To keep things traditional and cliché-y, I've got good news and bad news.

The bad news is — I'm not going away. That's right: this marginally-interesting meander around a convenience store parking lot we're on? It's not stopping anytime soon (I mean – trotters crossed). The good news, on the other hoof, is that I won't be intruding on your time as often as I have.

While I got a kick out of writing on a weekly schedule, time – irritatingly – remains finite and I simply don't have enough of it in a week to grab a new game, play enough of it to pick up on its perks, foibles and eccentricities and sum it all up come Monday. Instead, I'll be moving to the old CDPR schedule of "it'll be ready when it's done" for actual reviews. But – fear not! Something will still get posted every week (I'm calling them "ruminations" for the time being).

To me, a review is like paying a new town a visit: good for an overall impression, but never as indepth as actually living there. Trying to recall every aspect of game-play for titles that span from 40 to 100+ hours is simply untenable (and writing a review that incorporates that much information would age us both unnecessarily). So what I'll try instead is writing the general impression (review) and then following it up with more details (ruminations) when (or — if) they occur to me.

I hope this new format ends up working as well as the one I've had until now (although, seeing as how I'm still not convinced anyone actually reads this, it might not really matter).

So here we go: time for the first, weekly—

Rumination

Endless Sky

What I coined as Wee-lancer in the review is actually turning out to be more of a Small Control (that's Star Control in attempted-clever parlance), with a sizeable roster of alien races and a much larger galaxy map than what you are faced with at the outset.

79 hours in, I've completed all but one of the currently available plot lines and – on top of the four human factions (Free Worlds, Republic, Syndicate and Pirates) – run into: 1) the Hai – larger-than-life, ancient squirrels suffering an identity crisis with their Unfettered brethren; 2) the Remnant – a long-lost splinter of human colonization which evolved into, effectively, a brand new species; 3) the Korath – hardy space-lizards that built machines to fight a civil war but forgot to incorporate an "off" switch ; 4) the Coalition – three races (centaurs and spiders and insects — oh my) living "in harmony under the benevolent rule of the Heliarchy" (so you know there's something wrong there); 5) the Wanderers – birds into S&M, who hop into an uninhabitable region of space, terraform it, give it away and then head off for their next serving of punishment; and 6) the Gegno – whom I can't communicate with (though one of 'em did give me an outfit for helping him fight a critter).

On top of those six races (which inhabit their own, secular regions of space), there are also the meddlesome Pug (whom you encounter during the Free Worlds and Wanderer plots); the Quarg, with their ringworlds; the Drak (reputedly the oldest beings in the galaxy) and, probably, a few more races I'm forgetting.

So while the game-play of Endless Sky never really gets more involved than what you'll do in the first few hours (although, come to think of it, a recent patch did add mining); there's so much more of it on tap than you might expect from a seemingly little, free title that I thought it deserved a mention.

Recent patches have also added a few new ships and continue to evolve existing plots, so – really – if you're into games like X or Privateer, but want to play on a smaller, less-involving scale while still having tons to do, Endless Sky might be the game for you.

The Last Train Home

For me and my brother (the esteemed Professor Tanuki), this title turned out to be a lot more introspective than we first thought because (as it turns out) relatives of ours worked on the Trans-Siberian railway, way back when. I've never had a game evoke interest in real-world matters before (usually, it's the other way around), but it got Tanuki reading The Memoirs of Count Witte (a Russian nobleman who tried to modernize the country prior to the Russian Revolution) and we both watched silent documentary footage of the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia.

As for the game, my Last Train Home is trundling along about two-thirds of the way to Vladivostok. The game-play is pretty much unchanged, with the pervasive irritation of RNG events (I try to avoid sending the legionnaires out for anything: every time I do, somebody whacks their foot with an axe, is gored by a wild boar or gets pneumonia), the occasional fun of being able to upgrade the train (we've got winter clothing and heaters in every car now); and the fantastic tactical combat (which continues to throw new, intriguing scenarios our way).

I hope I'll get to buy another locomotive at some point (so far, I've only seen three), but – even if I don't – the game delivers everything I expected it to (even if some of it, I could actually do without).

The Outer Worlds

While, in my review, I said the two DLCs "(extended) gameplay, but (didn't change) it in any meaningful way" Murder on Eridanos renders my statement (50% and sorta) invalid.

Unlike Peril on Gorgon, which really was "just more TOW", Murder on Eridanos presents you with a new, sizeable hub, a new hangout for your crew (a penthouse at the Grand Colonial hotel), a new mechanic (investigating murder-y clues via the Discrepancy Amplifier – a doo-hickey that'll alert you if a clue is nearby); and, yes, even more of the morbid/oddball humor the main game is known for (including S.O.U.S — or Sprats of Unusual Size).

The world building and role playing possibilities continue to be excellent, though the core game-play starts to wear a little thin (especially if, like me, you left MOE until the very last and your character hit the level cap yonks ago)... But with some new item models, great writing and VO and the genuine feel of a Poirot-style, locked room mystery (even if it does take place on a floating, jet-propelled archipelago), Murder on Eridanos rounds out the TOW experience rather nicely with just enough newness to keep things fresh.

RoboCop: Rogue City

In my review, I said it's a solid – if limited – FPS with a narrative that doesn't warrant the full price of admission... While my opinion is unchanged, the game does make that (probably) single play-through fun. While adding new abilities and tinkering with how the Auto-9 works, I've shot bikers off hogs, "raced" an OmniCorp entry team through a bank heist to see who can tag the most baddies and even tangled with a malfunctioning (is there any other kind?) ED-209.

And while the game keeps Terminator: Resistance's fine balance between shooting and exploring, here it feels somehow more fulfilling (maybe because RoboCop's environments are more detailed and less rubble-y).

So, yeah, maybe wait for a discount, but – if the premise tickles you – Rogue City actually is a decent game. There's just not a whole lot of it.

Summation

So – there: that's kind of the format I'm planning on.

As soon as I wrap-up my play-throughs of The Last Train Home, The Outer Worlds or RoboCop, I'll get my snout into Rogue Trader (which will be the next, proper, full-fledged review). Until then, I hope the ruminations are substantial enough to keep you entertained.

Pig — out.

Pig Mentions Offhandedly

Speaking of content – I'm working on an official, pigabout.games t-shirt.

"Why – for a blog nobody even reads" I hear you ask? Partly in the hope that, once enough humans (of the sort who like having neat, esoteric t-shirts) do read it, I'll be covered, but – mostly – because I feel like it and I can. When I get the design finished, I'll post a pic (probably in one of them newfangled ruminations), but it'll be a while before I actually have some printed (print runs of under a hundred tend to make for some unjustifiably expensive t-shirts).