Back to The Grind – Daily Dispatch for 9/4/18

Opening/Random Thoughts

It’s Tuesday, and it’s September, so happy September everyone! We had a long weekend here in the U.S. and it was great, but exhausting. So much so that I didn’t have the energy to do a video of the week series. Sorry Empyrean Frontier, you’ll need to wait a week. I’m excited about tonight though because we’re welcome back the fabulous Trese brothers to talk about their magnum opus, Star Traders: Frontiers! It should be a really fun show! I’m honestly also super excited about Thursday’s LAN Party because we’ll be returning to a new favorite, Geneshift. The developer is adding a hilariously fast battle royale mode, and it’s a joy to play. HOPEFULLY, the developer will be able to join us for that too.  So overall it’ll be a light week video-wise, but fun regardless.

Today’s Video(s)

This past Sunday, I put together a virtual meetup — centering on Star Trek: Bridge Crew — of fellow fans of the amazing Greatest Generation podcast, which is a podcast by two film guys who recap Next Gen and now DS9 episodes. It’s a great podcast with a wonderful community. Two members of that community (BartFargo and DJ_Dadmouth) showed up in-game and, with our podcast co-host Spaz’s help, we went through all three bridges in the game. The Aegis was clearly the easiest ship to deal with. The Enterprise D was a bit more of a boat, but her TNG-era quality-of-life improvements made her a bit more manageable. Finally, the original series bridge was clearly for expert players because geezy chreezy that one was hard.

I’d been enjoying Bridge Crew in single player — in which it is quite competent, with solid AI for your own crew as well as your opponents — but it truly does shine in multiplayer. Another neat thing is that two of us were on PS4 (both with VR), I was on PC without VR, and our forth was on PC with an Oculus Rift, and it all worked pretty well. Overall, we had a great time, and this is a game y’all should play. It’s honestly way better than Bridge Commander. Seriously.

Today’s News

• Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has a new, small gameplay trailer on IGN. I can’t wait to play this thing.
• Star Control: Origins has a new trailer as well, showing off a slice of its living universe.
• Helium Rain is coming out of early access soonish, so there’s a new post describing the road to release.
• Solar Warden has a beefy August update with too much to list here. Seriously, go check it out.
• Galactic Dominion posted a lengthy post about its interface — which I need to read — as well as a link to their manual! YAY MANUAL.
• Reentry has some LOVELY SHOTS of the interior of the Apollo capsule.
• Evochron Legacy has a small patch which adds some quality of life improvements.
• SimpleRockets 2 will apparently be getting ion engines.
• Universal Combat is getting a big new update that’ll look really pretty.
• Planetes got a fairly significant patch which adds and changes some important things.
• Star Traders: Frontiers is now at update #99, which includes a lot of changes and updates.
• Galactic Crew got a patch which now allows modding, among other things.
• Battle for Orion 2 fixed its online map database! Its soundtrack is also on sale.
• In memory of TITAN got a patch which balances the game a bit and adds new elements to the UI.
• Astrela Starlight has a new patch which lets you recycle mines, and new UI elements to go along with it.
• Galimulator got an update which adds imperial factions and much more!
• Children of the Galaxy got an update which allows AI to use personnel, among other things.
• Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner : Mars has dropped on Steam today.
• Automobile Tycoon — from the same folks who made Stellar Monarch — has left early access on Steam. Go check it out!

Today’s Deals

• Everspace is today’s daily deal on Steam, so if you’ve not picked it up yet, it’s near its historic low.
• Steam is also having a plethora of weeklong deals, including one of 2018’s best games, Scavenger SV-4, among others.
• Deep Rock Galactic — which is one of our multiplayer favorites — is at a new historically low price. Check it out!

What I’ve Been Playing

• BloodLust 2: Nemesis – This just keeps getting better. Seriously, it’s just so well done, I’m enjoying the heck fire out of it.
• Geneshift – Got to try the new battle royale mode, which is a hoot. This game is great y’all.
• Starcom: Nexus – Still really liking this one y’all, even with a couple of deaths. I was able to build a ship powerful enough to take out an enemy base, for which I was handsomely rewarded.
• Far Cry: Primal – Was finally able to free enough HD space to install this, and man am I glad I’m back. This game is just so fun and well done. Even the weird visions you go on are a hoot. I can’t wait to tame and pet more animals.

Busy entry today, but that’s typical, especially after a long weekend. Hope y’all are having a lovely day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.