To celebrate hitting the unbelievable milestone of 3,000 subscribers I have chosen a selection of top games I've picked up over the last couple of years, added in some choice new titles that I've really enjoyed playing on the channel and bundled them all into one big giveaway! I will draw FIVE winning entrants on the Gleam.io competition page and up to FIVE entrants through my YouTube Community competition post up to a maximum of TEN winners in all. Each winning entrant can choose one of at least twenty one great games to take away and keep. NOTE : The same prize list is used for both YouTube and Gleam.io entries but entries made on the YouTube post will have precedence in choosing a game key prize. All the games that aren't picked by the winners in this giveaway will be rolled forward into future giveaways on the channel. So, even if you don't win today, keep an eye on Ajaxpost Plays for further chances to grab an awesome game! See below for the full list of games in...
Today I published the first episode for a new series on my YouTube channel, a Lets Play of Stellaris with the newly released Federations expansion pack.
Why, you might be thinking, am I doing a big outer space grand strategy game? The answer, my friends, is back, way back, in my gaming history ...
When I first discovered computer gaming it was on a magnificent Commodore 286 PC.
Starting with this marvellous machine, and subsequent PC clones, I discovered the original Civilisation, Championship Manager (now Football Manager), SimCity, Master of Orion, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon and many other great PC games. I never got into consoles at all so strategy and adventure were what captured my (relatively) youthful imagination.
Time passes, and now while Civilisation is still great fun to play and retains it's essential 'pick up and play' quality to draw you easily into the gameplay complexities many of the "4X" games that followed it provide much deeper and involved 'grand strategy' mechanics. If I have the time, and inclination, I can enjoy the challenge of these more complex games but these days like to take a more 'casual' approach and prefer a game that will test me, will require me to do some thinking and planning but not too much, I play to relax and have fun not solve complicated algorithms.
So, what has this got to do with Stellaris? Since childhood I have been fascinated by space and what may lie out there in the inky darkness, so MOO was a favourite of mine for a long time but I never found another that I enjoyed quite as much. So, fast forward to November 2018 mostly intrigued by the wonderful graphics, the scope of the game and the fact that it was on sale for a very good price I took a punt on Stellaris.
I was very pleased to discover that unlike some other grand strategy games (yes, CKII I am looking at you!) you could set a novice difficulty level, there was a well-designed tutorial/guide and you could find your feet in the game, learn the various mechanics and achieve some goals before things got too complicated or challenging.
Having spent a lot of time in the game inevitably I had to take a break which also coincided with my YouTube channel becoming a more significant leisure activity for me. Fast forward to March 2020, Paradox are offering content creators like me a free key to the new Federations expansion. It looks good, and I did love playing the game last year, maybe I could pick it up? But could I create a worthwhile YouTube series for it? Back in the early days of my channel I tried recording a Civ series but I was not at all happy that my play style suited the game as an entertaining watch so never published anything. But, since then, I have learnt a lot about the YouTube 'process' and there appear to be quite a few people who enjoy my content style so maybe ... maybe it could work this time!
So, here we are. I picked up the free key to Federations and to help flesh out the gameplay purchased a few more of the DLC packs (on sale, of course!) and set about creating this new series - The Ajax Mandate.
I haven't spent long getting reacquainted with the game so the first few episodes, at least, will be full of misunderstanding, mistakes and mess-ups but will, I hope still be fun for me to play and entertaining for you to watch.
*Stellaris: Federations was provided free by the lovely people at Paradox Development.
Why, you might be thinking, am I doing a big outer space grand strategy game? The answer, my friends, is back, way back, in my gaming history ...
When I first discovered computer gaming it was on a magnificent Commodore 286 PC.
Starting with this marvellous machine, and subsequent PC clones, I discovered the original Civilisation, Championship Manager (now Football Manager), SimCity, Master of Orion, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon and many other great PC games. I never got into consoles at all so strategy and adventure were what captured my (relatively) youthful imagination.
Time passes, and now while Civilisation is still great fun to play and retains it's essential 'pick up and play' quality to draw you easily into the gameplay complexities many of the "4X" games that followed it provide much deeper and involved 'grand strategy' mechanics. If I have the time, and inclination, I can enjoy the challenge of these more complex games but these days like to take a more 'casual' approach and prefer a game that will test me, will require me to do some thinking and planning but not too much, I play to relax and have fun not solve complicated algorithms.
So, what has this got to do with Stellaris? Since childhood I have been fascinated by space and what may lie out there in the inky darkness, so MOO was a favourite of mine for a long time but I never found another that I enjoyed quite as much. So, fast forward to November 2018 mostly intrigued by the wonderful graphics, the scope of the game and the fact that it was on sale for a very good price I took a punt on Stellaris.
I was very pleased to discover that unlike some other grand strategy games (yes, CKII I am looking at you!) you could set a novice difficulty level, there was a well-designed tutorial/guide and you could find your feet in the game, learn the various mechanics and achieve some goals before things got too complicated or challenging.
Having spent a lot of time in the game inevitably I had to take a break which also coincided with my YouTube channel becoming a more significant leisure activity for me. Fast forward to March 2020, Paradox are offering content creators like me a free key to the new Federations expansion. It looks good, and I did love playing the game last year, maybe I could pick it up? But could I create a worthwhile YouTube series for it? Back in the early days of my channel I tried recording a Civ series but I was not at all happy that my play style suited the game as an entertaining watch so never published anything. But, since then, I have learnt a lot about the YouTube 'process' and there appear to be quite a few people who enjoy my content style so maybe ... maybe it could work this time!
So, here we are. I picked up the free key to Federations and to help flesh out the gameplay purchased a few more of the DLC packs (on sale, of course!) and set about creating this new series - The Ajax Mandate.
I haven't spent long getting reacquainted with the game so the first few episodes, at least, will be full of misunderstanding, mistakes and mess-ups but will, I hope still be fun for me to play and entertaining for you to watch.
Series Information
This series makes use of the following DLC:- Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
- Stellaris: Utopia
- Stellaris: Apocalypse
- Stellaris: Distant Stars Story Pack
- Stellaris: Federations*
*Stellaris: Federations was provided free by the lovely people at Paradox Development.
Game Links
If Stellaris appeals to you and you fancy buying it for yourself (and/or a friend) please consider using one of the following links to stores which provide a small percentage of the price as support to my channel:Base Game:
- cdkeys.com: cdKeys.com Partner Link
- Humble Store: Humble Store Partner Link
Federations DLC:
- cdkeys.com: cdKeys.com Partner Link
- Humble Store: Humble Store Partner Link
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