Spacey Gamey News and Dealsies 2/21-22/13: Random Bucket of Randomness

Hey folks, happy Friday! Sorry about the lack of news yesterday, was a crazy day and just didn’t have time. There’s two days worth of stuff here, so let’s get right to it!

• Vendetta Online – The Kickstarter — which has only 53 hours left with only 44% funded — has a new update showing off the game on an iPad.
• Beyond Beyaan – Their Kickstarter — which has four days left and is 95% funded — has a new post showing off two races and new stretch goals.
• Rules of Engagement 2 – Thanks to reader Robert for letting me know that OMG THE MANUAL IS FINALLY AVAILABLE ONLINE. Head over to Scribd to check it out.
• EVE Online – The Mittani has two great articles up, one on the U930 massacre, and one on learning the hard way in the game about luck and loss.
• Enemy Starfighter – First new update in a while! This time there’s a post on new AI in the game, which looks awesome.
• Star Conflict – There’s a new patch called Guarding the Space that optimizes the graphics and controls, as well as new wallpaper for y’all to download.
• Endless Space – Apparently their 4th add-on will be titled Virtual Awakening, and they have a post showing a new hero and new tech. Fun stuff, I hope!
• Escaping Titan – Tyler was interviewed by the folks on Gamezone about the game.
• StarDrive – The folks at IncGamers have written up a lovely preview of the game.
• Star Citizen – There’s a new issue of The Lost Generation on the official site, and their Facebook page has a cool modeling graphic of a Bengal carrier.
• Star Trek Online – Apparently Andorian escort vessels are now available in the game, and they look wonderfully menacing, I think.
• StarLife – There’s some new concept art by Aimee Seaver for y’all to gawk at. :)
• FringeSpace – Thanks to Jim for letting me know about this one. It’s apparently a project to remake Tachyon: The Fringe in the Freespace engine. I love the idea.
• Stars of Call – On our forums, user Mutos let us know about a Naev total conversion that’s based on their original fictional universe. It looks pretty damned cool, and you can try it out for free.
• Ring Runner – There’s a great new video showing off a multiplayer match with bots, which I’ll embed below the cut.
• Bitfighter – This is a new free multiplayer space combat game over on Desura that looks kinda fun.

Now, in deals, there are a LOT to go over, so let’s dive in:

• Gratuitous Space Battles is having a free weekend on Steam, plus the game itself is 75% off, meaning the base game is $3.74 and the “complete” pack is $4.74. The discount isn’t on the latest DLC though.
• Lunar Flight (PC, Mac) is on sale at GetGames for 4.99.
• The Indie Gala Colossus bundle includes a copy of Galactic Civilizations 1: Ultimate Edition along with a buncha other games if you pay around $5 as I write this.
• Amazon is having a HUGE Farewell to February sale, which includes a few space games such as Space Empires 5 for $4.99, O.R.B. for $2.49 and Spacebar (which I’ve never heard of) for $1.24.
• While not technically a space game, Sword of the Stars: The Pit — from the folks who made the Sword of the Stars space games — is finally available and going for $8.99 on GamersGate. Initial impressions are quite mixed on this one.

Finally, in kinda-related news, one of the co-founders of the Unity engine, which a lot of space game devs are using these days, it seems, has left the company to make games on his own. Finally finally, Ziff-Davis closed down 1Up, UGO and GameSpy yesterday, all of which gave decent coverage to space games, so I wish all those folks luck in finding new gigs.

That’s it for today folks! Have an awesome weekend!