It's not really free games, but it's close enough. It's time for more
a "what crap is Amazon foisting on us this month!" look at Prime
Gaming. Should we see what's in the goodies bag this fortnight? Oh,
yes, let's!

* Shogun Showdown (via GOG)
It has 'deck-building' elements. Oh, and it's rogue-like.
Also, it has retro graphics. It's a trifecta of things
that make me want not to play your game.

* Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death (via GOG)
"Hey, lets point out all the stupid things CRPGs do, then
do them anyway, except since we're self-awarely pointing out
how dumb they are, it'll somehow make the game fun."
Narrator: It doesn't.

* Overcooked! Gourmet Edition (via GOG)
In case you didn't already get this game the dozen times
it was free elsewhere.

* Riot - Civil Unrest (via GOG)
I'm waiting for the USA 2025 expansion pack before playing
this one.

* Moonscars (via GOG)
Yet another metroidvania (okay, this one may be good)

* Juarassic World Evolution (via GOG)
Yet another attempt to make Jurassic Park fun. Let it go
guys; the first movie was great but it's getting really
tired now.

* Elite Dangerous (via EPIC)
Still think it would have been better if you could play
it offline. (Okay, this one is good)

* Super Meat Boy (via EPIC)
In case you didn't already get this game the dozen times
it was free elsewhere.

* Mystery Case Files: Dalimar Legacy (via AMAZ)
Oh look, it's a hidden object adventure game. How
completely unexpected.

* Gloomy tales: One Way Ticket CE (via Luna)
Oh look, it's a hidden object adventure game on a
service nobody is interested in signing up for.
How completely unexpected.

Hmmm. If you're exceptionally clever and aware, you may have noticed
that I'm not particularly impressed by the selection of games this
time. They're not terrible, but none of them excite me, and a lot of
them are just rehashes of freebies that have already been given away
too often elsewhere.

Well, I guess its too much to hope the quality of the previous weeks
offerings could have been maintained. We'll see if there's any
improvement in the next couple of weeks. See you all then.

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
<snip>
>* Juarassic World Evolution (via GOG)
> Yet another attempt to make Jurassic Park fun. Let it go
> guys; the first movie was great but it's getting really
> tired now.

I'm waiting for the movie; Jurassic Park: WTF is with these moron
geneticists making dinosaurs that see us as the equivalent of Swedish
meatballs?

Xocyll

On Mon, 02 Dec 2024 12:44:58 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

> * Elite Dangerous (via EPIC)
> Still think it would have been better if you could play it offline.
> (Okay, this one is good)

So here it is, my rambling Steam review of Elite Dangerous,
posted after 10,000+ hours of game play...
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
So I'm into Elite Dangerous (and Odyssey)
over 10,000 hours, from playing ED and Odyssey
over 10 years, so it makes sense that I give it
a "thumbs up".

But it's not a game for everyone. Except for missions
to push for changes in the Background Galaxy Simulation
(BGS), there's not much of a story to follow. Sure,
the Thargoids have invaded human space, but one can
take or leave combat with them, for the most part.

So what is this game? It's really a simulator, with
game elements bolted-on. If you want a space flight
simulator, where you can explore new worlds, land on
them, get out and walk around, this may be the game
for you.

I like the PVE gameplay. PVP, on the other hand, is
tough, because the PVP players tend to have their ships
overpowered compared to a casual gamer such as myself.
I play as part of a player group, and we have our own
player minor faction (PMF) in the game, so I do see
combat from time to time -- again, PVE, not against
other players.

I recently spent some time doing missions for our PMF
in one system, in order to expand to another system.
There's a sense of accomplishment in getting that to
work, but ultimately it doesn't change the galaxy much.

The galaxy: The Milky Way, simulated 1:1, is quite a
formidable structure to cross. One jumps in their starship
from star to star, a few dozen light years at a time, depending
on the engineering on their ship. (If you have a carrier,
you can jump 500LY per jump -- but this is “end game" content,
getting a carrier is 5 billion space bucks plus upkeep.)

However, there's an overcharge one gains through interaction
with neutron stars, which increases jump range 4-fold. Using
these, one can cross a lot of galaxy in a reasonable amount
of time -- I once went from Colonia back to the bubble in less
than 4 hours. (Driving the "Neutron Highway" can get tedious
and boring, so be prepared with some good music or an audio book.)

Anyway, I should mention that I wouldn't still be playing this
game without belonging to a player group, where we chat and
coordinate our activities on Discord. Space can get boring
otherwise.

If you got this far, thanks for reading.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Since then, a few things have changed:

Power Play 2.0 has been released, for which there has been
much excitement, and:

The last remaining "Titan" (Thargoid capital ship) started
heading for Sol, which will probably mean widespread devastation
for the Solar system. Sol is being evacuated as much as possible,
but population is 22 billion. Currently, no Sol permit is needed
to enter Sol, so everybody can get in on the lucrative and
challenging rescue missions.

One complaint I've heard about the rescue missions is how tenacious
the hunters (aka "glaives") can be against unengineered passenger
ships -- and they almost always hyperdict ships jumping out of the
system. I could write all day about how to avoid losing passengers
to the nefarious Thargoids, but others on the web have longer screeds
on how to do this.

I will say this: the Thargoid glaives have a missile that
will disable your frame shift drive, so you can't jump away.
They also have a fierce lightning attack designed to take
down your shields -- and once they're down, they send in
limpets to attach to your hull and spirit away passengers.
(This is generally bad for business.)

--
-Scott System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.11.10 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"Disc space - the final frontier!"

On 12/2/2024 9:44 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
> * Elite Dangerous (via EPIC)
> Still think it would have been better if you could play
> it offline. (Okay, this one is good)
>
>
> * Super Meat Boy (via EPIC)
> In case you didn't already get this game the dozen times
> it was free elsewhere.

IIRC these were given away *by* Epic already without the price of Amazon
Prime. I guess it's just to try to drive people to Epic, but if you're
reading here you probably already got it then, and they don't give away
the codes so it's not like I can give them to someone who missed it.

Both EPIC and Amazon seem like they've given up.

--
-Justisaur

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