Op-Ed

Spoiled for Choice – Hailing Frequencies Open for 7/26/17

EEEE RUN AWAY!

Hello friends, and welcome to Wednesday! I tell y’all, my friends, this has been a crazy week. Next week will likely be crazier, but I am kinda sorta hoping that no new space games come out over the next couple of weeks because OUT OF TIME OMG. Seriously, a game came out today that I’d never heard of called Vostok Inc., which looks amazing, but since it’s 1.0 I have to cover it, so next week I’ll be coming two games, that and Galaxy of Pen and Paper, which drops tomorrow. Please don’t think I’m complaining, for I am so very much not, I’m just a smiiiiidge overwhelmed at the moment. I’ll make the time to play both games, along with Sunday’s Earth and Beyond stream somehow, but aaaaaaaaaack.

So for today’s video, I spent some time with the latest 4X to hit the pike, Interstellar Space: Genesis. This is the game formerly known as Project Space Sector, which in turn is from the folks behind the now-defunct space news site/blog, Space Sector. Their game is inspired by Master of Orion 2, and of course, when I first read that, I got a bit worried. I mean, isn’t that what just about everyone who’s making a 4X is trying to do, copy MoO2 in some way? How are they gonna stand out from the crowd? And I’ll be the first to tell you that it is a crowd. I love space 4X games, y’all know that, but we’re in something of a glut right now, and it’s just gonna be more and more difficult to get noticed. It’s a tough hill they’ve chosen to climb, but after playing their alpha, I have some hope they can do it.

The game is still super duper early, so there’s a lot that just isn’t there, placeholder art, etc etc. Despite that, I’ve had a very good time with the game. It does a few things differently enough — such as planetary upgrades and sector exploration — to keep things fresh and different enough from vanilla MoO2. While, of course, it’s way toooooooo early to say whether they’ll be successful at their goals, as I said, I’m feeling quite hopeful and positive on the game. Whether you should buy in now depends entirely on how keenly you want to watch sausage being made, but if you’re up for it, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Regardless, y’all should keep an eye out on this one.

Last night’s podcast was a lot of fun. The guys behind Space Tyrant whom we spoke to are just like their game: very fun (no, not murderous, planet-conquering psychopaths). The MP3 of that will go up tomorrow, and you can watch the video here:

Tonight I was PLANNING on diving into Titanfall 2‘s new co-op mode, but since Vostok Inc. came out today, I need to use that time to record video of it for next week. That’s okay, Titanfall 2 isn’t going anywhere (AT LEAST IT BETTER NOT). Tomorrow on the LAN Party we’re gonna be playing Star Realms, which I’ve never played before, but hopefully will be able to find some time to do the tutorials beforehand. This weekend will be mostly Galaxy of Pen and Paper along with Earth and Beyond. I doubt I’ll have time for anything else. Hell, next week I might barely get in any gaming at all. Thank GOD for my 3DS and Vita. Seriously, y’all.

Alright, enough about me, here’s a bit of news for y’all!

Vostok Inc., if you’ve not surmised already, dropped on Steam today, and not even in early access. Straight 1.0. How quaint! ;)
Solar Settlers now has cloud saves, yay!
Alliance of the Sacred Suns’ blog has some new screenshots up!
Galactic Junk League has gone into full release as of today! Yay! I’ll hopefully find time to play it soon.
Egosoft will be premiering both X4 and X Rebirth VR at Gamescom 2017, according to this Facebook post.
Finally, the folks behind Starpoint Gemini Warlords are launching a pretty big fan trailer contest.