Month: March 2019

This weekend’s free Steam deals include two space-inspired adventures. The first is Space Engineers, an open-world game where you explore the galaxy and build spaceships, outposts, space stations, and more, all while gathering resources to survive. The game left Steam Early Access yesterday after more than five years, and not only is it 20% off on Steam, you can play it for free this weekend.

Space Engineers combines engineering and construction gameplay with themes of survival and exploration. The developers created a “realistic, volumetric-based physics engine,” which basically means this game is similar to Minecraft in that everything you see can be used, altered, or destroyed.

“Space Engineers is inspired by reality and by how things work,” the developers shared on the game’s official website. “Think about modern-day NASA technology extrapolated 60 years into the future. Space Engineers strives to follow the laws of physics and doesn’t use technologies that wouldn’t be feasible in the near future.”

Both single and multiplayer modes are available, and a four-pack of the game is 20% off as well if you want to explore the galaxy with friends.

Buy Space Engineers on Steam — $16 (20% off until March 4; free to play for the next two days)

Offworld Trading Company is another game to check out this weekend, as its multiplayer mode is now permanently free. The game is about space economic warfare, where you strategize around supply and demand to ultimately gain dominance over every other player’s trading company. From resource management to black market sabotage, the game requires you to make quick, difficult decisions that can make or break your strategy.

In our review, we gave Offworld Trading Company a 9/10, and it also made our list of the top games of 2016 as one of the best strategy games of the year. Even though direct combat plays no role, the gameplay is far from boring, with real-time multiplayer matches that are intense.

“Matches are vicious, and the scales often tip dramatically,” wrote GameSpot’s Edmond Tran. “Nobody would have ever thought a game centered around capitalism could get your heartrate up so high, but Offworld Trading Company succeeds with its truly unique, wonderfully-executed concept.”

As a plus, the core game is also 70% for the next week, so if you decide you’re a fan after trying free multiplayer mode, you can snag the game for just $6 until March 7.

Buy Offworld Trading Company — $6 (70% off until March 7; free multiplayer mode)

Nintendo is releasing a new set of playable characters for Mario Tennis Aces. Beginning today, March 1, the mayor of New Donk City, Pauline, is making her debut in the Switch tennis games, while two classic Mario villains will join the roster in the next couple of months.

As with Aces’ previous DLC characters, players can unlock Pauline by playing at least one match in the game’s Online Tournament mode this month, while everyone else will automatically get her after April 1. As you can see in the trailer above, Pauline is a speedy character, and her Special Shot has her delivering a powerful smash from atop New Donk City Hall.

Pauline arrives alongside Aces’ 2.3.0 update, which also kicks off a new Co-op Challenge called Shy Guy Train Tussle. Following Pauline, two more classic Mario enemies will be added to the game’s roster: Magikoopa and Dry Bones. The former will be available in April, while the latter is set to arrive in May.

This marks Pauline’s first appearance in a Mario sports game, but she’s actually one of the earliest characters in the Mario series. She’s best known for being the damsel-in-distress in the original arcade Donkey Kong game, a role she’d later reprise in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. Most recently, she made an appearance in Super Mario Odyssey and even canonically sings that game’s theme song, “Jump Up, Super Star!“

Nintendo has introduced a number of new characters to Mario Tennis Aces since its launch last June, including Shy Guy, Diddy Kong, Petey Piranha, and Luma. The most recent addition was the classic Super Mario 3 mid-boss Boom Boom, who joined the roster in February.

Apex Legends, specifically its map, was leaked last year…but no one noticed.

As reported by PC Gamer, a Reddit user by the name of hiticonic posted a thread titled “Alleged Minimap for Rumored Titanfall Battle Royale Game” 11 months ago and it only garnered 14 comments – some excited about the idea of a Titanfall battle royale game and others calling the map a fake.

Well, as it turns out, that was in-fact the map of Apex Legends from Titanfall developers Respawn Entertainment, albeit changed slightly.

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