No Motivation – Hailing Frequencies Open for 7/10/17

Helllooo my friends, and happy Monday! I’m so sorry I didn’t do one of these on Friday, but the day really, really got away from me. I mean I didn’t game at ALL the entire day. It wasn’t all bad though. ;) Saturday I recorded the one entry for what was supposed to be this week’s full game of the week, Aurora, so let’s talk about that for a moment:

I think Aurora is a game for a very specific set of people, of which I am not one. It takes a lot of time and patience, neither of which I have. I tell ya, if this came out in 1987 when all I had was time and patience for games like this (I actually finished games back then y’all), I’d likely be all over it, but as it is, I’m glad it exists for its audience, but I’m also glad I never have to play it again. Since I only did one entry for Aurora, I wasn’t sure what to do after that, so I decided to boot up Stars! to contrast/compare Aurora with another game that has a similar interface and aesthetic. Even playing the TUTORIAL of Stars! was more fun than the entirety of playing Aurora. The video of Stars! will go up tomorrow.

I then spent some time with Overload as well as returning to TIE Fighter, which has become a regular exercise in frustration. Those videos will come out throughout the week, and I hope to do one more by Friday, I’m just not sure of what yet as I write this. I also spent some time with other games I do plan to cover later, like ASTROKILL and Station 21, but those aren’t quite ready yet, even for previews.

Besides those games, I spent a few hours this weekend with LOGistICAL’s Hawaii DLC. Hawaii is a much different beast than Australia in this game. More contained, more focused. I’m really enjoying it. I reached fifty total cities solved, and opened up a lot of the island I’m on. Soon I hope to open up the roads to the rest of the islands, because some cities need stuff I as of yet don’t have access to in order to be solved. Gosh I love this game. :) I also spent time with SimplePlanes, which is kind of like Kerbal Space Program for airplanes. It’s actually pretty great, and getting new planes for it is fun. Another game from the Humble Monthly I played with was Hyper Light Drifter, which was odd, but fun. Overall, it was a pretty solid weekend.

Tonight, Nicole and her parents will be out, so I’ve some gaming time to myself. Besides playing a bit of Star Fleet Armada to prepare for our podcast tomorrow, I intend to relax with some Lord of the Rings Online and/or Elder Scrolls Online, but LOTRO is my priority. :) I find LOTRO more relaxing than ESO, and relaxing is what I need right now. :)

Alright, since I missed Friday, and there was a weekend, there’s a TON of news and such, so let’s dive in:

• Star Dynasties is a new game I’ve never heard of! Thanks to sharaleo over on Quarter to three for the tip!
• Naev has gotten an update!! It’s now at 0.7.0. which includes a lot of new stuff, and it’ll also be coming to Steam soon!
• XO’s June development recap talks a lot about new UI and other elements.
• Interstellar Rift got a teeeeeeensy little patch.
• Star Explorers has a new beta for y’all to try out. I’ve yet to play it myself, but I hope to soon.
• ASTROKILL got a new mission, outpost and more in its latest update.
• Disputed Space got a cockpit shake in its latest patch!
• Star Fleet Armada Rogue Adventures got a massive patch with rebalanced AI and more.
• Starship Theory (which I hope to play soon) apparently gives crews fire fighting abilities in its latest patch. An earlier patch had more balancing issues.
• Empyrean Frontier got new type of mission, strike missions, as well as five new missions, as part of its latest patch.
• Strike Squadron: Caracará got a patch which apparently balances the first few missions, the VERY MISSIONS I HAD PROBLEMS WITH when I tried to play it. Time for a revisit!
• Avorion has a new beta patch which looks to add a billion things.
• Starway Fleet has a new in-game shot which looks great.
• Remnants of the Precursors’ developer has the Internet again, which led to this concept image of a Mrrshan.
• Apparently things are heating up in Jumpgate, as some Quant pilots are being accused of terrorism by Hyperial.
• Epic Space has new missions, ship abilities and joystick support according to their latest monthly report. Time to give the game another whirl, I think. Been a while.
• Sol Trader has another small patch fixing problems people are finding with previous builds.
• Space Impossible gets EVA support in its latest alpha build.
• Heathen Engineering’s Terran has a new patch brings back the Vulkan rendering API apparently.

Whew! But wait, we’re not done, we have some sales! Both GamersGate and the WinGameStore have huge sales going on right now, with too much to mention here. The Humble Store has a multiplayer sale which includes Space Engineers. Finally, it’s Monday, so Steam has their Weeklongs, which includes:

• Starpoint Gemini 2 Gold
• Starpoint Gemini
• Retro/Grade
• Syder Arcade
• Starscape
• Navpoint

Whew, that’s it for today folks! Thanks for reading!