, as the tracks are really well designed and, even on the lowest AI setting, it’ll still be a challenge. So far I am just smitten with this game. Totally smitten.

Also, last Thursday I was able to spend some time in AirMech Wastelands with Spaz. It’s a really, really fun mecha ARPG with a ton of content and co-op capabilities! Once we were able to get the technical issues of connecting sorted out — it is still an alpha after all — Spaz and I had a fantastic time going through missions, unlocking new gear and so on. The game still had some issues beyond connectivity — like, let dead players at least move around the map and watch in a spectator mode — but overall it was a blaaaaaast.

Beyond these, I was able to get some gaming in for myself as well. It’s time for the Yule Festival in Lord of the Rings Online, and it’s my favorite of ALL the festivals. You find yourself in this beautiful wintry town called FrostBluff, which exists just for the festival:

And there are all sorts of things to do, like snowball fights and pie eating contests and helping the poor and acting on stage and so much more. It’s SO FUN. Secret World Legends — the other MMO I’m currently enjoying — also has a holiday festival going on, something about Krampus. I ran into Krampus a couple of times during my questing, so that was fun. I also finally — thanks to a generous coupon from Slitherine — snagged Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach. I’ve so far done a tutorial mission, a skirmish mission and the first campaign mission, and damn if it isn’t great. Definitely gonna be playing a lot more of this one. I also was sent a copy of Wild Buster, a futurey MMO ARPG thing that is kinda fun, but doesn’t feel as fluid as, say, Van Helsing or Diablo III.

I also spent time uninstalling a ton of games from my PC. I realized, I need to focus on the games I’m excited to play, and having so many games installed is leading to a paralysis of choice. All the new space has allowed me to install some games I’ve been really meaning to finally dive into of late, such as Company of Heroes 2 and the Wargame series, starting with AirLand Battle, since it apparently has the best tutorials of the series. Since I want to save for a new rig in 2018, I need to buy far, far fewer games, which means really sinking my teeth into and enjoying the games I already have. I’ve got so many amazing games I’ve barely played, and I really need to fix that.

Alright, there is a lot of news to talk about, so we’ll separate it out between substantive updates and patches. Here we go:

• Orch Star dropped on Steam last week. Haven’t had time to it yet.
• Space Tyrant now has SPACE HAMSTERS! Look upon their works and despair!
• Helium Rain has a new beta branch with an updated Unreal engine and further gameplay updates!
• Void Destroyer 2 has a new dev video talking scripted missions in the game.
• Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls got a massive new update over the weekend that really makes the game feel more fleshed out, based on my limited play of it.
• Wormhole has a short dev video showing off some new ship models.
• Space Wrangler has a new test dev branch for y’all to try.
• Interstellar Rift finally got its long-awaited drone bay!
• The Spatials: Galactology has a huge dev update covering topics such as noise, aesthetics and more.
• Galactic Crew now has more dungeons and the ability to enlist more crew in its latest update!
• Stellaris has a dev update about its upcoming new fleet manager.
• Starship Corporation now has artificial humans called CyOs that add a whole new layer to the game.
• Disputed Space now has customizable controls! Yay!
• Infinity: Battlescape’s last update for 2017 has some gorgeous visuals.
• According to this dev update, Limit Theory is coming along pretty nicely.
• Finally, it’s not a space game, but since we love Soldak around here, Zombasite’s expansion, Orc Schism, is now out.
• Lookit, patches!
  • Vendetta Online
  • Interstellar Rift and another
  • Stationeers and another and one more and yet another
  • Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls
  • Star Traders: Frontiers and another and one more
  • Space Impossible
  • Stellar Tactics
  • Interstellar Transport Company
  • Solaroids: Prologue
  • Astrokill
  • Stars in Shadow
  • Galactic Civilizations III
  • SpaceDweller
  • Stellar Monarch

Finally, Humble’s store is having a big Indie Mega Week sale, and includes deals on Heat Signature, No Man’s Sky and more. This is obviously to try and get your dollars before Steam launches their holiday sale later this week, so spend wisely!

That’s it for today. Not sure how much energy I’ll have throughout the week to do more of these, but I hope to do at least one more. Thanks for reading y’all, and have a lovely day!