Tag Archive

Real Time Strategy and FPS Collide In Eximus: Seize The Frontlines

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Rae Michelle Richards

The overlap between FPS fans and Real Time Strategy addicts must be larger than I expected given that Eximus: Seize The Frontlines is the second game I’ve seen in recent months try to blend the close quarters action of FPS games with the macro-view of strategy titles. Is this actually a new fusion genre none had told me about before?

Eximus: Seize The Frontlines is an online focused FPS/RTS hybrid that has one player fulfil the role of “commander” – building structures, managing resources and supporting troops while a platoon of up to 5 other players handle the battle on the ground using high tech mech suits. Unlike other games that adapt a 4 vs. 1 multiplayer scenario (see Dead by Daylight) Eximus is more like 1 + a squad of 5 working together to accomplish objectives. It all certainly sounds like an enticing premise.

The game was previously in Steam Early Access but was pulled from the store last fall while the developers worked on completing the game. All that work must be coming together because it was announced today that Eximus will ship version 1.0 as a fully released game on March 16th 2021.

I haven’t had the chance to play this game yet, as I honestly just found out it existed today and the game is currently not available for purchase. However, if the action presented in these official GIFs and trailer match the moment to moment experience – this could be a sleeper hit for sure, especially since the RTS scene doesn’t see much new action nowadays.

 

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Space Survival Game – Hellion – Gets First Major Update

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Fans of the survival genre have a lot of choices when it comes to meeting their needs, and I’m not just talking about filling the stamina, health and water gauges either. Hellion, a sci-fi themed space survival title recently released their first major update alongside a 20% discount during the Steam Summer Sale.

Here is a rundown of what is included in the 0.2 version update:

  • Big work on optimization and stability
  • Improved navigation and flight systems
  • Survival gameplay mechanics enhanced and improved

Content

  • Loot distribution system and zones (civilian, industrial and military zone)
  • Security system (authorization, locking/unlocking system and defense turrets)
  • Ship and station customization (ship and station naming and interior design)
  • Doomed outposts as world events
  • Female character
  • New weapons
  • A lot of new items and inventory changes
  • Basic tutorial and glossary (learn to play and find out what you can find in Hellion)

Hellion takes players into 23rd century –  a distant solar system far away from earth to be precise. The player’s avatar was part of a 100-year mission to populate this distant solar system aboard one of the first colonization system. During transport, something went horribly wrong, with the inhabitants of the colony waking up decades away from their intended destination and any sort of assistance. Take control of your fighter, scan down enemies, engage in combat, salvage and upgrade your ship to survive another day. All of the core mechanics for survival are already in-place in Hellion Version 0.2 – and if you’re intrigued, the game is available for $19.99 on the Steam Store.

The game’s developer Zero Gravity provided Broken Joysticks with a Steam code for Hellion and we will bring you impressions later this month.

 

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Starpoint Gemini Warlords Enters Beta on Steam Early Access

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Take to the stars with the ability to command your own personal Starship in Starpoint Gimini Warlords which entered beta on Steam Early access recently. In this brand new entry in the Starpoint series has been in development by Little Green Men Games on Early Access for just over a year now, and with a number of enhancements coming with the recently released beta the game is shaping up to be a space commander’s dream.

Starpoint Gemini Warlords allows players to take command of either a single ship or eventually an entire fleet all at once.  The game provides commanders a number of different options to live out their lives among the stars, below is just a small taste of what its sandbox-like world has to offer:

Fight! – Players take direct control of their ship and are able to manually aim and fire their weapons. Commanders can also assign their weapons to NPC crew members while they focus on the execution of unique skills.

Upgrade!  – Player begin their career in space in a small vessel but can eventually train their way up to a carrier class ship complete with its own fighter wings.

Form Up! –  Once you’ve worked your way up the ship chain you can form fleets of ships complete with NPC wingmen.

Here are just a couple of the community requested enhancements that have made their way into the recently released Starpoint Gemini Warlords beta:

  • If players have the reputation with factions they can now engage in some side quests for rare loot.
  • As per the community’s request the target lock system has been redesigned, with visual feedback appearing on the player’s HUD to reflect the status of the current target.
  • Exploration has been enhanced to provide players with a more goal orientated approach, which they should find more rewarding.
  • Skills have been overhauled to allow players to view all 12 currently implemented skills, but they may only chose 4 active at a time. These can be reassigned with a stats re-roll.
  • Completely new soundtrack.

Starpoint Gemini Warlords is now in Beta and will be released on May 23rd. At that time the price of the game will increase to $34.99 USD from the current price of $29.99 USD.

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Early Access MMORPG LinkRealms Going Free To Play

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

LinkRealms a Steam Early Access MMORPG that attempts to recreate the glory days of Ultima Online will go free to play as of October 10th developer Mythyn has announced. They believe that the game is ready for a wider audience thanks to the success of recent updates that have brought features like criminal status, newcomer enhancements and class adjustments to the game.

Mythyn describes their game as a “hardcore sandbox MMORPG” with a set of “old school design choices” and challenging dungeons. Basically, it sounds like this game ignores every genre convention or breakthrough that has occurred since the mid-90s.

Currently once a player purchases LinkRealms from Steam for $19.99 they gain access to the full game with no restrictions. Mythryn’s press release did not outline how their free-to-play implementation will work or if there will be a paywall that might limit players from progressing past a certain point.

Here is how they currently describe their in-game shop (Shame they use gender specific pronouns in their descriptions :/)

“Non-Invasive Shop  
Pay once (or get a Beta Key) and play for free – forever. All of the content is available to you with no restrictions. Using the in-game store helps supporting the development team, but nothing a player can purchase is going to make him suddenly powerful or give him an unfair advantage. Linkrealms welcomes all players to the community” 

Reaction to the Early Access version of the game has been mixed with some players pointing out that a single guild owns entire server economies and that dungeon farming is rampant. Others have lamented the lack of features like a hotbar, meaning that spell and abilities must be manages from multiple windows. 

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Star Mazer DSP Blasts Off To Steam Early Access

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Star Mazer DSP the prequel title to the original Star Mazer has made its way to Steam Early Access thanks to the hard work of developer Imagos and publisher Playism. Tossing players into an interstellar conflict Star Mazer DSP is set to challenge even the most hardened shoot’em ups a true out of this world challenge.

Featuring 9 distinct levels Star Mazer DSP presents a challenge for even long time genre fans. If you want to reach the G’ell Super Ship you’re going to have to keep at it! Along the way to the final stage players will be able to recruit a team of pilots ranging from humans to aliens to even an astro-K9!

Here is how the developer described the game’s plot in a recent press-release:

“The UNFP’s been kicked in the teeth by a G’ell invasion force and humanity’s last hope is its fleet of experimental DSP MkI Forward Assault Fighters and anyone brave enough to strap in. Luckily this planet’s full of all kinds of crazy just begging to take a shot.”

Star Mazer DSP is available on Steam Early Access for $10.99 CDN.

Here is the trailer:

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The Culling is out today to early access ahead of schedule

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Xaviant Games announces that The Culling has been released ahead of time. SUPRISE!  if you haven’t been under a rock for the last two weeks, you will have seen at least one video or stream someone playing this game. Its a survival game with similar mechanics to several other games where you are dropped in to a small area with nothing and then forced to craft things and kill people.

Evidently the closed Alpha and its media blitz were a sucess. The developers seem to have had a fire lit under them by the positive media coverage.  So it seems they worked worked a bit of overtime to get the product as close to finished as possible. As a result The Culling is available right now on Steam’s early access platform.

Xaviant Games CEO Michael McMain said in an email:

After we took the Alpha test offline, we decided to do something a little crazy. Based on watching you play and hearing your feedback, we knew there was a lot of work to be done. We decided that if there was a way to get that work done faster, we would make it happen. So the team buckled down even tighter and put in five very late nights. The result is a game that’s seen over fifty significant changes. We’ve fixed bugs, rebalanced systems, refined art, and generally made the island a nicer place to die.

So now the general public will get a chance to play this great game. Personally I was recently absorbed by a similar survival game H1Z1 King of the Kill. Though the two games are similar this one contains much more crafting and only a few firearms. With such a tiny price tag of $12.99, it should be quite easy for many gamers to pick this game up and give it a try. Personally I will be picking the game up and look forward to reviewing it here!

What do you think of the developers decision to move up the early access release game? Tell us on Twitter or facebook!

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Ashes of the Singularity Commands Release On Steam Early Access

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Stardock‘s ambitious real time strategy title, Ashes of the Singularity, is now available for purchase via Steam Early Access. Ashes gained a lot of notoriety last year for being the first commercially available game with native support for Microsoft’s upcoming Direct X 12.

Ashes’ plot transports players to the 23rd century where they will command armies, collect metals & radioactive materials to help fuel their economy and once they’ve raised enough funds unleash massive armies that can easily dwarf the unit counts found in other RTS titles. There are two playable factions in Ashes of the Singularity – Humanity of course, known as the Post-Human Coalition and their enemies the Substrate.

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As you can imagine with a game this technically ahead of the curve Ashes boasts a number of awesome features. Thankfully Stardock was nice enough to provide a pretty comprehensive list:

●      The first native DirectX 12 game allowing each CPU core to command the player’s GPU simultaneously, which allows for more rendered units to be displayed on screen at the same time – by an order of magnitude – than in any previous RTS game to date.
●      A multi-core, real-time strategy AI that allows for excellent single player RTS gaming.
●      A new native 64-bit 3D engine called Nitrous that makes full use of the features of DirectX 11 and DirectX 12, allowing for thousands of light sources on screen simultaneously.
●      A new type of unit group organization known as a “meta” unit that makes it easy for players to manage potentially tens of thousands of units across a world.
●      Advanced Nitrous 3D engine allows players to zoom out on the map without having to transform the map into a simplified view of the battlefield

Devs at Stardock will be working with both AMD and Nvidia to ensure that the second beta, due out later this year, will provide support for Cross-Fire and SLI.

If you are interested in jumping into the beta before the final release later this Spring Ashes of the Singularity is now available on Steam Early A ccess for $54.99 CDN.

Think your rig is beefy enough to run Ashes? Here are the minimum system specs for the current beta:

Minimum:

  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10 / 8.1 / 7
  • Processor: Quad-core Intel / AMD Processor
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 2 GB GDDR5 DirectX 11 Compatible Video Card
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 5 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 1600×900 Display Resolution Minimum

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Ghost In The Shell – First Assault Now Available on Steam Early Access

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

Nexon’s take on the Cyberpunk world of Ghost In Shell: Stand Alone Complex, titled Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – First Assault, is now available via Steam Early Access.

Set in the year 2030 players are put into the role of Section 9 special forces member as the nation of Japan is under siege by members of a cyber terrorist organization. In order to combat this threat the player has been augmented with cybernetic enhancements that allow them to exceed current human limitations – deploy turrets, see in the dark with infra-red vision and more!

The game will eventually go free-to-play but for now it is available in as an early access build for a minimum of $5. As with other games that Nexon has published – expect some form of microtransactions with this title. There are a number of different buy-in tiers for early access beyond the initial $5 investment that will unlock some extras:

  • Recurit Pack ($5.49 CDN) – Access to the closed beta + one exclusive weapon skin.
  • Operative Pack ($7.69 CDN) – Access to the closed beta + Two exclusive weapon skins + 100,000 GP for early access and 100,000 GP for the eventual open beta.
  • Specialist Pass ($10.19 CDN) – Access to closed beta + three exclusive weapon skins + one extra character slots + 1000,000 GP bonus for closed & open beta.
  • Elite Access Pass ($32.99 CDN) – Access to closed beta + three exclusive weapon skins + three extra character slots + 500,000 GP bonus for open & open beta.

Nexon has also released the recommended system specs for the game.

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RECOMMENDED:

    • OS: Windows 7 64bit or later
    • Processor: Intel i5 2500 3.3 Ghz
    • Graphics: GeForce GTS 450
    • DirectX: Version 9.0
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 3 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or higher compatible sound card or on board processor

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