Hello everyone,
Christmas leave is here … I’m off now until the new year. Yey ! This has been a very strange year … We haven’t seen anything like this in living memory. Hopefully you and yours are all ok.
Advent pic ?
At least I think it’s one of the pit droids from Episode 1, following yesterday’s pod racer.
If you see a couple of spots on the marshmallow there, it’s a Salted Caramel marshmallow and some occasional spots appear from the flavouring. Tis a good marshmallow.
Brain is suffering at the moment (from that just gone on leave feeling) so this one might be a bit shorter … The pit droid made me randomly thought of the X series of games.
I’ve ended up acquiring most of these over the years and they’ve been around for a long time too. The X Gold game was originally released in 1999 as X Beyond The Frontier with the Gold pack including the expansion X-Tension. It was a space combat / trading game that took over from the X Wing and Tie Fighter games as the next space combat type game. It was a pretty dark era for space games as the publishers decided that people didn’t want them.
The game starts with a test of a new hyperjump capability, seeing you in the prototype ship about to go zoom. The test doesn’t go to plan … and you end up in a far off place, in a ship that’s about to explode.
And then the Teladi appear, fix you up and send you on your way.
Although it’s not quite that easy because the Teladi expect to be paid for their help and charge more if you try and sass them. One of the things that sticks in my mind from this game is their description of the Xenon “If you see them you are already dead”, in a translated sibilant voice that makes the menace more apparent.
I have mixed feelings about the X series of games … They kept the space ship piloting genre ticking over for a decade and a half (outside of Starlancer and Freelancer) but I never had much success with the X games. I’d try them out, bounce off them and never stay with the game for as long as I thought I should do.
No Mans Sky was similar there. It’s a game that in theory, has all the ingredients to be something I’d enjoy but I didn’t stay with it.
No Mans Sky pic ?
It has its own particular art style. It’s much more cartoony than Elite and the gameplay is definitely far more arcade simple. I think it was the inventory system that disrupted me on both games.
One thought though is … If you have several games and you’re enjoying your time in one more than the others, play the one you enjoy most. I follow a streamer called Shenryyr, his favourite game in the whole world is Aerobiz, a game that came out in 1992 for the Super Nintendo. He loves it, he goes back to it when he’s wanting a pick me up. And it leads to a chilled out fun stream.
I should open up Moo 2 again some day …
It was Elite again today, making another little step in going around the galaxy.
They’ve opened up a new outpost station today at a place called HIP 58832. It’s a star system 3000 light years above the galactic plane and there are some lovely screenshots coming out of the galactic disc spanning before them. That’s me pointing at the star that they’re at from 36,411 light years away.
I think that’s it for me for tonight though. Time to watch Tashnarr (linky) in the background and read more of Absolution Gap.
Stay safe, be well.