f13.net

Okay, so this week is a big "Sale-a-day" thing featuring SEGA.  Today's the Total War series, if you're interested.

Yesterday was Sonic All Star Racing.  "Not bad," I thought.  "I kinda get a kick out of Mario Kart games, and $15 seems like a solid price for a time killer."  Might be kind of awkward playing with a keyboard, but I've got a gamepad, so no worries there.  Game actually looks kind of fun.  It's got the depth of a thimble, but it's a bright, loud, fast, simple game with catchy music and characters from games I like.

Except the game doesn't recognize my gamepad.  Fuck.  So, no analog steering.  I'm stuck using A and D.  Oh, wait, A and D are "rear view" and "accelerate?"  How do I remap these keys?  I can't?!  But there's a "controls" menu right off the main menu, what the hell does it do?  There are only two keys I can use on that menu: Esc to go back, and Enter to "accept changes."  What fucking changes?  It even says "Configuration A" at the bottom of the screen, like there are other configurations, but if there are, I can't fucking figure out how to switch to them.   Maybe this is just a leftover artifact of the console port.  There are a lot of those in this game.  Like, oh, for example....

...THE FUCKING MULTIPLAYER MODE.  For starters, there is no online gameplay.  Fine with me, it's not like I need to be racing against people online in a Kart racing game.  There is a split screen mode, though, which is novel for a PC game.  Or it would be, if it fucking worked.  Since the god damn game doesn't recognize any gamepads, you have to use the keyboard.  And the second player uses....?  Oh, shit, didn't think of that, maybe someone should have fucking TESTED THIS GAME FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES before shipping it?  Seriously, how the fuck do you do that?  It's not like some obscure hardware bug that only occurs on the full moon every four years, there is literally no way for player two to control his car in this goddamn game.  What the fuck is your QA like when an entire mode is completely non-functional?

And the cherry on the sundae is that the game crashes, too.  This might just be my box, but goddamn, it's not endearing this product to me.  On most of the tracks, the game runs fine, 60 fps, no hiccups.  On some of them, it has these periodic pauses, like it's loading something.  That's annoying, but I can deal with it.  Randomly, it'll lock up, too, which is frustrating, since it seems to happen on the last course.  On Track two of the second GP circuit, though, it just drops me back to desktop.  Every single time.  So I haven't been able to unlock any circuit beyond the second one, and if I try to race that one, it crashes.  So I'm stuck with one circuit.  Thanks, guys, AWESOME game.

Fuck.

I believe when a game is that horrific Valve will refund your money.

You bought a Sega Sonic game. You got what you deserved.

Sega stopped being a developer with any talent or credibility a decade or more ago. These days they can barely manage to publish anything that's not utter shit.

And yet, somehow, Sonic 4 looks freaking incredible.

Except the newest one, and it's not cheap (the new definition of cheap, thanks to steam). And the full sega bundle is $90, compared to $50 for most other dev bundles. Next sale, please.

(Actually, I'll be all year just catching up to previous steam sale purchases, so keep rolling out crappy sales!)

Sorry for your experience but I thank you for the post. Just bought the Total War bundle for $20. Some of the items by themselves are more than $20 and there were several I wanted to get my hands on at one point or another. Now I've got to do some major hard drive cleaning to make way for the rampaging hordes...

I picked up Napoleon for 27 bucks. I forgot to download last night. At work now, so can't start downloading till I get home. Fffffffffffffffffffffff..

I had been tempted to do that myself, but......... is there anything about that game that is suppose to be better than Empire?  I got that game but haven't really gotten into it.  What's improved?

I'll let you be excited by that one for me.

I hear that they've done some changes that would only really matter to someone who already pretty much likes and plays Empire. Here's a summary:

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/03/04/napoleon-total-war-review/1

Important changes:

Eyecandy:
Much smaller time frame
Smaller map
Smaller battlegrounds
Turns are now 2 weeks rather than 6 months
Different recruitment times. Boats take far longer
Troop attrition in deserted areas
Automatic troop refreshment in friendly areas

That review and others I've read conclude that it is a smaller game than the original Empire, but its also a better game. I loved Rome and liked Medieval, and I have tried very hard to like Empire. I'm hoping this one get the series at least back into Medieval level of awesome.

Fake Edit: Just got done playing the tutorials, and one thing I can say for certain is that its far more optimised than before. It loads faster and the graphics, even improved, play out far more smoothly than in Empire.

It's made by DIMPS.