Hey friends, welcome to Friday! It’s been a while since I wrote one of these (I know I keep saying I mean to do these daily, sorry!) but I have an EXCELLENT excuse! I had last Thursday and Friday off because Nicole was out of town, and I spent pretty much four days making videos and gaming. It was awesome, but it was exhausting. Then, upon returning to work this week, I was just swamped, so there went all my energy. We have a lot to talk about though, so let’s get started with this week’s videos!
First up, we have Deep Sixed, which a fantastic space exploration and spaceship malfunction simulator. It’s really tense, even in easy mode, as things break down ALL THE TIME, and it’s up to you to fix them before you die and/or your mission is a failure. It’s both a funny and serious game, as the writing is pretty hilarious, but solving the myriad of issues you’ll face with the in-game manual is super serious. It straddles the line between both really well though, and while I found it a bit too stressful to play long-term, I know there’ll be folks who absolutely love this thing.
The second game of the week was supposed to be Station 21. However, it crashed a billion times upon trying to load it with the tutorial, so I was only able to get in two entries before deciding to quit. Without the tutorial, it’s really tough to suss out your overall objectives, how to make money, etc. They apparently fixed the issue AFTER I recorded my videos, but since the tutorial is basically a video they made, and I’m not gonna make you watch me watch a video, I figured we’re done with that one for now. It’s got potential, but it shouldn’t have been released.
I also spent time with Scrapper, which is a surprisingly fun six-degrees-of-freedom space flight game in which you fly through hazardous areas — ship graveyards, asteroid fields, etc — on specific missions, such as hit the checkpoints, grab those canisters, what have you. The flight model is fantastic, as one would hope for a game like this, and the game itself is a total blast. It’s really tense, but an enjoyable tense.
We then have Space Invaders Extreme, which is my first exposure to this updated classic. I’m told the 3DS versions are AMAZING, so I have copies of both of them on their way from eBay, but I was lucky enough to get a key for the new Steam version. I have to say, even though I had little idea what was going on half the time, what with all the powerups and such, I had a BLAST. This really captures the brutality of the original while enhancing it with shinier graphics and better sound. All around, a fun time!
Next up is Thrust & Shoot, a fully-Newtonian flight sim that can just use your mouse as its controls. While this might sound insane, it actually works shockingly well. Sure, I’m terrible at it — as the video will attest — but I had a great time, and am really super impressed with how well it flies. I definitely plan to play more in order to improve my skills, because it’s insanely challenging and demanding, as it should be.
Next up is Aequitas Orbis, a game I’m also terrible at, but also enjoyed. It’s basically a top-down shmup with oribial mechanics and realistic physics. Folks who play Kerbal Space Program and wish it had guns, and was top down, will just go gaga over this one.
Finally, rounding out the week is the pile of garbage, Dissimilation. I tell ya’ll, this thing is horrible. Poor controls, no explanation as to what, why or how to do anything, lazy graphics and so on. It was only a few bucks, so I figured I’d try it out, and my god I regretted it almost immediately. Do NOT play this one folks.
Now I did some other videos recently, but they’re not as formal as those above. First up, I received some Netgear hardware to review, surprisingly, namely an XR500 router and an SX10 switch. Seriously, they sent out surveys to folks with channels/sites like me, so I filled out, never IMAGINING I’d get one. Welp, a couple weeks later, a big box arrived with these two things in it. I’ve not tried the switch yet, but I’ve been using the router for over a week now, and made two videos to test out its streaming capabilities:
I was very pleasantly surprised to see that there were VERY few frame drops in the middle of the day, which was very impressive. What was even MORE impressive was that on Tuesday, during our podcast, we didn’t drop ONE frame during the stream. That is UNHEARD of. It also did great last night during the Lords of Waterdeep stream (which was a lot of fun, and might have become one of my favorite card/worker placement games next to the amazing Solar Settlers).
The FINAL videos this week are to cover another piece of hardware I received, the Lexip Gaming Mouse. This mouse has two joysticks, one on the side where one’s thumb usually resides, and one in the base of the shell itself, meaning the entire mouse pivots forward, backward and side-to-side. It’s being labeled something of a joystick replacement, so I tried it in both Elite: Dangerous (for which it came with a profile in its software) and Freespace 2 (for which I had to make a profile). While the mouse, as a mouse, functioned just fine, as a joystick, sadly it left a lot to be desired. Sure, I’m not used to flying these games with a mouse, but the responsiveness wasn’t anywhere near enough to be a threat in these games. Just the opposite, in fact. It wasn’t fun to fly with this mouse, which I hate to say, but it’s the truth. I hope folks find a use for it, as it seems very popular.
That doesn’t even cover all the OTHER games I played over my break. I played a good deal of Starpoint Gemini Warlords, which is just so fun, as well as a lot of Grim Dawn, Slay the Spire (thanks Spaz!) and EVE Online. Those games really hit the sweet spot for me right now, between things with great progression and things I can spend only a little or a lot of time with. I also loaded up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the first time, since it was on sale and I kept hearing great things about its campaign since many of the same people who worked on it went on to make the amazing Titanfall 2 campaign. So far it’s REALLY great. Like, super great.
This weekend I won’t be getting much gaming in beside Sunday morning’s EVE MMO meetup, which I hope y’all can attend. We’re apparently mining a moon, amongst other things, so it should be fun!
So there is a TON of news to share with y’all. So much I’m just gonna do the simple, separated bulleted list thing! Here goes:
Product Releases:
Developer Updates:
- Endless Space 2
- Infinity: Battlescape #99, #98
- Cycle 28
- Wing Commander Flat Universe
- Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls and another
- Interstellar Transport Company
- Stars in Shadow
- Star Traders: Frontiers #38, #37, February Progress Update, #36, #35
- Starfighter Inc
- Gears of Eden #74, #73
- Avalon: The Journey Begins
- The Sentient
- Starfighter: Infinity
- Empires Of Creation
- Astrox Imperium
- M.O.R.E.
- Galactic Crew
- Origin Space
- Space Impossible
- HELLION
- Dimension Drive
- Stellaris
- Starship Corporation
- Discovery Freelancer
- Deep Rock Galactic
Patches:
- Masteroid
- Stationeers v0.1.1178.5891, v0.1.1176.5874
- Star Fleet Armada: Rogue Adventures
- Helium Rain
- Star Explorers
- Avorion 0.16.1, 0.16.0
- Interstellar Rift
- Galactic Shipwright
- Endless Space 2
- ASTROKILL
- Avalon: The Journey Begins
- Stellar Tactics
- Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
- Thrust & Shoot : Flight School
- Origin Space
- Deep Sixed
- Scrapper
- Discovery Freelancer
Miscellany:
- Deep Sixed Podcast on Quarter to Three
- Void Destroyer Developer Launched Game Developer Paradise Video Series on Game Development
- Concept Ships by John Frye, Colie Wertz and Mack Sztaba
- Star Wars: X-Wing is 25 years old – how does it hold up? article on PCGamesN
- X4: Foundations confirmed for 2018
- Someone is making fan-made patches for Master of Orion 2
- REPORT: DISNEY/LFL TALKING WITH 2 NEW GAME PUBLISHERS FOR STAR WARS
That should do it folks! Have a wonderful weekend!
