The usual disclaimers as to the 'freeness' of these games apply. Non
Amazon Prime users need not read any further. For the rest, here's
what you get in November 2022

The List Of Games Which Is Really The Only Part People Care About -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Fallout: New Vegas *
- Facility 47 **
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Last Day of June
- WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship
- Etherborn
- Whispering Willows

* GOG account required
** Legacy Games account required

The Long-winded Commentary Nobody Cares About ---------------------------------------------------------------

Well, seeing "Fallout New Vegas" isn't a surprise, given we got
"Fallout 3" last month. It's not my favorite of the series, but I'm
not turning my nose up at it either. That it's available via GOG is a
plus, too; DRM free, baby!

"Facility 47" is a hidden-object game. It's got some nice looking
artwork, but the genre isn't anything I'm interested in (I still have nightmares of pixel-hunts in old-school adventure games), and I've no
intention of signing up for another client, so I'm skipping this one.

Amazon continues to push old-school LucasArts adventure games with its
release of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". It's no "Fate of
Atlantis", but it's a fun translation of the movie. There are better
DOS-era adventure games, but there are also a lot worse.

"Last Day of June" is a 'walking sim', which is already a risky
choice. The genre isn't liked by many. It's a sweet (to the point of
being saccharine) exploration of death and loss, with claymation-like
visuals and (argh!) "simlish" babble in place voice-acting. The latter
in fact was a dealbreaker for me, since (I felt) it completely
destroyed the mood the game was going for every time the characters
talked and cheerful nonsense burbled past their lips.

"WRC 9" is a rally/off-road racing game. It doesn't really do
anything new for the genre, but doesn't do anything really wrong with
it either. If you have fond memories of the old "Colin McRae" racers,
you'll probably get a kick out of this game too.

"Etherborn" is an "environmental puzzle platformer with "gravity
shifting structures". Plus, lots of pastel/neon. It screams "Indie"
game. Probably fine, not something I can get excited about.

Finally, there's "Whispering Willows", a 2D retro-adventure game with
a horror theme. Hey look, it's an Indie game and features a child
being put in danger! Again, not another game that leaps out and
screams "play me!" but neither does it make me turn up my nose.


Plus, there's a handful of games you can play via Amazon's Luna
service: "Youtubers Life", "Thymesia", "Baseball Stars 2" and "Tetris
Effect Connected". Don't care for time-limited services (they're gone
after Dec 1), so I'm passing on them all. But they're there if you're
less picky than me.

Not a bad selection overall; "New Vegas", "WRC 9" and "Last Crusade"
are all welcome additions, I feel, and the rest are... passable. And
they're all free. Sorta. Whatever. So a good haul this November. Can't
wait to see what December brings us.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 1:16:23 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

- Fallout: New Vegas *
* GOG account required

At least there's a link in the claim that takes you right to where you enter the
code so it's easy to do, unlike in the past from other GOG giveaways where
it was rather burried.

Plus, there's a handful of games you can play via Amazon's Luna
service: "Youtubers Life", "Thymesia", "Baseball Stars 2" and "Tetris
Effect Connected". Don't care for time-limited services (they're gone
after Dec 1), so I'm passing on them all. But they're there if you're
less picky than me.

Thymesia looks like it might be worth a try - Action RPG, looks vaguely Soulslike. Uses some sort of plague mechanic though which doesn't sound particularly appealing. I'm not in the mood for a soulslike right now, but again
once Luna is installed you don't have to download the gigabytes of game
just click play and you're off, so low effort to give it a try.

As of my last try with it, the majority of the past free games that don't require
claiming on another site were on it, so it may be a better way to just jump in and play any of those.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 04:18:30 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 1:16:23 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Plus, there's a handful of games you can play via Amazon's Luna
service: "Youtubers Life", "Thymesia", "Baseball Stars 2" and "Tetris
Effect Connected". Don't care for time-limited services (they're gone
after Dec 1), so I'm passing on them all. But they're there if you're
less picky than me.

Thymesia looks like it might be worth a try - Action RPG, looks vaguely >Soulslike. Uses some sort of plague mechanic though which doesn't sound >particularly appealing. I'm not in the mood for a soulslike right now, but again
once Luna is installed you don't have to download the gigabytes of game
just click play and you're off, so low effort to give it a try.

Honestly, I was tempted by both "Baseball Stars 2" (a port of the
classic NeoGeo game) and "Tetris Effect", and had they been part of
the 'regular' Prime games, I'd have happily grabbed them.

(I would have grabbed "YouTubers Life" and "Thymesia" too, but more
grudgingly ;-)

But both the requirement of a secondary client /and/ being
time-limited were... well, maybe calling it 'offensive' might be
overkill, but it was enough to make me not get the games. It just
wasn't worth the aggravation, especially when the backlog is so big
already.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 12:07:22 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 04:18:30 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 1:16:23 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Plus, there's a handful of games you can play via Amazon's Luna
service: "Youtubers Life", "Thymesia", "Baseball Stars 2" and "Tetris
Effect Connected". Don't care for time-limited services (they're gone
after Dec 1), so I'm passing on them all. But they're there if you're
less picky than me.

Thymesia looks like it might be worth a try - Action RPG, looks vaguely >Soulslike. Uses some sort of plague mechanic though which doesn't sound >particularly appealing. I'm not in the mood for a soulslike right now, but again
once Luna is installed you don't have to download the gigabytes of game >just click play and you're off, so low effort to give it a try.

Honestly, I was tempted by both "Baseball Stars 2" (a port of the
classic NeoGeo game) and "Tetris Effect", and had they been part of
the 'regular' Prime games, I'd have happily grabbed them.

(I would have grabbed "YouTubers Life" and "Thymesia" too, but more grudgingly ;-)

But both the requirement of a secondary client /and/ being
time-limited were... well, maybe calling it 'offensive' might be
overkill, but it was enough to make me not get the games. It just
wasn't worth the aggravation, especially when the backlog is so big
already.

I gave Thymesia a half-hour. It's fine, but unfortunately seems a
much inferior DS with some weird (to me) action-combat. It's
graphics are a bit fuzzy - bad textures I'd guess.

It's not really aggravation, the Luna install was pretty easy, and
you can run the games right from the page with the free games
on it, and no further downloads for anything once it's installed.

I don't know that there's anything really worth even that ease
right now though, and there's the perceived value issue, where
it's so easy it doesn't feel like it's worth anything. At least
if you have to download each game, that's some amount
of effort you put into it, to give it a fair shake.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 15:02:01 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

I gave Thymesia a half-hour. It's fine, but unfortunately seems a
much inferior DS with some weird (to me) action-combat. It's
graphics are a bit fuzzy - bad textures I'd guess.

I'm not a "Dark Souls" fanatic - I play the games rather grudgingly -
but the reviews for "Thymesia" really aren't that good, are they. The
game is - as you said - a poor man's clone of "Dark Souls" (or perhaps "Bloodborne") without a real understanding of what made those games so engaging.

Well, that's what other people say, anyway. I've not the experience
and understanding to make that sort of consideration. Still,
"Thymesia" seems to have heavily borrowed theme, mechanics, story, and
visuals from From Software's games, yet slapped it all together
without that balance that made those games good.

It reminds me of the era of Doom-clones, when the market was flooded
with poorly made FPS titles that often looked quite similar to Id's
seminal masterpiece - enough so that a gamer would lay down the cash
to buy the game based on the resemblance alone - only to find that the
controls sucked, the character moved like he was in treacle, the guns
were weak, the monsters were bullet sponges, and the music was only a
half-step beyond 2-bit PC speaker buzzing.

Well, nobody (except die-hard DOS-era gaming weirdos like myself)
remember titles like "The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki" or "Island Peril",
so in a few years we can all rest assured that "Thymesia" will be
similarly forgotten.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

A reminder that the 'bonus' games on Amazon Prime are now available

- Dishonored 2
- King of Fighters 2003
- Metal Slug X
- Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers
- Metal Slug
- Twinkle Star Sprites
- The Last Blade
- The Last Blade 2
- SNK 40th Anniversary Collection
- Metal Slug 3

"Dishonored 2" is the acclaimed first-person stealth/action game, of
course; the rest are classic - but still fun! - SNK/NeoGeo arcade
games (shooters and brawlers, mostly).

These are not really free games, of course, since it does require an
active Amazon Prime subscription to claim, but if you happen to have
one of those, it's /almost/ like the games are free. I mean, I can't
imagine anyone is paying for Prime solely (or even primarily) so they
can add years-old games to their library...

rms alerted us to the existence of these freebies two weeks back, but
since I'm saying it on the day of their actual release, I think we
should split the points, 20/80... with the 80% split in my favor, of
course. What can I say, I'm greedy for non-existent, purposeless
points in an imaginary game that only I'm playing. ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/12/2022 17:12, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"Dishonored 2" is the acclaimed first-person stealth/action game, of
course; the rest are classic - but still fun! - SNK/NeoGeo arcade
games (shooters and brawlers, mostly).

I'd forgotten about the Amazon extra give away so I nabbed
Dishonoured:2. My it's GoG Galaxy a lovely interface!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 31 Dec 2022 11:45:10 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 27/12/2022 17:12, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"Dishonored 2" is the acclaimed first-person stealth/action game, of
course; the rest are classic - but still fun! - SNK/NeoGeo arcade
games (shooters and brawlers, mostly).

I'd forgotten about the Amazon extra give away so I nabbed
Dishonoured:2. My it's GoG Galaxy a lovely interface!

I'm not a fan of Galaxy. It's always been the most sluggish of
launchers, although that's probably because I've asked it to handle
not only my GOG library, but my Steam, Epic, UPlay and Origin
libraries as well. It insists on downloading the entire libraries
everytime I launch it and it's just so slow to do so. It's a good
idea, poorly implemented.

So instead, I just use Playnite for the same purpose.

Then I download the games directly from the GOG website, which has the
added benefit of giving me stand-alone installers. Which, after all,
is the biggest advantage of buying on GOG in the first place.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 31/12/2022 16:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2022 11:45:10 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 27/12/2022 17:12, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"Dishonored 2" is the acclaimed first-person stealth/action game, of
course; the rest are classic - but still fun! - SNK/NeoGeo arcade
games (shooters and brawlers, mostly).

I'd forgotten about the Amazon extra give away so I nabbed
Dishonoured:2. My it's GoG Galaxy a lovely interface!

I'm not a fan of Galaxy. It's always been the most sluggish of
launchers, although that's probably because I've asked it to handle
not only my GOG library, but my Steam, Epic, UPlay and Origin
libraries as well. It insists on downloading the entire libraries
everytime I launch it and it's just so slow to do so. It's a good
idea, poorly implemented.

So instead, I just use Playnite for the same purpose.

Then I download the games directly from the GOG website, which has the
added benefit of giving me stand-alone installers. Which, after all,
is the biggest advantage of buying on GOG in the first place.

It almost got to the stage where I thought I'd have to google how to
install a game!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)