You keep the game. You never get steam keys, it’s either GOG keys, Epic or Amazons own weird launcher. I use GOG galaxy to manage which games I have and on which game service.
I’ve played it a bit now, its more of a puzzle game than a business management game. You connect resources with stations, each of which have four connecting tracks. If you’re careless/unlucky you can block a track-endpoint you need later. You get combo bonuses for building connections in (as the game narrates it) illogical order.
There’s animations of trains, but it only matters that resources/buildings are connected.
its good if you liked the old maxis “theme hospital” this is the sequel they never got to make
Free on Epic: The Operator
Free games with Amazon prime
Dungeon of the ENDLESS™ Definitive Edition
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered
Saints Row 2
TOEM
Saints Row IV: Re-Elected
STAR WARS™: Rebellion
Dark Envoy (GOG),
FATE: Undiscovered Realms
Saints Row 2 is good, not as wacky as SR3, enough personality that it’s not yet another GTA clone. The PC port is baaad but playable after installing the Gentlemen of the row mod. I haven’t personally tried the Juiced user made patch, but people online recommend it.
TOEM is a cute black and white photography game.
Snagged all of those yesterday, but wanted to ask if any here had played any of the free games via Amazon’s Luna service. I have a compatible Xbox controller, and the newish 65" screen. I honestly don’t think I’d bother, when using my PC is generally easier, but figured it might be fun if there were any free games that would be better on a big screen. Though my understanding is Luna caps at 1080p 60.
Free on Steam right now, the aptly named SteamWorld Dig. I remember it being a cute fun platformer maybe RPG-lite.
Today on Epic:
Sable was free 3 years ago (which I forgot when I tried to add it again today):
But it’s a good add for anyone who hasn’t done it yet. It has a unique aesthetic and got decent reviews (7-9 out of 10 depending on where you look) so I consider it worth a library spot for free.
NEXT JUMP: Shmup Tactics is free on Steam until July 1st.
Amperstat is available for free until July 6th.
Epic’s freebies for this week:
If you like Figment, it looks like the sequel Figment 2 will be a freebie for next week, along with Sky Rocket.
Black Desert is free until the 10th. It’s been free multiple times before so there’s a good chance you already own it.
It’s an action-based MMO that’s (when I last played it) pretty fun as a basic, no need to microtransact, experience until level 50/60 (?) and then you’re forced into accepting PvP so suddenly the Pay-to-Win aspects come to light. Great character creator though and was fun until I hit the PvP wall but I’m not even upset about it. Just consider it a game with 60 levels if that’s not your bag. You’re not forced to level past the PvP wall either; you can stay at level 59 (?) forever if you want you’ll just be limited in what to do from that point on.
Also it has horse taming/training and I spent a lot of time just capturing, taming, training and breeding horsies.
For Prime Day Amazon has a few games for free (not sure for how long…not long though I do not think). Free if you are an Amazon Prime Subscriber:
- Football Manager 2024
- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
- Marvel’s Midnight Suns
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent
I will say that Marvel’s Midnight Suns is really a very good game. It got a bad rap here when it first came out. I think the gameplay was just a bit too different to be easy to latch on to. But, I can say there really is a very good game there once you get a sense of how it all works.
I bought it for Xbox when it was on sale a while back. It’s a very enjoyable game to me. Definitely worth grabbing for free.
I couldn’t get into it, I expected something more X-Com and the story did not grab me.
It’s very much “Avengers hanging out in a magic mansion” for the story. The gameplay is like a collectible card game but with battlefield strategy mixed in. It has a unique feel that I wasn’t sure I liked at first until I got used to it.
The game definitely suffers from that expectation. It’s better described as something like “XCOM-inspired tactical arena brawler” than as “it’s like XCOM.”
Warhammer Chaos Gate (another excellent game) is just like XCOM. Midnight Suns is not, but if you approach it on its terms it’s very very good.
The game does an excellent job of making every character feel completely distinct while respecting their canonical abilities and fighting styles. It’s honestly a very impressive feat, and is a much bigger lift than XCOM-likes which are more about starting from indistinct templates and customizing them to your liking.
Yeah the story (and the playable narrative sequences) are legitimately bad.
Yeah I really dislike the whole card thing that they are putting in games, it makes them more “game” and less “simulation” and I prefer the simulation end of the spectrum.
I understand that completely. In a lot of games that do that, it turns me off.
I realized that with this game, the cards have two purposes. One, it introduces the element of randomness to the game. You never know what cards you’ll draw from round to round, but the cards themselves are predictable; you know exactly what effects they’ll have, how much damage they do, etc. It’s not like a game where you attack and have a percentage chance to miss (as I know X-COM can do), or does damage in a range; each card does exactly what it says it will. Instead, the RNG occurs whenever you draw new cards, which can happen at the start of a round or in the middle of a round depending on the circumstances.
The cards also represent character development, like an RPG. As you get better and different cards, your character gets stronger, and you can shape a character to a particular “build” by getting cards that heal people, do more damage, add defense, knock enemies around, etc. The cards are taking the place of stats and abilities that you might find in other games.
Once I understood that, I saw how they fit in, and were just a game mechanic representing a character’s powers, gear, and tactics. And they really do fit the character, whether it’s Spider-Man shooting webs in a guy’s face or Doctor Strange casting a spell or Iron Man shooting repulsor blasts and missiles.
But again, I totally get how it can be a turn-off, especially as it’s a game that’s hard to market or explain, and pretty much anyone that plays it is going to find that it’s different than they expected. (That was certainly the case for me.)