Deep Space:

In Brief:
A first person sci fi themed shooter made with Unity.

You can see a video of game play HERE and Steam community reviews HERE

The Game:
This is another Unity based game, but in my opinion much better than yesterdays game which was also a FPS game made with Unity. It is a pretty basic game, but the time I played was reasonably enjoyable (just about). The aim of the game is to clear out rogue robots from various locations around a space station, some of which are stationary and other smaller ones roaming. Once cleared you leave the station in your space flyer and complete other missions; (unfortunately I didn't get further than attempting to get to my flyer as I had major issues trying to use the jump boots and kept dying attempting to cross over to one of the platforms to get to my flyer.

One of the first AAA games I ever purchased for PC was a 3D space shooter called EPIC {the first almost 5 minutes are the intro and cut scenes, actual game play stars around 4mins 30sec into the video}; where you'd have massive space battles and attack ground targets on alien planets. That was in the early 90's and graphics have come a long way since then; but, for me, it 's still a very memorable game as it was one of the first space oriented games (together with the original Elite on an Amiga 500) that I've yet to top with respect to excitement and enjoyable game play. You can get EPIC for free HERE, but it does require DOSBox v0.63 or higher to play).

I was looking forwards to seeing what the space battles were like in this game (wanting to compare them with EPIC, which has always been my reference point for this genre), but time ran out on my allocated reviewing time (I had to put limits on this because a few years ago I'd often spend all day reviewing a game when I should have been doing other things. If anyone does get further and experiences flying the flyer, please do post some details here. Thank you.

There are a few tricks you can employ to survive each round; for example, don't stand in front of the stationary enemy robots that look like metal boxes with a large round eye for more than a few seconds at a time otherwise you'll see your health reducing rapidly (indicated by a red bar graph in the bottom left of the screen. The large stationary robots appear to fire three short bursts of their weapon, then go to a rest state (unless you are facing them). You weapons rely on a fast recharge; you can see this via the white bar indicator in the bottom right of your screen; so, once you've expended the charge you need to move out of the line of fire until the weapon has recharged (it only takes a few seconds); by which time, whichever robot you were firing at will have gone back to it's rest state, so you have a second or two before the robot starts firing at you again once you step in front of it. If you do find it hard to survive then you can also make yourself invincible by pressing 'Tab which opens a pause/options menu where you can adjust the look sensitivity and toggle on/off shadows, invincibility and framerate counter as well as show the controls. Just check the box for invincibility and your safe; (see the last image below)

Each round involves you clearing out a particular section of the space station. Once each area has been cleared, you'll received a message saying ''All Objectives Completed'' Each round is preceded by a black screen with a reference to a past time in hours; that, as each round is completed gets lower i.e. 24, 21, 15 & 10 hours ago. Then a message saying ''eliminate all enemies'' together with a short intro' cut-scene that gives you a clue as to where you are going next, or what you will accomplish, e.g. finding a new weapon or going to your space crafts location. The second weapon you pick up has a ladder sight like you see on grenade launchers. When fired it sends a packet of energy in an arc (much like you see when firing a grenade from a grenade launcher), the greater the angle you shoot the weapon at, the further the charge will go (up to a point). It does more damage than your default energy pistol, but is harder to use until you get a feel for the ladder sight and the angle to distance relation. (for me it added a small extra level of difficulty using the second weapon)


You'll find plenty of health packs scattered around each stage and the smaller moving robots once destroyed will leave a health pack for you to regenerate your health. Prior to the fourth or fifth round, you spawn in a room with three stationary robots, with no exit and a couple of health packs. I died several times here before realizing that if I went down some steps into a corner section of the room that was lower than the robots, they were unable to hit me with their weapons; then, adopting the same tactic as suggested above, i.e. fire off a full charge from your pistol, then retreat to the lower area, you can pick off all three robots without receiving much damage. Following this round you'll be required to go outside the station to your ship. To do this you have to pick up some a jet pack that look like boots (probably inspired by those used in one of the early Star Trek movies) that are located just outside the space station at the end of a gantry walkway. To pick them up just walk over to them. To use them, press Space and keep it depressed together with your movement keys. Personally I couldn't get past this section as I kept falling below the area I was supposed to jump to and then 'falling' into space and dying. There is a knack to controlling your movement while using the jump boots/jet pack, which I wasn't able to master in the time I had to check this game out.

Controls:
WASD or Arrow keys = Movement
LMB = Shoot
RMB = Aim down sights
Number keys/ Q&E or MMB = Switch Weapon
Space = Jump
Space + Hold (while in air) = Jetpack
C = Crouch
Shift = Sprint
P or Tab = Pause

You can also use a game pad. See image for details of the bindings for a controller.

Conclusion:
Overall Deep Space is a reasonable first person shooter with a Sci Fi theme running throughout; at least its reasonable within it's particular price range. I've seen some of the assets used in this game in other Unity based games; this is often called asset flipping; that said, it didn't take away from the game play. It's not The Outer Worlds or other super duper, super expensive AAA space oriented games (though you can play the amazing EVE Online for free if you don't mind playing against other EVE community members who spend hundreds of £/$ of real money on the game for better ships, shields and weapons), though today Deep Space is free,; and, if you enjoy first person shooters, Sci Fi or Space in general, it's probably worth downloading. You can get it over on Steam when not on sale for £2.89 HERE

Issues:
There was nothing game breaking or serious that I could find apart from finding it difficult to use the jump boots/jet pack; i.e. you have to time your jumps perfectly otherwise you won't make the distance. I tried at least 20 times and failed every one, but only just missing the platform I needed to get to on most attempts once I'd figured that you needed to double click the space bar to activate the jet pack.. I found taking a running jump and pressing the Space bar twice, holding it down the second time activated the jet pack. You can see an indicator above your red health indicator that tells you how much power is left in the Jet Pack. It recharges the same way as your weapons. The other two issues I found were that you couldn't skip the cut scene at the beginning of the game until the space suited figure had entered the space station and there is no save system; so, when you leave the game, then re-enter you'll start right from the beginning again, no matter how far you managed to progress on your previous attempt. This tells me that the game is possibly quite short?

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found zero hits from 57 antimalware engines. The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to Falcoware's home page after the game has installed and places four shortcuts onto your desktop (which can be safely deleted once the game has installed). The installation does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to Falcoware's home page when the game has been installed, it earns Falcoware games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/c5aa068804cb842279ed3e11873e0e5c0a968e4460970e1b1b01aa1f53e15d9f/detection

Other Free Games:

HERE.

The latest game from Epic Games is called Control a third person action adventure. There's also another game that was added yesterday called Genshin Impact an open world anime RPG adventure. Both are available free until the 17th June.

Next weeks games include Hell is other Demons an action-platform shooter, with Roguelite elements and Overcooked! 2; Journey back to the Onion Kingdom and assemble your team of chefs in classic couch co-op or online play for up to four players. Hold onto your aprons … it’s time to save the world (again!); both will be available next week Thursday 17th June at 4pm UK time/11am EST

Also from Epic, If you play online with friends there's a decent PvE/PvP free FPS game called Scavengers with a coop mode (I checked it out recently and it looks fantastic as well as plays well) and you can still get the clicker RPG Idle Champions as well as other multiplayer games. I've been posting redeemable codes for free chests that contain various buffs nd other items for Idle Champions (time limited for 5 to 7 days from the day of posting) over in the forums HERE. They contain various items that boost your heroes abilities and health as well as affect your group of heroes in game, for example potions that boost health or DPS, contracts that can improve armour or weapons already used by the heroes or other contracts that add specific amounts of gold to your bank as well as items of jewellery, armour or weapons that buff your characters stats. I don't usually play clicker type games, but this one is well supported by the developer and has a massive following. I'll be posting codes for as long as I continue to play the game. I've posted some help sheets and links to a game wiki via the above link as well

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. Delenn has been updating these regularly for years now. It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep. Delenn has recently posted details of more Steam games that are temporarily free. One may be until it leaves early access??? - i.e. Tower Ball - Incremental Tower Défense plus a reflex game called Keyboard Killers are still free. Delenn posted details of a free origin came called Battlefield 4 which is available for free if you have an Amazon Prime account (If you like FPS games, it's a brilliant game to own. (not sure if it's still live).

Please also check out Delenn's thread about the charity bundle over in the forums that costs $5 (or as much as you wish to donate over $5) and includes over a thousand games HERE; Dana also posted a link to the bundle a few days ago.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a few more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)