Hailing Frequencies Open – 4/3/17 – Ugggghhhhh

Hey friends, welcome to Monday, and to April! This is usually the part in these dispatches where I talk about this week’s game and today’s video. Well, sadly, I’ve neither to discuss today. As I said on social media over the weekend, I am just exhausted and a bit burnt out, so I’m taking the week off. This happens every so often, and overall it’s healthy. Better to take a week off here and there to burn out entirely and never update this thing again. While I have to update the calendar a bit, NEXT week will be After the Empire, but this gives me a little more time to try and grok it, which is good because it’s…well it sure is something. Something good, yes, but wow, something.

Of quick, special note is that last week’s fantastic game, Battle for Orion 2, now has a free demo up on Kongregate for y’all to try. Go ahead, it’s pretty great.

This past weekend was just full of a lot of gaming. The most played games were Streets of Rogue, Titanfall 2 (which apparently is still on sale as I write this) and Lord of the Rings Online. Streets of Rogue just continues to delight with unlockable characters, really fun and varied gameplay and just a delightful sense of whimsy. I got around a dozen matches in Titanfall 2 this past weekend, and the double XP was in full effect as I went from level 4 to 8. I unlocked a new titan (which I’m not sure I’ll use since I’m really loving Ion) and in my last match got both titan and pilot kills, which just felt fantastic. I plan to keep playing this one for some time, let me tell ya, and I generally don’t even like multiplayer games. Finally, in LOTRO, I spent a lot of time in Bree and North Downs, and got that much closer to level 31. I really need to get to level 32 soon, since I was just given some REALLY sweet gear that’s only usable at that level. I also did spend a little time with The Crew, and that new “get chased by the cops” mode is a lot of fun!

So there’s a lot of news and deals to spew out, hang on to your hats! In fact, let’s do a list:

• Epic Space Online now has a sweet new tactical map mode, among other additions!
• Hard Light Productions’ April Newsletter is out.
• Remnants of the Precursors’ devlog has been updated with a new post looking ahead to the future.
• Avorion is improving their planet visuals.
• Astrobase Command is launching a Kickstarter campaign on 4/25.
• There’s a new Utopia dev diary update for Stellaris.
• Finally, in related news, the founder of Roland has passed away. I’ll give my MT-32 and SC-55 both hugs tonight.

There are also lots of sales going on right now, such as (here comes another list!):

• Space Colony for $3.74
• Distant Star for $3.39
• Inevitability for $2.24
• Star Nomad 2 for $6.49
• No Man’s Sky for $29.99
• And not a space game, but the fantastic Brigador for $14.99.

Finally in news, the folks behind the fantastic Rymd Resa have announced an upcoming lunar colony management sim with Lunar Soil, which looks pretty great!

Tomorrow night’s podcast should be pretty fun, as we welcome on the developer of the upcoming blocky sim thing, Skywanderers! I got to play the pre-alpha a smidge over the weekend, and it’s VERY pretty, even though I’d no idea what I was doing. This Thursday we’ll be playing the 8-Bit strategy games, so I played a little 8-Bit Armies this weekend to brush up. Really great stuff. Gorgeous maps and very streamlined gameplay. Was like visiting an old friend, it was, but that makes sense given it’s from former Command and Conquer developers. Can’t wait to dive in some more over the week.

That should do it folks. Thanks for your patience in my taking a week off. Much appreciate. Oh, also, if you’ve not already, don’t forget to vote in my poll on the Monthly MMO Meetups. So far it looks like we’ll be playing Mechwarrior: Living Legends instead of Allegiance, if the results are any indication (so far, not one vote for Allegiance. Kinda sad.). Thanks for reading y’all, and have a great day.

PS. I usually hate April Fools nonsense, but this was epic: