I know, I know. But to my credit - most of that time was spent shovelling.
York PA got dumped on - we got as much snow in one day as we get on average for a WHOLE WINTER. So I've literally spent every night shoveling, every day shoveling. It's left little time for creative pursuits.
On top of that I've had my hands full with life stuff such as my second son's upcoming birth. That means Dr's appts, calling around, finding sitters, etc.
I never expected the level of traffic my little post to John Romero would generate and I'm happy for it. No more excuses. Time to knuckle down and get to work.
I've waited a long time for the vaunted "Sci-Fi DLC" by 'The Game Creators'. I have several of their other packs (having been a FPS Creator Reloaded gold backer) and much of the content is unfortunately redundant or kind of amateurish.
That's not the case here.
The kit comes with a whole slew of useful items:
- 23 Building parts
- 7 Characters (alien, space marines and a spaceman)
- 11 Collectables
- 73 Decals
- 34 Interior sections
- 21 Rocks
- 43 Scenery items
- 3 Martian terrains
- 3 Martian skies
I don't care about the custom level they made aside from the bits of script I can rip out and repurpose.
So let's talk price. Currently it's on sale as a promo - 14.99 USD. That's a really good deal for a ton of very high quality assets. Take a look:
One of the many characters included - looks similar to a custom one I made!
A little note on the characters - all of their component parts are included in the character creator! Which while not a fantastic builder by any stretch (the base parts are just dreadfully bad) the new heads/bodies breath lots of life into the system and further diversify user-created products.
Lots of the interior elements look really good too as set pieces:
Like this little guy in his glass womb. This is perfect for any sci-fi horror game.
I've spent a long time looking for various parts that go together as a whole and while this was originally designed for ground-based games - it works really well for a number of sci-fi pieces.
The outdoor pieces look way better than the preview shots did, final post-work looks great!
The indoor pieces in my opinion though are where this set really shines.
In particular there's a ton of decals and graphics which allow a lot of flexibility for stick-on neon lighting or displays to add flair for each room.
This console is modular and can be built with additional monitors and displays, for instance.
All in all I'm very surprised and pleased with the level of quality they brought to the table and ten out of ten times would buy this again, especially considering the pittance they are asking for.
Another important point to consider is that they regularly add pieces to the DLCs. I know for a fact a drone set is coming soon after they put finishing touches on it. The fantasy DLC is also getting stuff despite being in the wild now for around a year or so.
The bottom line on this is that it's a quality piece to own especially if you're into the genre, like I am. Give it a look!
Thanks to TGC for the pictures which I took from their DLC store page. I'll try to add some of my own graphics later or give a few sample shots as time goes on.
