Spacing Out: The Trouble with 4X Games

By | Published 05/15/2013 at 12:27 PM
So Close, Yet So Far...

So Close, Yet So Far…

Hey guys, welcome to my weekly op-ed column that I’m calling “Spacing Out” (the name was a joint effort between my girlfriend and I ;). I realized I’d not been really writing enough op-ed pieces, and came up with the idea of doing them weekly, both as a writing exercise and a way to put thoughts and ideas out there to share and discuss with y’all. :) I’ll be doing these every Wednesday, because if I don’t set a specific day to do ‘em, I never will, you know? ;) Recently, 4X games have been on my mind after the recent release of StarDrive. After I made my decision to put my review of the game on hold, I was taken to task on a forum I frequent for not liking other recent entries in the 4X space race, such as Endless Space and Sword of the Stars II. This got me to thinking, what HAS been going on with spacey 4X games of late?
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Spacey Game News and Deals 5/10-14/13: The Very, Very Late Edition

By | Published 05/14/2013 at 4:34 PM
It's the News!

Yes, You Read Right. News. ;)

Helllooooooooo my good friends. How are y’all doin’? Sorry about missing posting the news yesterday, just been a bit crazy around here, but good! Spent time with both X3: Albion Prelude and Distant Worlds: Shadows, so expect stuff on that soon (once I have time to actually write it up), and recorded a podcast to talk about Dominium, which you’ll hear soon. Now, onto the news!

Whew, that’s a heckuva lot of news, but we’re not done! We also have DEALS!

  • The folks behind Show me The Games are having a huge sale, which you go to their site and get codes for discounts. This includes:
  • As part of a larger Deep Silver Sale, you can get these games on Green Man Gaming for a discount (the deals aren’t available in my region, so I apologize, but I can’t see the prices):
  • Green Man Gaming also has an EVE Online starter pack for $4.99

Finally, in unrelated news, the Kickstarter for CDF Ghostship has begun. The dev is a really nice guy who frequents our forums, so I wanted to do him a solid. ;)

Thanks for reading guys and gals, and have an awesome day!

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SGJ Podcast #12: A Potpourri of Pew Pew

By | Published 05/11/2013 at 9:19 AM
So! Much! Color!

So! Much! Color!

Haaaaaaaaayyyy guuuuuuuuys, how are ya? Sorry for the delay in this week’s podcast episode, but Jim and I were both busier than usual this week with the real life nonsense. That said, we had no guest this past week, so we just caught up on what we’ve been playing, the news and all sorts of other stuff. It was a fun time, so we hope you enjoy it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

As always, please feel free to comment on the podcast below (I’m not creating specific forum threads anymore, no one uses ‘em ;) and follow us using RSS and/or iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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Spacey Game News 5/8/13: A Spritzing of News

By | Published 05/08/2013 at 2:13 PM
Drink In the News...

Neeeeeeeews…

Haaaaaaaaaaay friends, happy hump day! We’re this much closer to the weekend, which means more games (for me, anyway)! ;) I’ve come to that point where X3: Albion Prelude is on my review list. I’ve not been a huge fan of the X games for a spell, but I’ll be giving this one a fair shake, and who knows, maybe being forced to stick with it for a spell might help endear me to it. Maybe if I approach it like Euro Truck Simulator 2 in space, I’ll have more fun with it. ;) Anyway, there’s news today, so let’s get to it!

Finally, the Concept Ships blog has some lovely art from CPTXIN.

That’s it for now folks. Hope y’all are having a lovely day!

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Spacey Game News 5/6-7/13: The Frantically Catching Up Edition

By | Published 05/07/2013 at 4:37 PM
Radio News

All The News That’s Fit to…Oh…Radio…

Hellloooooo everyone, and happy Tuesday! Sorry about the lack of a news post yesterday, just too crazy with stuff, so I’ll get caught up today, and there’s a bunch to go over, so let’s get to it!

That’s it! Whew! See y’all later folks, have a great day!

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StarDrive Review: A Harsh Decision

By | Published 05/06/2013 at 5:13 PM
Even Space Bears Barely Added the Fun.

Even Space Bears Barely Added the Fun.

So as of right now, I’ve done two installments into my StarDrive review, and I’ve decided that I’m putting it on hold for a while. Why? For many reasons, but the primary one is this:

It’s not fun.

Seriously, I had time to play this game this weekend. What did I end up doing instead? I watched Arrow, I played Strike Suit Infinity and also some Euro Truck Simulator 2. I shit you not, I chose a cheesy (yet very fun) superhero show and a truck sim over what should have been an awesome space game. That may say something about me, but it DEFINITELY says something about the game. The more I think of returning to this game, honestly, the more dread I feel in my heart, and a thought keeps coming up in my mind: “I’ve got other, better games to play”. It seriously breaks said heart. :/

So take this as you will, my friends (maybe this is something of a review of the game in its own way). I’m done with StarDrive for now. It tried to make me happy, and it failed, and honestly as of right now, I don’t feel it deserves any more of my time or honestly, any more of yours either. If this blog isn’t fun, then why do it at all? ;) Thanks for reading, and I hope y’all stick around after this. :)

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StarDrive: Trust Me, Stuff DID Happen, I Just Don’t Have Pics to Back it Up…

By | Published 05/03/2013 at 7:00 AM
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series StarDrive Review
Yeah...So This Happened...

Yeah…So This Happened…

So I have a disclaimer to hit y’all up with at beginning of this thing…as much as I love Fraps, sometimes it pisses me off. Why? Because I hit the screenshot button in Fraps for this session of the game as soon as I got to the menu, noticed through the flashing frame rate indicator that it had indeed begun taking screenshots, and started my game. I then didn’t even think of it because I typically trust Fraps to keep going once it starts. HOWEVER, this time…it stopped with the screenshot you see above.

Therefore, and I apologize for this, but this installment of my StarDrive review will be almost entirely text with no screenshots at all. I didn’t want to go back to previous saves to get them because that felt…disingenuous? Something like that. I do assure you though, things DID happen, you’ll just have to trust me that they happened as I describe here. Maybe next time I’ll balance it all out with an screenshot-only review or something. ;) That said, please enjoy the wall of text that is part two of my StarDrive review…

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Spacey Game News and Deals 5/1/13: Mayday! Mayday! We’re Making an Enewsency Landing! ;)

By | Published 05/01/2013 at 12:45 PM
Lookit! New Newsiness Graphic!

Lookit! New Newsiness Graphic!

Hey folks, happy hump day and May Day as well!! I hope y’all are having a lovely week so far. I know I am. Got some more time with StarDrive as well as Strike Suit Infinity yesterday, and had a good time with each. The next StarDrive installment will be ready soon (sans screenshots since Fraps decided to stop taking them, dangit) and I hope to have a look at Infinity some time late this week or early next (spoiler: I might like it more than Strike Suit Zero, not 100% yet). ;) Now, with that said, let’s dive into some news!

  • Star Citizen – Gamasutra has an article entitled “Crowdfunding, One Year Later” which talks to Chris Roberts and others about their crowdfunding campaign, and it’s a great read. The official game site has a look at the sexy new spacesuit as well, and details the various models. Finally, there’s a new essay called “Will We Never Learn?” that adds some flavor to the game.
  • Freespace Open – The latest Hard-Light Productions newsletter has been published with the latest campaign, coding and modding news, and more.
  • EVE Online – Lots of articles from The Mittani, including their review of FanFest 2013, a look at the derp frigate, the N3 coalition saying EVE is dead and a story on making Nullsec safer (as if that’s a good idea). Gotta love all the content they pound out. Polygon also has a story about how intial funding for the game was provided by a boardgame, which happens to feature the current mayor of Reykjavík. Finally, Giant Bomb has a fan-made trailer which is fun to watch. Sadly I can’t embed the video.
  • StarDrive – RTS Guru has posted their review of the game.
  • ScrumbleShip – The game now has tree ships. No, I’m not kidding, and it looks awesome.
  • Star Trek Online – The official dev blog has an entry on designing Romulan uniforms. My favorite site on the web, Fashion it So (if you’ve not read this site, you NEED to) has some words on the matter.
  • X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter – According to Shamus Young over on The Escapist, he feels that X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is one of a small lineup of LucasArts games that deserve another shot at a new life by Disney. He’s totally wrong, by the way, and the only way he’d be more wrong is if he said X-Wing Alliance. ;)

Finally, in deals, there’s a new bundle over on BundleStars that includes Galcon-esque game Planets Under Attack and a bunch of other games for $5.09 currently, which I might snag since I’ve not yet had a chance to try it.

That’s it for this one folks. Have an awesome day!

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Spacey Gamey News and Deals 4/30/13: Bring on the Devs!

By | Published 04/30/2013 at 1:05 PM
Drink In the News...

I Really Need More News Graphics…

Haaaaaaaaaallllloooooo folks, and happy Tuesday! I hope your week is flowing along swimmingly. Now there’s a good chunk of news today to end the month on, much of it from some awesome game devs, so let’s take a look!

  • Strike Suit Infinity – This endless score chaser standaloney thingy based on Strike Suit Zero is out now, and you can see the launch trailer at their Kickstarter page (I can’t seem to embed it, sorry). It’s $7 on its own, but if you kicked to ‘em before, you get a discount code. I snagged a copy, and will let’cha know what I think as soon as I get some time with it.
  • Limit Theory – Hot on the heels of the recent Prototype video, Josh has released his latest dev update for April which includes new screenshots and news of a new artist!
  • Drox Operative – There’s a new beta patch that has just a ton of changes, which you can read about here.
  • StarDrive – Space Sector has posted their review of the game. Hopefully more reviews will come in soon.
  • Rogue System – There’s a new dev posting about the progress of the game, as well as a video showing off dynamic orbital motion, which I’ll embed below.
  • Void of Darkness – On our own forum, the game’s dev has outlined a progress update, and wow, the game is a fair bit along! Yay!
  • StarMade – There’s some new pilot girl concept art. Why can’t it just be called a pilot? ;)
  • Star Citizen – Thanks to VGN24/7 for letting us know that crowdfunding for the game has passed the $9 million mark! Congrats to Mr. Roberts and his team!
  • Star Trek Online – In a recent dev blog entry, they’ve detailed subscriber rewards for the new Romulan expansion.

Finally, in deals, I missed one from GamersGate yesterday, a 1C Space Strategy Pack that includes Star Wolves 3: Civil War and The Tomorrow War for $12.48.

That’s it for now! :)Thanks for reading folks, and have a lovely day!

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Spacey Game News and Deals 4/29/13: Back to Work!

By | Published 04/29/2013 at 4:24 PM
Stack of Newspapers

It’s Just Piling Up Today…

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay friends, how are you? Welcome back from the weekend, and happy Monday! I hope y’all are having a great day! I know I am because there’s just so much spacey gameyness going on! ;) Let’s dive in, shall we?

Whew, that’s a mouthful right there, but we also have deals! These include:

Then, in somewhat related news, some of the developers from the original Homeworld have launched their new RTS, Hardware: Shipbreakers, which sadly doesn’t appear to take place in space. Boo. Finally, SpaceSector has posted its latest list of the Kickstarters that made it and didn’t, which is a fun read.

That’s it for now folks. Have an awesome day!!

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