0107.12 Supplemental

I don’t know what it’s like where you are but here in the wilds of Hertfordshire it is a gloriously fresh and sunny morning, just the kind of morning for getting the things done that really matter, such as sitting under a leafy tree and finishing that sci-fi novel that’s been nagging at you for the last few weeks. Me, I won’t be doing anything worthy or important, but I will be jumping in and out of the closed beta for Dust 514, which is distracting enough to make all my Sunday chores worthwhile. Hopefully before the Euro 2012 final tonight (which has the potential to be the finest game of football ever seen but will likely be the complete opposite) I’ll have time to dive into a quick game of Salvation Prophecy so I can make a quick report ahead of a planned review.

SCI-COM: Researching new technologies in sci-fi games is often simply a case of pressing a button and waiting for it to drop. Sure, there’s the opportunity cost of not researching another technology that does genocidal murder 2% more efficiently at the cost of 250 more silicon wafers, but it’s hardly up there with how X-COM dealt with science as a resource, argues Troy Goodfellow over at Flash of Steel. I’m inclined to agree, and wholeheartedly approve of his intention to nuke Maryland if Firaxis don’t make good on their promises to make a worthy XCOM game.

PASSING THE TORCH: Although it failed to light up via Kickstarter, developer John Gillespie has drawn up a Plan B for his hard sci-fi fleet combat game TorchShips, which means the quest for funding will continue regardless. This is very good news indeed because it’s a game that pricked up a lot of ears even though it hasn’t opened many wallets. Curiously a playable demo is only a couple of weeks away, which makes me wonder why he didn’t just wait until after it was ready before jumping aboard the crowd-funding space wagon? No matter. The game will be released eventually and that’s all that really matters.

Out there:

Play: Salvation Prophecy (PC), Dust 514 Mercenary Pack (PS3), Retrovirus alpha demo (PC), Eve Online: Inferno v1.1 (PC, Mac), Star Wars: The Old Republic v1.3 (PC), Lunar Flight v1.4 (PC), Fray v1.01 (PC)

Invest: Just hours left for Cold Fusion: Secular Equilibrium (PC) and The Repopulation (PC). Less than a week for Dead State (PC), Exis: Founders (Browser) and Retrovirus (PC). Longer for MacroBots (PC), HeXit (PC, Mac, Linux), Alpha Colony: Tribute to M.U.L.E. (iOS, PC, Mac), Alien Frontiers (iPad), OuterEdge (PC), Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire (PC, Mac), Skyjacker (PC, Mac), Origin (PC), Shatter of Stars (Browser), Black Space 2 (iOS, Mac, PC) and Jack Houston and the Necronauts (PC)

Read: Time’s Last Gift (Philip José Farmer), Weirdspace: The Devil’s Nebula (Eric Brown), Space Pilot Connor Grant (Todd Templeman), Star Trek: Typhon Pact – Plagues of Night (David R. George III), Lariat Rhodes and the Perils of the Fantasy Stars (Dane Kroll), Star Wars The Old Republic – Revan (Drew Karpyshyn)

Watch: Eve Alliance Tournament X, Planetside 2 E3 presentation, Carrier Command E3 presentation, The Repopulation alpha trailer, Imperium Galactica II – Perihelion (don’t get too excited, it’s just an ad)

Science: Paint-on batteries,  Polluted Legacy - explains why us English are so green about the gills!