Happy Hump Day! – Hailing Frequencies for 3/28/18

Hello my friends, and welcome to Wednesday! I gotta tell y’all, it’s been insane of late, so much so I had to cancel this past Sunday’s EVE Online because there was no way I was gonna be awake/cogent for it. I’d gone out to karaoke the evening before, and stayed out WAY later than I intended. It’d been too long since I’d done karaoke though, so it was worth it. We’ll be having something of a make-up session on next week’s podcast, though, wherein we’ll talk space MMO games while playing some EVE Online live. :)

I gotta tell y’all, though, this past weekend’s crazy schedule and lack of sleep/energy was PERFECT for this week’s game, the idle clicker/RTS mix that is Lazy Galaxy. In this game, you’re a human enslaved by an insanely evil yet supremely lazy race of super-intelligent alien octopi with the task of taking over the universe, one solar system at a time. This involves building up your base, through which you build and upgrade your space fleet, and take over a solar system one area at a time. These areas, be they planets or asteroid fields, have fleets and bosses defending them, so you’ll need a mix of upgraded ships — which you unlock through research — to take them out. It’s an interesting mix of clicker game (you click on asteroids to gain materials, and buildings to help power them) and idle game (buildings also gain minerals over time, whether you’re playing or not) along with real-time strategy game in combat (or not, your ships can pretty much handle themselves) that I’m finding pretty charming. I’m not sure about its replayability though, but it’s a decent enough time for $6.

Beyond that, I began playing Dragon Age: Origins for the first time. Over on Gamers with Jobs, they were talking about what an amazing game it is, and its Ultimate Edition was on sale for $5 on GOG, so I figured I’d give it a shot. HOLY CRAP it’s good you guys. I’ve only tried two race/class combos so far (an elvish fighter/archer and a human mage) and so far really like the elf archer. The mages are a bunch of jerks, so I really preferred the underdog nature of the Dalish, exiled elves who roam the lands as nomads. I’ve got about five hours in the game so far, and I am hooked. The conversation trees are just so engaging, the combat is fun, the writing is amazing, and the voice acting is wonderful. I’m also really enjoying its world, as it’s not something based on some other property, so it feels both familiar and unique. Between this and Total War: Warhammer II, I might not play anything else for a while. :)

Tomorrow for the LAN Party, we’ll be playing RiftStar Raiders, which so far has been a good time. I’ve only dabbled with it solo, so it should be fun in co-op. Last week we played Small World 2, which was a shocking amount of fun. We were GONNA play another game, but that game apparently needed three people. Since we only had two, Spaz was nice enough to gift me Small World 2, which is a mix of Risk and worker placement, of a sort. It didn’t take me too long to get the hang of it, and once I did, I totally wanted to put it back on the calendar for more.

Anyway, enough about me, you’re here for news, and there is a LOT, so let’s hit it!

• Orbit: Satellite Defense dropped on Steam! I can’t wait to try it!
• Hypergate is a game I just discovered, and will drop in December, apparently.
• Executive Assault 2 has a new dev blog up on combat mechanics!
• Starsecotor has a new dev blog post up on minefields!
• Helium Rain has a new sector called The Farm, along with other new stuff from its latest update!
• Battlestar Galactica Deadlock has a new dev diary talking persistent damage and more.
• Interstellar Rift has a new dev blog talking performance upgrades and plasma rifles, alongside their usual patch notes.
• Galactic Civilizations III has another preview of their upcoming version three of the game.
• Avorion got a dev update talking combat, a massive patch related to combat, and also another pretty hefty patch based on user feedback.
• Angels Fall First got a huge, HUGE update which adds centralized master servers and a lot more.
• SimpleRockets has a teaser video of a Saturn V rocket.
• Angle of Attack has a new video stream up from Derek Smart his own self.
• Universal Combat CE is apparently about to get a major patch based on the All Aspect Warfare engine being ported over to it. Neat!
• Interstellar Transport Company posted an image on Twitter of some upcoming UI improvements, which look great.
• Kerbal Space Program has a new weekly blog entry talking satellites.
• Origin Space has a new patch which adds an arcade mode.
• Stellaris has a new beta patch with apparently a ton of balance and bug fixes.
• Dark Old Sun got a tiny patch that allows stage selection.
• Everspace will be soon getting a patch that fixes some joystick stuff. It’s also on sale this week!
• Elite Dangerous has a new update with a ton of fixes.
• StarMade has a patch that fixes SSL issues.
• Lazy Galaxy got a small patch with half a dozen little fixes.
• The Wing Commander CIC Facebook Page has images of a LOVELY 3D-printed fighter.
• I was gonna post one entry from Spaceships Galore, but they’ve had dozens in the days since I last looked, so just visit the site and see them all. ;)
• If you’re looking to play Artemis with folks, check out the info about their upcoming Armada event in Ohio!

Finally, in deals, Steam’s Weeklong Deals have tons of space games (and games in general, over 1,300 for chrissakes). Also, GOG is having a big Interplay Promo, which of course includes one of the finest space games of all time, Freespace 2, among others, of course.

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for reading, and have a great day!