So Swamped – Daily Dispatch for 1/23/19

Opening/Random Thoughts

Hey friends, welcome to Wednesday! Sorry I didn’t post one of these sooner, but life has been insane of late. From a surprise house guest to a presentation I gave today that took forever to prepare for, I’ve just been super swamped. I wanted to throw one of these together for y’all though, to keep y’all in the loop, so here goes…

Today’s Video(s)

This week’s game of the week is 1995’s The Last Dynasty, from Coktel Vision and Sierra On-Line (remember them? I miss them all the time). It’s a mix of first-person space fighter combat, “hilarious” full-motion video sequences, and apparently at one point, Myst-style adventure sequences. Two videos in so far and I have no idea what’s going on. The story makes no sense, the combat is wackadoo, and the graphics are a bit hard on the eyes (mostly because of the stark colors). I avoided this back in the day because I was mostly anti-FMV (except for Wing Commander, of course) and the reviews were so middling-to-poor. I’m glad I didn’t spend money on this thing.

Last night for our podcast, we talked about usability and the user experience in space games. We basically defined what went into UI and UX for the purposes of our discussion, and then listed a bunch of games we thought did a good, mediocre and poor job of them. It was a fun and lively discussion, and it was really great to have Hunter back on board.

Today’s News

So friends, for the news, there’s a LOT, so I’m basically gonna break it down into categories and just list the games themselves. Here goes!

Releases

• Allspace
• Quantum Covenant
• Cosmonator

Dev Updates

• Rogue System
• Voidship: The Long Journey
• Genesis Alpha One
• Spacebourne
• AuroraRL
• Star Trek Online
• Hyperspace Delivery Service
• Starflight Remastered – Starmap, Planet Landings and Docking Bay
• It’s Not A Moon

Major Updates

• Reassembly
• Star Explorers
• Star Valor
• War Tech Fighters
• Stellar Tactics
• Star Traders: Frontiers
• Diaspora Mass Exodus
• Final Theory
• Go For Launch: Mercury
• Starcom: Nexus
• SimpleRockets 2

Minor Updates

• Cosmonator
• Beat Hazard 2
• Flatspace IIk
• Zero Sum Future
• Empyrean Frontier

Today’s Deal(s)

• Fanatical has a FANTASTIC bundle called the Reaper Bundle which includes the Homeworld Remastered Collection and a lot more.
• GOG has what they’re calling a Hot Sale with a lot of games on sale.
• IndieGala has Stellaris on sale for the next 12 hours as I write this.
• Pull Bug is having a sale on Itch.io, which means Cycle 28 is on sale!

What I’ve Been Playing

• Assassin’s Creed: Origins – Of course I’m still playing this. It’s so good, so fun, so visceral.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor – So after playing AC:O for a while now, I thought, “Maybe I’ll do better at this game than my last attempt.” Which was terrible, by the way. Well, all that sneaking and stalking in Assassin’s Creed DEFINITELY helped here, as now I’m having a FAR better time sneaking around and murdering Orks from behind. REALLY fun. More difficult than AC:O, especially in the controls department, but I’m getting the hang of it.
• SYNTHETIK and SYNTHETI: Arena – Basically the same game, the free-to-play Arena expandalone dropped yesterday, and it’s just as much fun as the main game. The gun play in the game, with its cartridge-ejection mechanic, is so fun and visceral that I can’t stop playing. Seriously y’all, Arena is free, go try it.

That’s it for today y’all, possibly the rest of the week too, as I’m in a calm period right now before diving back into all the work I have to do for the rest of the week. Until next time! :)