Orwell and Europa IV Is Free On Epic

Monday, the Poké-mans announced a show on the 8th. Tuesday, Red Dead Redemption is coming to the Switch and PS4, and Mortal Kombat 1 is still adding characters three decades later. Yes, I’ll keep up with this joke, it is a stupid name. Wednesday, Edward had a recap of what happened at the Pokémon showcase, and an anime game is releasing in November, I think. Thursday, Stay Gods was released yesterday so expect a review on that once Alexx gets around to it.

Moving on to the games available this week on the Epic Games Store, we’ll start with Paradox Interactive’s 4X title this week, Europa Universalis IV. Set in the middle ages to the modern period (1444-1821), this is the fourth iteration of the series that started in ye old year 2000. It was generally favored by most, 10 years ago when it was released. Paradox has to be Paradox and to this very year there are still expansion packs releasing, so there is plenty more to add-on to the experience. That said, you have to get past the tutorial, which is certainly a boring feat.

Next up is Osmotic Studios’ 2016 episodic point-and-click simulator based on the 1949 dystopian sci-fi novel by the titular writer, Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You. Playing the first “season” or simply the Keeping an Eye on You release several years ago now, I quite like the straightforward story focus that Osmotic paints in this beautiful and horrible tale of Big Brother watching you. While limited in terms of gameplay, with drama that only works as much as you let it, Orwell absolutely captures that surveillance state feeling, especially post-Snowden or Fellwock.

All this week you can pick up Europa Universalis IV and Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You on the Epic Games Store until Thursday, the 17th of August. Moving on to next week, I’ll be talking about Black Book. Sadly it isn’t the one with Bill Bailey and Dylan Moran, it is just a Slavic folk tale RPG Adventure that’s highly praised. Alongside it is Dodo Peak, a puzzle platforming thing that purposefully looks to aim for something a bit more dated.