Steam Summer Sales

Snakes said:

Picked up Deus Ex: HR today. Hope it's as good as advertised.

It was my second favourite game of 2011, after Skyrim. To each his own of course.

My wallet hasn't been violated too much. So far all I've bought is Krater, Dark Forces, the Thief series, and Alan Wake.

So far I've purchased The Wrath of the Lamb for Binding of Isaac and Burnout Paradise. I dunno, there just haven't been as many games this sale that caught my interest, but maybe that's because through previous sales, I already have most of the games I'm interested in. Still waiting to see if Shank 2 will drop down to $2.49, though.

Maes said:

So what does this make Rage? :-p

.... iD's attempt as Half Life 2 so they can perfect it before Doom 4 so we can really say damn that game is like Half Life 2.

Jodwin said:

Supprise: Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns. The only thing Bethesda does is releasing the same game over and over again in a new world. That's cool assuming you're happy with it, but really, Bethesda must be the laziest big name developer out there (which is a pity, because with a little more effort their games could be stellar rather than "just ok").

Eh I think it is a quality cash in. Sure its just a shooting Oblivion, but its a shooting Oblivion with a 300+ hour game. I have yet to play it still. Busy busy.

geo said:

Eh I think it is a quality cash in.

Well that it is, didn't really claim otherwise. Bethesda games are quality in many areas, but at the same time they are also very lackluster in other ways. All of them have great, huge worlds to explore at will, but all of them also have absolutely terrible story (NOT lore), NPCs, quests, conversation system and anything that makes a great RPG.

Bethesda: Awesome adventure. Shit RPG.

The RPG parts of their games seem to be getting worse. Daggerfall had multiple endings and more complexity than they could build properly at the time. Morrowind was fairly well written, but with simpler mechanics. Oblivion was too simple and Skyrim just drops the ball with writing. The different dialogue choices usually don't even get different responses. Yuck.

Fallout 3 improved a lot on the things that were wrong with Oblivion. Exploring the world was more interesting. It also had enough Fallout in it to feel significantly different in terms of gameplay.

Where that type of game shines is New Vegas. Yeah, Bethesda didn't write it and it shows. Factions that interact, actions with consequences, followers with stories that reveal themselves as you play, quests that change the state of the world, etc, etc. It's just sad Bethesda didn't learn from it when they built Skyrim.

I got Skyrim when it was on sale, and honestly I'm having almost as much fun with it as I had with Morrowind. It's a lot more interesting than Oblivion, and the character models don't look like bloated corpses. I'm a bit amazed that a game can be so good looking and so fun at the same time.

Let's see..

Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Painkiller bundle
Hard Reset
Chaser
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Red Faction: Armageddon
Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood
Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre
Divine Divinity
Metro 2033

Aliotroph? said:

The RPG parts of their games seem to be getting worse. Daggerfall had multiple endings and more complexity than they could build properly at the time. Morrowind was fairly well written, but with simpler mechanics. Oblivion was too simple and Skyrim just drops the ball with writing. The different dialogue choices usually don't even get different responses. Yuck.

Fallout 3 improved a lot on the things that were wrong with Oblivion. Exploring the world was more interesting. It also had enough Fallout in it to feel significantly different in terms of gameplay.

Where that type of game shines is New Vegas. Yeah, Bethesda didn't write it and it shows. Factions that interact, actions with consequences, followers with stories that reveal themselves as you play, quests that change the state of the world, etc, etc. It's just sad Bethesda didn't learn from it when they built Skyrim.

Just a shame new vegas is one of the most buggy games out there, if only bethesda lent their QA department to Obsidians studios since it's pretty apparant from this and KOTOR 2 that they don't have one.

vinnie245 said:

if only bethesda lent their QA department to Obsidian

heh

Jodwin said:

Well that it is, didn't really claim otherwise. Bethesda games are quality in many areas, but at the same time they are also very lackluster in other ways. All of them have great, huge worlds to explore at will, but all of them also have absolutely terrible story (NOT lore), NPCs, quests, conversation system and anything that makes a great RPG.

Bethesda: Awesome adventure. Shit RPG.

I've had arguements with people that go something like this... Morrowind = best RPG evar. Me: Morrowind = best FPS not involving a gun evar. Anyway.... I put tons of hours into Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind it always seemed like I had quests and never ever beat the game. Oblivion seems to have fizzled out of stuff to do and I have beat the game and not really explored.

Anyway... looks like New Vegas is $5... but I've been trained to buy games so cheap that I'll wait another year for when the Game of the Year edition is $5.

I don't care much at all for this incarnation of Fallout, but I was thinking of getting New Vegas since I like Obsidian. But then I remembered they don't get a single penny from New Vegas sales.

geo said:

best FPS not involving a gun

Between this and another recent post of yours inferring that Rage aims to be very much like Half-Life 2 (and of course, your Doomworld history), I think you're blazing a trail towards becoming the worst poster in any forum I've ever read.

On topic: I have raped the bank account a bit more than I had planned.

Batman Arkham Asylum/City/Gotham City Imposters: $25
Bioshock 1+2: $10
Bulletstorm: $5
Limbo: $2.50
Deus Ex series: $17? Can't remember.

Still hoping for an Arma 2 flash deal or something... if it gets around 10 bucks, I'll take it.

Between this and another recent post of yours inferring that Rage aims to be very much like Half-Life 2 (and of course, your Doomworld history), I think you're blazing a trail towards becoming the worst poster in any forum I've ever read.

Don't fret just yet. With prose such as "I have raped the bank account", you're still securing the first place with a significant lead.

Come on, how generic do you have to be. I swear every Internet tough guy expresses himself in the exact same way.

Nobody over twenty is impressed by references to sex. Nobody cares about how much you're getting, much less will believe those "casual" references (which, actually, are so contrived it's painful to read, the same way you feel about those people embarrassing themselves on TV) mean you're getting a lot.

You don't look like a tough macho man. You look like an insecure effeminate young adult who was picked on at school and tries to make up for it on the Internet with his best idea of what masculinity would be.

Do yourself a favor and drop the attitude already. It's just painful to watch.

Mogul said:

Between this and another recent post of yours inferring that Rage aims to be very much like Half-Life 2 (and of course, your Doomworld history), I think you're blazing a trail towards becoming the worst poster in any forum I've ever read.

Thanks but perhaps I should have put a time frame on when I said best FPS without a gun evar... I think that best evar conversation was back in 2002 or 2003.

Thanks for saying I'm blazing a trail to be the worst poster you've ever read. I'm glad I could impact your life so greatly with my stupidity. Oddly enough you're not the first person on Doomworld to utter such things to me. It only seems to be this forum that my horridness is pointed out almost as a praise.

Mr. Chris said:

Chaser

*applauds* Then again, everyone here pays attention to obscure shooters, so I guess it should be no surprise someone here would buy that game.

I picked up:
Crusader Kings II
M&M Dark Messiah
F.E.A.R. pack
Metro 2033
Painkiller Recurring Evil
RAGE
Total War Shogun 2

Danarchy said:

I got Skyrim when it was on sale, and honestly I'm having almost as much fun with it as I had with Morrowind. It's a lot more interesting than Oblivion, and the character models don't look like bloated corpses. I'm a bit amazed that a game can be so good looking and so fun at the same time.

It has a very dumbed down casual feel for mechanics. Still loads of fun and anybody can pick it up and have a great time. Unless you're a miserable gameplay elitist. Then you will never play it but bark about how horrible it is to anyone who will listen.

Final damage:

Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam (and new DLC)
Trine 2
Skyrim
Tropico 4 Bundle
Fallout New Vegas Ultimate
Total War: Shogun 2 - Rise of the Samurai (and a bunch of DLC)
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY
Just Cause 2
Thief Bundle (the whole trilogy)
Dawn of War: Soulstorm
Dawn of War II Gold
A bunch of cheap nametags and paint for TF2

Yeah, I have spending issues.

vinnie245 said:

Yeah the complete mods for both SoC and CoP really are recommended imo, not only do they make the game look so much better but enhance everything else as well that i can't play them without the mods anymore.

Finished SoC, installed the Complete mod for a second playthrough, it screws up the difficulty making it way too easy IMO so I'll avoid it from now on. Standing in front of 4-5 bandits with Vipers and not dying because they can't even hit me is wrong. I've also disabled autohealing right away, what a retarded feature. The new HUD is unacceptable, in 2048x1536 the fonts are unreadable. If I knew enough about the modding system I'd rip out everything that's not related to quest fixes or visual improvements.

Belial said:

Finished SoC, installed the Complete mod for a second playthrough, it screws up the difficulty making it way too easy IMO so I'll avoid it from now on.

You can always play on something other than easy or normal.

Ive never found it too easy, i never get autohealing either.
Don't know what mod your playing but it doesn't sound like it at all.

I didn't buy anything. I already have all the games I want. :|

SYS said:

It has a very dumbed down casual feel for mechanics. Still loads of fun and anybody can pick it up and have a great time. Unless you're a miserable gameplay elitist. Then you will never play it but bark about how horrible it is to anyone who will listen.

It's mainly the horrid balance. It's so ridiculously easy to exploit mechanics to become godlike, particularly through the crafting system. I've never considered myself a minmaxer, though I can see why others enjoy such an aspect of games, but in Skyrim it can be accomplished with so little effort there's no feeling of accomplishment in it. Like how you can easily hit the armor cap with light armor so there's no point at all (apart from vanity) to wear heavy armor since there's not enough unique heavy armor perks. Then there are other problems like bow damage scaling being wacky as hell, at some point it just goes through the roof where both you and enemies will be oneshotting eachother while a warhammer to the face just feels like a scratch in comparison.

You'd think after so many years they would have learned to improve this stuff, but it seems hopeless. Time and time again, mods show that it's not a particularly challenging task to re-balance the mechanics and make things a lot more enjoyable.

vinnie245 said:

Ive never found it too easy, i never get autohealing either.
Don't know what mod your playing but it doesn't sound like it at all.

Riiight.

Stalker Complete 2009 v1.4.4 User Manual.pdf said:

- To disable the auto-applying of bandages at 10% health feature, go to the folder:
gamedata\scripts
and delete these files:
auto_healing.script
xr_detector.script

And that's the less ridiculous version, you can choose

- Easy Healing: if this option is enabled, Medpacks, Bandages and Anti-Radiation supplies will apply automatically.

if you feel like screwing up the combat mechanics even further.

All the tiny gameplay adjustments are annoying for me as well. I guess I don't appreciate mods that accomodate whiny gamers (increased quest time to 4 days, increased carrying capacity, ability to sell everything to everyone, removal of pop-up quests).

I'd love to rip this mod apart and separate the AI adjustments that are worthwhile, like anomaly evasion and grenade use while ditching all the crap that makes the game so much more forgiving in various aspects. I don't have the time for it though, so down the drain the mod goes.

Edit: Rereading the manual I've come upon another gem that makes me question whether a game like this should even be modded by people who haven't bothered with learning about the world they're trying to 'improve'.

Realistic Vehicles - 20 year old vehicles in the Zone now appear realistically rusted and abandoned.

Too bad the book clearly states that having items that look brand new sitting next to rotting and rusted hulks is perfectly normal in the Zone.