Tycow

GOG have become my most favourite retailer by releasing Fragile Allegiance: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fragile_allegiance I stumbled upon it when I tried to search their forums to see if anyone was asking for its release. Turns out they beat me to it! God, I love that game!

The Thin Men... creepy as a creepy thing! D:

LMFAO - that picture made me chortle!

After Fort Zombie, I'm not at all surprised regarding the state of SotSII. Hopefully this won't be abandoned like FZ. Luckily, I found a brand new copy of SotSII on sale at a local Game for

Hey Blorfy! No problems... just glad to have generated a bit of extra money for you guys.

Wow, that is a shame mate. I wouldn't like to point the finger at your computer, but if my lil lappytop can run it as smooth as butter (see the beta/demo video I posted above to see what the gameplay should be like) then I can't think what else it could be. While the game is a beta, it's pretty polished. :S Have you upgraded your graphic drivers recently? (PS - are you sure that isn't your mess? I would certainly be playing with lego if I had some right now! ;D) Post us a dxdiag... I'll have a squint at it for you!

Hmm... that is a bit odd mate! What are your specs? You're right in that the game takes a bit to start up as it preloads common assets before the game starts to speed up going from planet to planet and system to system, but 10 minutes sounds a bit long... Lemme go time! OK - it took my laptop (2.2GHz Centrino2, nvidia 9600MGS, 3GB of RAM) 2m 39s to go from staring at the Windows desktop to being in my save game and flying around. (PS - stick with it, while it looks simplistic, I assure you it is quite deep. The randomly generated missions, the faction systems, the ability to spec out your own ships etc... so much good going for it!)

Yo yo peoples... time for another indie gaming update. I'm currently playing through Space Pirates and Zombies... it's a bit of an odd game that has got me slightly captivated with it's charm. Basically SPAZ is a top down 2D rpg/shootathon that follows the adventures of the Clockwork, a mothership run by a ragtag band of survivors. You have to survive by mining resources, upgrading your ships with new blue prints and components found on your travels. You have to get by by doing randomly generated missions for the iron fisted military or the helpless civilians. Do you join sides in and help oppress the masses, or help them fight for their freedom (or even worse, sit back and watch them duke it out only to scavenge the remains?) The sectors in the universe are randomly generated at the start of the game, and each sector has a number of items to explore. People on the forums have likened SPAZ to being a spiritual Star Control 3, which IMO is a good thing. It's currently in beta, and you can preorder it (giving you beta access) via Impulse. Words from the Website:

One for the zombie lovers here... Just seen this article over at Rock Paper Shotgun (god, that website is responsible for me spending so much money) about an upcoming indie game called Project Zomboid and I thought it might pique interest over here! Basically the gist of it is that you're a survivor in a zombie apocalypse, and you have to do anything to survive. This includes building and crafting things, and making alliances and trading with (or killing and stealing from) NPCs who are also trying to survive. The game will be completely randomised each time you start (a la Minecraft) so no two games will be the same. Snippet from the RPS article for your consumption:

Fair enough mate. Makes sense to me... after many years of using tools, people might not remember the name for it but instead describe it. But then, how come they remember the 5.56mm bit? :S Bleh at the Tyranid... looks exactly like one of the Aliens!

All sounds good Okim! What spurred on the decision behind number 6 (renaming weapons)? Also, your avatar. It looks like a Xenomorph from Aliens, but what game is your avatar from?

Preordered this, looks good!

It's amazing how easy it is to enjoy the game and let yourself get sucked in by it. One of my private gas mining stations came under attack from a lone space pirate out to make a quick buck extorting protection money out of me. Things were looking grim for the occupants of the station; I refused to pay out of principle (the Moocow Empire do not negotiate with terrorists), and help was one system away. The pirate was merrily blasting the station when all of a sudden, 12 ships from the 3rd Moocow Fleet appeared out of hyperspace, surrounding the pirate. He lasted about 5 seconds. I don't think it will be coming to GG, as Matrix Games are publishing and selling via their own store. I think you can pay via PayPal though.

Game is released BTW. It's awesome. Has some issues, but the dev is on the forum responding to them and solving things for the next patch. New combat video: http://codeforce.co.nz/videos.asp#combat Okim (of UFO ACM Mod fame) has been doing an AAR, which can be found here: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2414770

ROFL! Missed that one! "Captain, we've discovered a life form covered in gold medallions and flares... what should we do?" "FIRE ALL TORPEDOS!" Part two of the preview (research) - http://www.wargamer.com/article/2841/dista...rly-look-part-2 High res photos - http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2393420

http://www.wargamer.com/article/2839/dista...rly-look-part-1 New preview of the game... lots of info and pictures Note - high res versions of the pictures can be found here: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2392247

Had to put something positive in there!

Completely agree mate. I had high hopes for this but never mind. Roll on A:CM! I've just posted this on my clan forum:

Hehe, I can't help it, I just find turn based so yawntastic! I played games that were real time (excellence such as K240 and Fragile Allegiance ) There's a video on the exploration side of things IIRC

Afternoon chaps, Didn't know where to post this, but I thought it'd be of particular interest to the people on this site (being a strategy game ). The game is called Distant Worlds, and after reading about it, it looks like a cross between Imperium Galactica 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, MOO and a variety of other space games. Normally, 4X games don't take my fancy (I like the priniciple of 4x, but I hate turn based games with a passion), but this one is real time! Now, Sins didn't keep my attention due to it being more combat orientated, and having limited progression in other areas such as research and diplomacy. Hopefully, it'll be as good the videos show it to be. While the graphics aren't cutting edge, the gameplay looks like it should more than make up for it. From what I can tell, it's being made by a one man outfit from New Zealand, and is extremely close to release. Official site - http://www.codeforce.co.nz/ Article about it - http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/01/di...-strategy-game/

I thought the AS themed deck of cards was pretty awesome too

Aha! Cheers Gimli!

Hi chaps, Quick forum question - how do I change the view you get back in topics to seeing the individual posts themselves, rather than the tree view that I have at the moment? Cheers. :-)

As FA said, it's very sad, but also very good. EDIT: The small story 'Poor Bargain' also supplied was very good. It details one soldiers perspective during Aftermath, and the surrender to the Reticulans.

Yes, I've got it on my phone. It's not too bad. Isometric squad based game for the tactical side of things, with a menu driven strategy side thats a little complicated to get your head around.