ARK: Survival Evolved Free On Epic

There’s no hiding what this week’s game is, but I still want to joke that it was a mystery. Monday, I spoke about dating gay men and gay trans men, while Alexx spoke about the Summer of Pride event, and Dmitry spoke of the now 1400+ games for just $5. Tuesday, Taylor spoke about New Horizons’ wedding event strategy, and Alexx spoke about a puzzling Harry Potter-like game not created by someone who believes trans women aren’t women. Then Wednesday, I spoke about Microsoft ditching codes for people who are too lazy to type. Later today, Jaydyn will talk about the PS5 reveal (and awful design), while next week, David will be covering the PC Gaming showcase from this coming weekend.

To this week’s free game on the Epic Games Store. Shock among shocks, it is ARK: Survival Evolved. Paint me pink, cover me in some dirt, and call me a worm, for I am shaking with shock and surprise. That, or the coffee has caught up with me. It isn’t that much of a surprise, of course. We knew about this for weeks now, since the leaks of Civilization VI and Borderlands being part of the mystery collection for the Epic Mega Sale. What we didn’t count on, was that the week we would all have assumed ARK to be free, Epic switched it for Overcooked, again.

What is ARK? Well, a few years ago it was part of Steam’s early access, as was the case with every survival game then. Much like everything of its kind it would take some time to develop into a playable game. That doesn’t mention performance, which depending on your platform you are going to see a massive disparity in quality. A couple of years ago when ARK was part of Xbox Game Pass, I played the game for all of about 30 minutes. Between lengthy load screens, crashing, and an unplayable framerate, it was a nightmare to attempt to play. Since then, ARK has also released on the Nintendo Switch; It isn’t much better.

The idea is that you are a proto-human with sci-fi style implants, akin to that in Horizon: Zero Dawn. With these implants you’ll develop skills, level up, and learn to build more than a hut of your own excrement. While you’re building your hut, you’ll have to tame, domesticate, and teach dinosaurs to play nice. Not the dinosaurs that scientists spoiled after the release of Jurassic Park, the proper fictional dinosaurs we want to believe in like we do Santa or politicians. The goal, I’m sure, is to create a skyscraper while a T-Rex accountant does a full Jordan Belfort. Most just want to ride a big dinosaur into battle against an equally-large dinosaur.

Along with ARK, you can pick up SNK’s Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection as a second free game available this entire week. A collection of a total of six games in one, by my understanding, bringing the classic fighting games back to life on PC. Along with this comes the 2019 release of Samurai Shodown, a far nicer looking game than the pixely NeoGeo-era graphics of the 90s. I’ll stick my hands up and say it, I’m not the one you want to ask about fighting games and their quality; I, like most, mash random buttons and moan when I lose.

However, if you’re a child of the mid to late-90s, you’ll have fond memories of platformers with color, heart, and all the warm fuzzy feelings of Spyro, Ratchet and Clank, Rayman, 40 winks (if you’re mental), Jet Set Radio, and Jak and Daxter. Snake Pass is a game I reviewed several months ago now, and for the weekend, it is free on Humble Bundle. Though snakes can’t jump, thank Christ because that would make them horror monsters! You navigate several levels by wrapping yourself around bamboo, climbing walls, and as is often the case, falling with your big, dopey, snakey face yelling as you fall. It is a wonderful platformer with what sadly now is called “retro gameplay.”

Both ARK: Survival Evolved & Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection are free on the Epic Games Store all this week until Thursday morning. Next Thursday it is another double-bill featuring: Pathway and The Escapists 2. Pathway is a pixel art turn-based strategy that’s set in 1930s Egypt, if that sounds familiar you may have heard of this classic indie film called Indiana Jones, you might have heard of it. The Escapists 2, however, is a sequel to that one game where you try to crawl through a river of man excrement and come out clean on the other side.

If I’m honest, I am more excited to play the 2019 game Pathway than I am for the 2017 release of The Escapists 2. I’ve previously stated my views on turn-based strategy/tactics games, they aren’t my go-to game of choice if I’m being blunt about it. I am hopeful for one thing next week, and that will be to play a bit of Pathway and talk about it.