Hey Waabbit,

Saw you had Dirt Rally 2. Here's an awesome deal one of the Chrono guys found on Steam. I can figure out the math but get it before they figure it out..and possibly change it..GET IT!!!

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/388533/

You can't beat this price and unless you know where to look for these sale..It's pretty much impossible to find...

Die For The Empire

In Brief

Die for the Empire is a retro 2D sci-fi shoot-em-up with lite RPG and rogue-like elements.

Introduction

The planet Agora VI, a critical industrial center within the Terran Empire, has been invaded by an unknown alien force. You must hold the planet at all costs.

Reference accessed HERE 30th Jan 2020

The Game

I'm away for most of today, so don't have the time to put together a full review. I've played the game for a short time (my Steam copy, that I'd forgotten I had) and my overall impression for a £0.79 game is that it's okay and more importantly 'playable'. If you enjoy playing challenging space shooters (Shmups), this is definitely worth downloading. Most of the reviews over on Steam are negative, but personally for such a cheap game, I think it's unfair to give it such negative reviews. Don't get me wrong, there are issues, but overall Die For The Empire has all the elements of a decent shmup. What I didn't like was that you only get one life, and it only takes one hit from an enemy ship to send you right back to the beginning with all your upgrades lost. Try getting past a boss without being hit; it's almost impossible. I love shmup games, but not being as fast as I used to be, I tend to die a lot; so, having to start from the beginning after only one hit is more than a little annoying, it get's frustratingly hair rending, keyboard smashing, rage quittingly regular.

Because I don't have enough time to write a thoughtful review I've posted two reviews that you can also find via the Steam community reviews of this game HERE. The copy we are getting today is not a Steam version. Personally I think the community members posting negative reviews expects too much from such a cheap game. One of their gripes is the key bindings. I found them perfect for a left handed person, which I suspect the developer was. My recommendation is you try the game before writing it off; especially if you like to play those old school shmups from 20 to 30 years ago. This does have some charm and isn't just a basic game, so, go download and check it out for yourselves. ;)

You can see a couple of game play videos HERE and via the Steam store page HERE.

Review 1 - Positive

Starting with the art i like it. Clean and colorful without being gaudy, the ships design matches terrain in style. The ships themselves are different and feel very different, I like that. The enemies are varied and aesthetically pleasing as well, they have patterns that are specific to each type. It is difficult, but deaths do not feel cheap or rage inducing, each time I died for the empire it was obvious why and was my mistake.

The difficulty may be progressive, (farthest i made it is the ship you must defend, like the idea of putting objectives in running like that, games usually have different missions fresh idea i think to have missions come in stream like that.) Even if it is progressive, the difficulty does not start out low enough, you are running your head against a wall. I really think difficulty levels would be great. Remember Halo? Heroic was the gold standard and everyone knew it was a bear to beat. So to go for glory you played heroic, but to have fun you played normal or hard. Let you get through and understand the game which prepared you for trying hardest difficulty have for example easy, medium, hard and DIE as difficulty settings with die being the current difficulty and three lower levels which increase your health, maybe give you health steal when you kill enemies or lessen their damage so people can set it easy if they like so they can at least make it through the whole game and THEN if they like it play it on higher difficulties. Text in shop does not fit on buttons and is a small thin font that should be fixed. A description of ships fire patterns and supers would be great make your game look cooler with those added diagrams I think and help player to understand what is going on. Sort of an info card for each ship that displays when you click on a ship or just place ships at the screen’s top and display card beneath them.

One major gripe i have is the key setting, using arrow keys and mouse crowds my hands together and WASD is much more common and comfortable to myself and most computer gamers. Add custom key binding or an option for WASD key settings with C & V replacing shift and Ctl so you can use your thumb. Odd thing i noticed is if I hold right and tap left ship will stop as I tap left, but if I hold left and tap right right tap is ignored, same thing for up and down. Minor but a control inconsistency nonetheless. The music is great, energizing and aggressive without being overwhelming game is fun and clean, screen is not cluttered like is common with games in this genre. If you like HARDCORE ship shoot’em ups you will like this game, not sure if you will like the price though. 3/10 (I think difficulty levels alone would bring this game up to a 5-8/10 depending upon implementation) DISCLAIMER: Dev is a good friend of mine.

Originally posted by AgentKlark 25th Nov 2018 HERE, edited and re-posted by Whiterabbit-uk 30th January 2020

Review 2 - Negative

This really feels like an unfinished game. There's a decent core, but to say that everything around it is unpolished is an understatement. Perhaps the most important issue is that the game is very unbalanced difficulty-wise. The first level is by far the hardest because you start with no upgrades and just a single forward weapon. The biggest challenge is surviving long enough to gather enough scrap to purchase a side weapon slot (by which point you'll likely have picked up a weapon to fill it) and upgrade the attack speed once or twice. It's unimaginable how much easier the game becomes after that. By the time you've got two forward and two side weapons with upgraded attack speed and maybe even extra bullets (which should be by the end of the second or third levels if you've been selling surplus picked up weapons to the randomly appearing stores), you'll be a weapon of mass destruction and the only danger remaining will be accidentally running into the few enemies that somehow made it past your bullet spam. Particularly bosses which might survive a few seconds so you'll need to shield-dodge past them to be safe.

The second major flaw is the control scheme. Arrow keys, Right CTRL, Right SHIFT, Mouse and the 'i' key? Really? If the dev's don't wanna take the time to add key remapping (and they should), they should at least change it to use the WASD, Left Shift, Space and 'E'. And then there's the inventory/buying screen. Sometimes it seems to buy something as soon as I enter it (maybe because I'm still holding down the left mouse button to shoot.) Sometimes weapons seem to disappear from their slots, and it's a toss up on whether they're really gone or just invisible - gotta go back to the battle and shoot to find out which. Sometimes you sell a surplus weapon and end up selling an equipped weapon alongside it. And there's no information on what buying the Health, Shield and Energy powerups does, plus at least the Health cost is wrong. Says 20, costs 40 or 50 (maybe depending on the ship.)

So once you've somehow survived long enough to get the necessary upgrades (I recommend starting with the Bomber ship which can take way more hits and just needs a couple relatively inexpensive speed upgrades to be more playable) you get the cathartic experience of mowing enemies down as soon as they appear until after beating one level just like any other you're suddenly sent to rolling credits. But the first level or so is just a chore of frustration. Also, it took me about 2.5 hours to finally beat the game. The first 2 hours was idling for cards. I didn't time the actual winning run, but pretty sure it was way under 1 hour. Hopefully these issues can get fixed sometime, and then I could recommend the game, but since the Die for the Empire isn't labeled "Early Access", I don't know if the devs are even working on it anymore.

Originally posted by kalirion 11th June 2017 HERE. Reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 30th January 2020

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Die For The Empire doesn't interest you, but you still hanker for something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but most of the links still take you to the latest deals).

From now until Half-Life : Alyx is released sometime in March, every Half-life game is free to play on Steam HERE. They include, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift and Team Fortress Classic

Indie Gala has some new games added to their free section; these include Deep Space Anomaly - an intensive, fascinating and mad game which is sweeping away all borders where the main objective - to kill enemies and to have fun! Also, Affliction - which is set in the fictional Eastern European country of Ghulovka, amidst a terrible civil war, Affliction allows players to take on the role of Vasya, a patient plagued by nightmares and fractured memories, who awakes inside of a cell in a bizarre research facility where grim human experiments are taking place; and Disgraced - a game based in Feudal Japan, Disgraced allows you to assume the role of a soldier who was reluctantly conscripted into the newly proclaimed Shogun's army. Serving a corrupt and tyrannical government, you're expected to follow orders and commit terrible atrocities. Torn between duty and justice, you must choose your own path, and forge your own destiny

Don't forget to check out the Epic game store for the latest freebie on offer HERE. Today (until 6p UK time) is the last chance you have of getting 'The Bridge'; a logic puzzle game that forces the player to re-evaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective. It is Isaac Newton meets M.C. Escher combo where you manipulate gravity to redefine the ceiling as the floor while venturing through impossible architectures. Later today (6pm UK time) it's the excellent Farming Simulator 19 as you can guess from the titles, it's a farming simulator. You can see several game play videos of Farming simulator 19 via the Steam store page HERE

There are more free games over at Indie Gala HERE.

The Eden Rising base game is also free on Steam. It's an open world, SP/Coop/MP Sci Fi tower defense third person RPG with crafting and survival elements. Finally, check out Delenns thread over in the Game Discussion forums for details of other free games and offers HERE