Kerbal Space Program Is Free On Epic

Monday, nothing happened because it is the first week in January and everyone is still sending out-of-office emails before they can be bothered to deal with people. Though last week we covered that Dishonored 2 is available with Prime. Tuesday, Payday 3 was given a Steam page and a 2023 release window. Wednesday, Prime Gaming has some interesting games for January, and Stranded Deep was added to Game Pass. Thursday, it was revealed if you get Hitman 3, you’ll finally get a full game that could possibly rival Blood Money in terms of the number of levels but maybe not quality.

Moving on to this week’s double bill on the Epic Games Store because coming back to work means being thrown into the deepest end, and we’ll start with the standalone expansion. Isometric stealth-action game Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a real-time tactics title that was released back in 2016 and tried to recapture the Desperados gameplay of the early 2000s.

However, back in December of 2021, a standalone expansion would add five new missions to new maps under the name Aiko’s Choice. The gameplay of espionage, sabotage, and assassination doesn’t change. It is still an isometric shogun ’em up, so those looking for something different won’t find it here.

Moving on to something that I’ve got a lot to talk about, we have Kerbal Space Program. It was actually earlier this week I was told about it being free despite already being aware. I was also told by that person that they wanted to give it a go. That was something I had to laugh at as (like most) I’ve killed more Kerbals than residents of Los Santos and I don’t for one second believe my own dad would be able to work out this whole rocket science business. I haven’t seen his attempts to escape the atmosphere, but I assume both of them will be a slapstick comedy as a 50-year-old man wonders why the contained explosion in a can fell over.

That’s what Kerbal Space Program is for us mere mortals unable to have the knowledge of a lovely Scottish bloke named Scott Manley. We’re all content if the tin can of farts doesn’t explode on reentry from an orbital flight, never mind spending probes to Duna in hopes of sending the Kwitter CEO home. KSP is the confirmation of what your teacher said all those years ago, that rock (or any music, entertainment, or recreation) will rot your brain. Instead, you should have been a data entry drone so you could understand the magic numbers and letters of physics like your brother.

All this week, you can pick up both Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun – Aiko’s Choice and Kerbal Space Program on the Epic Games Store until the 12th of January. Moving on to next week, hopefully, it stays as a single game to cover because otherwise, I’m making one of those rockets and hoping for my usual success rate. Next week I’ll have to find a way to talk about the multiplayer party title First Class Trouble, a Who Dunnit with a slight hint of The Ship about it.