Saturday Morning Gaming: Satellite Reign is a modern Syndicate

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

Related Post Roulette

11 Responses

  1. Fish says:

    Ooooh, I’d forgotten about this game. It’s been in my library for ages. May have to break it back out.Report

  2. JHG says:

    Cool. There used to be so many games similar in ways to Syndicate. A lot of those old iso RPGs were fun – early PC, NES, SNES, Genesis, et al. I suppose some of the reason is because of the limits of computers, back in the day, which created rich strategy games that really have disappeared (though I don’t play PC as much now).

    I miss those old RPGs. And the old strategy games, too. The old KOEI games. And MicroProse.

    Master of Orion (and the even crazier Master of Magic). Whatever that sea trading/pirating game was, where you could sail the entire world and one trip back with exotic spices set you up for life. The original Warcraft (and Starcraft). All of the Japanese and Chinese historical/mythological games (I always liked Genghis Khan, Romance of the Three Kingdoms). I’m forgetting lots, because there were LOTS of these games.

    I’ve played the newish Wasteland 2 recently, and it is very Fallout 1/2 (iso, turn-based, choices, RPG, random encounters, etc.). I’ll have to keep an eye out for this one (Satellite Reign). I recommend Wasteland 2, if you have an itch for the old Fallout 1/2 thing.

    —-

    I’ve been playing with Dalle2 (https://openai.com/dall-e-2/) recently, since I finally got access a couple of weeks ago. It’s interesting and very surreal a lot of the time. But fairly amazing, for what it does. Sign up for an account, if you don’t have one (they’re free still). They limit how many prompts you can do per month now (15), though you get 50 prompts for the first month. Of course, you can buy more prompts if you run out, because, of course. People do some fun things with putting computer/video game characters into other video games (Mario but in Metal Gear Solid, Realistic, HD, fine details, studio lighting from the side, strong contrast, shadows, …).Report

    • Jaybird in reply to JHG says:

      Yeah, I got mine a couple of weeks ago too.

      My absolute *BEST* one was “statue of a bear holding a human skull”.

      I’ve been playing with stuff that the DM could hand out. “As you walk down the hall, you see that there are carvings in the wall… they look like this.”

      And then give the players a printout of “bas-relief of cave full of zombies holding torches”.Report

      • JHG in reply to Jaybird says:

        “I’ve been playing with stuff that the DM could hand out. “As you walk down the hall, you see that there are carvings in the wall… they look like this.”

        And then give the players a printout of “bas-relief of cave full of zombies holding torches”.”

        I think Dalle2 is perfect for stuff like that. I love it! And it would also be great for making quick prototype assets for games. Or images of characters. Or storyboards.

        I really like the Dall-E one of the bear and skull.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to JHG says:

          Yeah. I know that I should be doing something socially beneficial with the AI tools and the best thing that I can come up with is “handouts for D&D”.

          Because, if that’s not an option, I’m just having Cap’n Crunch have a light sabre fight with Picard at Wrestlemania.Report

          • JHG in reply to Jaybird says:

            Yeah, but who gets to decide what’s beneficial and what isn’t? You do you. That’s best.

            —-

            Unrelated game rec: Wingspan (board game about birds). Still trying to figure it out. Very different. Love the artwork (like Auduban drawings). Fun to play, but also talk at the same time.Report

            • Jaybird in reply to JHG says:

              I’ve seen it on the steam and it’s been intriguing, I just haven’t made the jump yet.

              I will now. (Or payday, anyway.)Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

                Okay, it’s 40% off.

                I’ll try it now.Report

              • JHG in reply to Jaybird says:

                Wow, I didn’t know it was a computer game. I have the board game of it, which is of excellent quality. I know you play board games, too, and was recommending the board game version.

                Let me know how the computer game version is.

                EDIT: And it has single (solo) player rules, too, though it’s different than a two player or a three+ player play.

                EDIT 2: *AudubonReport

              • KenB in reply to JHG says:

                My wife and I played Wingspan with a couple of friends a few months ago — it’s a nice medium-complexity game with a great theme. Normally my wife would run screaming away from a game like that, but being something of a birder, she couldn’t help but be drawn in by the theme.

                Apart from the electronic versions of the game itself, there’s also an app Wingsong that you can use with the physical game that can scan a card and play the song/call of that bird.Report

              • JHG in reply to KenB says:

                Thanks for the information on the Wingsong app! I will download that to use the next time we play WingSpan.Report