Lee Dixon

Got the 6gb update for No Man's Sky last night, the latest version called NEXT. Only played it for about an hour, but I'm liking it lots. I'm down on record saying I loved the game when it first came out, and of course was in the minority of not getting my knickers in a twist about it not delivering on its promise, but I guess I'm not an average gamer, and just love wondering around at my pace and enjoying the scene....

I picked up Planetoid Pioneers the "Contributor Edition" the other day. I had been watching this game for sometime in early access, and thought it was a very interesting idea and could be really fun if the community get behind it. They had a special offer around the lunch day which made it half price for the Contributor Edition, so I went for that.  So far I like it, not had time to make anything or even leave the first planetoid, but I don't mind which I guess that's a good sign.

I picked up Star Control Origins about two months ago while still in very early access and at a very low price (£17). I believe I played the original all those years ago on a friends pc. At the time it really wasn't for me as a game, but as I have gotten older it's right on point. I just love games you can invest time in, and come back again and again.

We are a bit of a fan of Lego Worlds here at the Dixon's. My youngest will happily site and just make up his own games while running around the sandbox game. It's an amazing creative game for any fan of Lego or just building.  Anyway now that the game has been released as a full game now, and has been out for awhile I have been collecting a few of the codes you can input to unlock sets and also world codes.  I haven't tried them all but give them a go.

I do love the Xcom games. I'm old enough to have played the first ones, and have loved the relaunch of the series 1 and 2. Now a new DLC is on the way called War of the Chosen. The story tells about the Chosen, a race of aliens with their own personalities and skillsets.

It was over before it had really begun.. Heading to Angainor II, a world surrounded by dust clouds which could help defenses but would be an isolated planet. Hopefully we can create a great supply line that would help them not feel alone out there while they supply us with what we need to make our civilization great… Improvement in our hyperdrives have made our ship’s faster, we are still pushing for Ion Drives and Interstellar Navigation. We are now at 184 cycles since we as a race, made a decision to push forward for the good of our people. Unfortunately it has now become very clear all too late that we have spread ourselves too thin. Hiring Mirazu Ysen with his ship "The Ysengard" was the right the right thing to do, but only one small fleet can not fight all the Pirates that we keep coming across the further we push forward into the unknown.

Galactic Civilizations 3 - 001 After saying many, many times that I’m such a big fan of strategy games like Civilization and Galactic Civilization and that they are in my favorite all time games list, I thought I’d better start playing some. First up is going to be Galactic Civilizations 3. Now even though it's been out since May 2015 and I picked it up early on I haven’t put much time into it (11hrs as of now on my steam account). I will be playing with Mercenaries Expansion Pack, Ship Designer’s Toolbox, Precursor World's, Mega Events and Revenge Of The Snathi DLC installed, no other mods. We are the Arcean Empire, a noble and old race with a rich history. After centuries of always being the underdog, and being almost brought to the brink of destruction by the Drengin. We were helped by the Terran Alliance to gain our world back and start to rebuild. We will never let our proud race be oppressed by anyone ever again. We will create an army of warriors that will...

This is very cool.  RealmPictures  was approched by IO-Interactive to make a real life Hitman level. I think they did an amazing job. they also have a behind the scenes video 

 Thought I would give Steam's VR test programme a run last night. I bought my pc last year and I did my best to get the most for my price range, so I was interested to see how it would stand up to what some people are saying is the next big thing for gaming (though I have my own views on that). The programme itself is available in your steam library under Software/Utilities and is about a 1.9gb download, which I thought was overkill for what it does....  Anyway once installed it runs for about 2mins to see if your pc can handle VR. I'm happy to say it passed and was marked as Ready, but only just in the ready marker! (see screen grab). I guess I'm glad that my system would be good to go, but VR is in my mind many years away from being a real need for any gamer, and at the price mark of $800 which will be £800 uk when it does come out here, as our exchange rate is odd that way, it's not going to be on many people's shopping lists.  As with all new tech coming ont...

 Amazingly cool full length trailer for Street Fighter V. This game has come along way since Super Street Fighter II on the SNES, which was my first introduction to the game. Loved the switch over to the new look, but I just wish they wouldn't do so many versions and DLC content. It never feels like your getting the full game until you have bought it all.  Some more images after the link.

In a very surprising move, Amazon have released their own gaming engine for all to have a go with. And giving this even more of a twist is that it will be completely free, no download cost or royalties to pay.  It's a very nice, and one that might make Unity and Unreal 4 have to have a long think about where they stand, because if Lumberyard gets the support from the gaming public and enthusiasts, it will become the go to engine. Link to the download  here.

 So finally the day has come (hopefully) that Starbound the game makes its beta release to the public. I have been waiting for well over a year for this. Today they have also release the trailer which shows off well some of the things that are going on in the game, but I would imagine there is so much more to see and find :) And here are a few screen grabs I found online, so looks good.   :)

I picked up Terraria for my Sony Z tablet and S3 phone the other week, and I can not stop playing it. Now I bought the game for pc well over a year ago with the hopes of it being a great side scrolling version of minecraft, yet I wasn't impressed at all, it was hard to control and move about and seemed very confusing, well to me anyway. They seem to have fixed most of those problems with the latest update for the pc which happened the other day, but I'm glad none of those problems have appeared in the mobile version, it seems the perfect platform for this type of game and I'm loving playing it and so is my eldest son.

 I am so looking forward to this. I was a big, big fan of Total Annihilation and all the addon's ( that's what they were called in the old day's before DLC ) that you could get. Supreme Commander is another that I loved and still do play once in a while when I want some epic mech battles, I have both 1 and 2 and again all the addon's.  So I have hi hopes for this as it is being made by those very guy's who created those games. The idea behind this I think is basically more, much more now on the side of planets not just maps or levels. Watch the pre alpha video below and let me know what you think. As its an alpha it only gives you a little look and what is to come but the kickstarter video has more action.

Now this is impressive. I'm a big fan of Unreal and there engine tech, this is the latest graphics demo 'Infiltrator'.   Hope we don't need too much of a beast of a system to run the games coming on this.

 So as this month is racing on I thought I would post a few of my favourite cosplay images from last months collection.   Some really great ones I think. A special Yes for me has to be Ash and Bettlejuice, they still rock!!   Lots more in last months album if you missed them.