f13.net

(http://i.imgur.com/ONyaT.jpg)

Is there a Steam sale on?

Soon.  Annual summertime sale.

That is almost exactly my steam sale process.

It needs some calculation step for "do you have more than 50 games waiting to be played in your library?".

yeah, they got me down to a T.



No, it actually doesn't. (sadly).


I hate to admit it, but EA guy is correct when he says this:

Unfortunately (for EA), the Genie is out of the bottle and a shitton of other publishers are on board. So it just means I don't buy any EA games unless I fuckfuckmusthavethem. And there's not many of those.

FTFY   :grin:

Steam has helped reduce the temptation of piracy. So many "should play / finish that some time" games I can't even be arsed to find a torrent.

Heck, I'm immunized from ME3 being origin only because ME2 is still sitting there waiting.

Heh, I haven't pirated software for.. damn. A fucking long time now.

Oh same here, except for, you know, those fuckfuckmusthavethem EA titles.  Dead Space and Dead Space 2 spring to mind.

I bought the real ones. I might not like EA, but I don't hate Visceral or DICE or Criterion, etc...

I quit pirating stuff back in 2002. Ever since then I've just made a point to send lengthy letters to publishers if they do something stupid with DRM on their games, including a voided check for the amount I would have spent.

That's awesome.

Nah, he's not.  If a game is discounted 75% from release at a point arbitrarily far in the future (say a year or two), that in no way diminishes the title.  It means it gets exposure to people who would have never played or paid anything at all for it, and they may very well find out it was a great game.  Further, they may just buy the next one in the series when they would have ignored it as well.

EA games are osentatious goods!

I think the last game I pirated was Spore. To avoid the DRM crap on the legit version that I had bought.

I used to pirate a ton of games, though - outside of high-profile "classics" I wanted to own. The main reason why I stopped? Steam. (Another was that I stopped going to LAN parties :P)

You say that like there's a chance that EA might actually be doing what they say they're doing.  EA games hit Steam sales regularly enough; Spore was 75% off this Wednesday, for example.

Origin stuff is on sale for 40% as we speak, for example.

I agree that they are full of shit, but the funny part is the right hand probably doesn't know that the left hand is cutting it off.

I'm thinking about Nordstrom's return policy and customer service and bloated prices... I guess one out of three is good enough for EA.

Given the last year's sale I think this is coming Thursday?

I hope camp is good this year.

75% off all Warhammer Dawn of War games and DLC this weekend. Yoink...

Yah, looks like they're letting some good deals out of the bag while we're still on the bus. On the fence with DoW2, because I want to buy stuff I'll actually get around to playing this year :)

Grabbed the mid-week LA Noire because the old lady wants to check it out and $7.50 is about where I'm willing to go on that kind of thing.

DOW2 is really such a weird animal of a game. I bought it and the 2 expansions and have barely played it. The squad size is so small and it suffers so much from small map/The Tube syndrome. DOW1 is just a better game. The DLC for DOW2 feels really nickel-and-dimey too.

Heh, I bought DoW2 this morning, played it for 30 mins and thought to myself "Hmm, I preferred DoW1" so I've just bought that too and it's downloading now  :awesome_for_real:

DoW 2 is a good game but it's HeroHammer 40K and it's not an RTS in the tradional sense of the term.

DoW2 multiplayer is actually pretty solid in my opinion, but the single player campaign is fairly boring.  I'd definitely suggest people try out some online 3v3 games.  I haven't played any in quite a whie I have to admit, but before SC2 came out it was pretty much my goto RTS for a while. 

space marine for 7 bucks sold me

That's why I'm leaning toward it. I'm not a huge fan of RTS and like smaller amounts of units.

I would say it is more of a squad ARPG than an RTS for single player. The multi-player is much more traditional. That said I think DoW1 was still a better game overall.

This is basically how I got into Mass Effect and Dragon Age.


EDIT: YES I WILL REPLY TO A REALLY OLD POST WHAT OF IT

Excellent game. And horde mode is fun too (and very challenging).

It's fine since you were quoting such grand wisdom.

http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/122/1225270p1.html

Intardnet words saying Amazon is going to try competing with Steam's summer sale this year.

The hilarious part being that all of these look to be steam activated as well.  Good times!

So any idea when this years sale starts?

It's was expected either last yesterday or today, but with Amazon starting theirs Sunday I'd guess Steam's is Monday. But no word yet from Steam

But still Amazon is still US only I assume, so only a competition in one region.

If something comes out on the PC using Steamworks, even if I want it, I won't buy it on or near release. I wait until it's massively discounted, then I buy it. I have a pile of AAA stuff on Steam that I still haven't gotten around to touching, and I'm definitely not alone.

The only exceptions to this in the last couple of years were Shogun 2 which came with a mountain of extra stuff, (still not played at all) and Space Marine, for which I got the Physical SE because I wanted the art book, and happened to have a Steamworks activation.

The gossipers over at gog.com claim it'll start on the 12th of July, apparently on the basis of a post by the indie developer for Cubemen. *shrugs*

It's shit compared to the original DoW
I can't feel the fun either in campaign or multiplay.
It was fun for a few levels then it grew repetitive cause the abilities hardly change enough. And the boss fights are one trick ponies.
Multi play - the less said the better. Will not grab.

Space Marine is the only worthwhile pickup.

DoW2 appeals to a different group than DoW1.  I didn't like DoW1 at all. I hate RTS games, but I really enjoyed 2.  I wouldn't call it shit any more than I'd call DOW1 shit, just different.

Truth.

Kind of late on this for the sale but I would buy DoW2 just for the Last Stand mode.  I played it just about as much as the single player game.  There's something really addicting about seeing how far you can make it while also leveling up your character.  If they fleshed it out into its own game with more maps and more champions it would be really interesting.  I didn't care for the standard multi-player mode however.

I hope the rumors about the 12th aren't true. I really want the sale to be this week.

Rumors now are that the sale will be on Thursday, as apparently all their previous summer sales started on thursdays.

That's an old rumour, as the sales started on the last Thursday of June the last two years. It's a pretty small pool of data to really draw any conclusions to assume that it will start on a Thursday. People are just being manic.

The only "real" information was that some indie dev supposedly leaked the dates but the thread was quickly nuked. That's where the 12th thing came from.

The 12th is a Thursday.

Indeed.

I don't want to wait that long! GRRRRRR

As the chart points out, there is becoming a tendency amongst Steam users to just wait for the sale. So you need to have your game either as a must-have (reinforcing the big budget hit driven model) or hope that you sell 4x as much at a quarter the cost 12 months or so after your game has launched to earn the same money.

Valve doesn't really care - it gets its cut either way. And gamers get cheap games. Game developers can hope the dice roll their way.

The only thing i see is developers pricing themselves out of the market. Steam is a great indicator of what the consumer is willing to pay for your product. The economy hasn't been good enough to justify an increase to $60 given the quality we have seen this year (or lack there of).

At least for me, with most games its "Buy for 75% cheaper even if I will never play them" or "Don't buy the game at all".

There is no way I would buy these dustcatchers for full price. So its 25% revenue they would have never got otherwise.

I think the issue is as much time as it is money.  Most of us don't have time to play all the game we'd hypothetically like to.  As a result, there is no point in buying everything new to begin with even if we can afford it, so might as well wait to get it cheap anyway.  I used to buy things at full price all the time because there were probably only 2-3 releases I cared about at all in a year.  Now there are plenty of games worth playing, but not enough time to play them all.  Some get skipped, some get steam saled later.

Steam has made me less desperate. Once upon a time seeing a "decent" PC game in a retail store would have been enough incentive to buy. Now I have a library of lots of games, many of them good, even more of them unfinished, and more coming all the time. It's made me a lot more choosy.

It's pretty much money for me.  I've bought plenty of games I don't have time to play, but find very few worth what they want to charge.

Its a money issue for me add well. I've always regretted paying more than $40 for any game in the last 2 years. I resolved to stop doing that.

I have only paid full price for 2 games in the last 3 years.  The first was Deus Ex: HR, but that's because I planned it out so it would effectively cost me only $15 ($10 credit from amazon for pre-ordering a few days before release, play the hell out of it and beat it in a week, sell it back to Amazon for $35).

I also bought Diablo 3 because, well blizzard games don't go on sale.

Other then that I buy steam sales or used games.

There's also a difference between "people are waiting for sales" and "people are spending less on games."  When I have money, I spend about as much on games as I did before Steam, it's just spread out over five or six titles instead of one.  Take ten people with a $50.00 budget and have them each buy a different $50.00 game, and each game brings in $50.00 to the developer.  Take ten people with a $50.00 budget and have them each buy all ten games for $5.00 each, and each game STILL brings in $50.00, and each gamer has ten times as many games.  Sounds like a win to me.

I don't disagree by and large.  My point is just mainly that when I already have games I play regularly, I am less and less willing to spend full OR sale price on things.  At first I bought loads of stuff on steam sale just because it was novel to get AAA games for 5 bucks.  Nowadays I often pass on games I "want" for even the sale price because I know I'll never sit down and seriously play it.  On the other hand, I am perfectly willing to shell out day 1 price on a game I know I'll play a lot (recent examples: Diablo 3, Civ 5 expansion).

Also, I compare my gaming budget to my movie budget from 5 years ago.

While both are down, games have stayed steady over the last 2 years, while movies have dropped off to practically zero. I see this as both entertainment genres sort of making the same mistakes, but movies are doing it at a more obvious and rapid rate. In 5 more years, if trends continue with no real innovation and nothing but carbon copy reboots of successful projects, I can see my budget for both disappearing entirely.

The answer there is almost always, "as little as possible". It's a reason why retail in general is so dependent on sales.

hmmm. what are you guys aiming to snag anyway? Tomorrow's my last day at work..looking forward to a long break.

(http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/funny-gifs-when-the-internet-cuts-out.gif)

I have no plans for anything in particular. That's been true of the last two steam sales as well, but I always end up buying a few smallish things that I then never get around to playing.  :oh_i_see:

Probably a few odds and ends and that'll be it.  Space Marine last weekend for 8 bucks was really one of the few I was looking for. 

I'm looking at a few things.

Witcher 2, Tropico 4, M&M 6, Divinity 2, Civ 5 G&K, and some other things that are smaller.

MaMH:6, Batman AC, Witcher 2, Drakensang 2, Two Worlds 2, too.

Mostly Risen 2.

Mostly, I'm hoping Kingdom of Amalur comes down from it's $60.00 price point.  That's too steep for me for a game I'll mostly be buying for the art, if my time in the demo is any indication.

Other than that, it's just a matter of if the sale is good enough to tip the games from "want to buy" into "going to buy."  A few recent releases, like Binary Domain, maybe Prototype 2 or the new Civ V expansion.  Otherwise, mostly indie or low budget stuff that's teetering on the edge of impulse buy territory, like Warlock, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, A Valley Without Wind, The Dark Eye, etc.

According to this: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=317580 Amazon will have Amalur for $25 on the 8th.  I'll probably hold out for 10-15 personally.

As someone who enjoyed Amular, I stopped halfway through waiting for a patch that will never come.  I'd strongly recommend just passing altogether on the game.  It's not bad, but it really needed that patch.  They did manage to get their DLC launched properly though, kudos to them.

Civ V G&K (like everyone else :awesome_for_real:) and Metro 2033 or Two Worlds II if they get really cheap are the ones on my radar.

I'm gunning for a bunch of games on my "eh maybe" list like Arkham City, Binary Domain, Max Payne 3, The Line, etc.

Well I guess it's going to be the 12th for sure. Damn you internet rumor for being right again.

I literally just installed LA Noire and I got that during the winter sale. Of course it's like 16 fucking gigs so that could have been part of it.

Kinda regret it actually. After dealing with some weird bugs (having to uninstall .net framework 4.0 to make voices play) it's a pretty cool game.

Just recently picked up LA Noire for a song myself. It is very atmospheric, and definitely worth the small price I payed for it.

That said, occasionally the gameplay infuriates me. Rather arbitrary about what counts as the 'right' evidence in some of the interrogations.

Also Cole is a complete fucking psychopath who yells at and threatens like literally every single person he interviews, even when you get every single answer right.

Looks like the summer sale list has been leaked (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-09-steams-summer-sale-list-leaked). Unconfirmed so far, and prices are placeholder.

Paradox Collection it shall be  :heart:

Amazon just had the paradox stuff for $20 late last week.  I bought them all and activated them all on steam :)

I wondered if Amalur:Reckoning would be on the sale, I guess not according to that list.

If Skyrim is at an actual discount, rather than US release prices and pretending that's a discount, it will be tempting.

Amazon has it on sale now (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064TYNMW?t=slicinc-20&tag=slicinc-20)

That's far from a final list. That's just based off what's been adding to the steam database thus far. There's been more added since then.

http://cdr.thebronasium.com/

SOOOOOOON

I'm really afraid this is going to empty my wallet a mere two weeks before my vacation.

My wallet tried to run away yesterday in anticipation. I found it cowering behind my subwoofer. Did I drop it there? Was it terrified of the Steam sale? Who knows.

I told that bitch to get ready. I'm gonna plow it so gross tomorrow.

Here's an update[d list, complete with lnks to the CDR info

Where are you, steam sale? This money isn't going to needlessly waste itself.

Steam days start at 1pm Eastern.

There's absolutely nothing in those lists that interests me.

Hm.. I think my money's safe this year.  The only one that even tweaks my interest is Dead Island Pack.

There's a few in those lists I might be interested in if the price is low enough, but I'm still so stocked up from Christmas that it'll have to be really low on most of them. Starting another MMOG cuts into my playtime significantly.

Discounts have started popping up in Steam.

Also, apparently we have badgers now. (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2799155)

The sale has indeed started now.

One thing to be aware of is "flash" sales. Possibly deeper discounts on titles (75% off Deus Ex right now, for instance) for "short" periods.

oh hell yeah Portal 2 for $5

It is ON. Legend of Grimrock for €5.59. Niec.

Pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUo1PgKksgw

Yea, just forced the guy beside me to get 1 and 2 for $6.50, since he'd played neither.

Not a lot I need this year, but I'll grab the Batman games if they come down enough

All I need this year is the dlc for the crusader kings 2 which happens to be on sale right at the start  :awesome_for_real: (well, arma2 c-ops for the zombie mod would be nice at 50 or 75% off sale but not something I'm really waiting for)

Looks like everyone knows about the sale now.  Tons of 503 errors just trying to view the deals in Steam...

Bleh, yea. Feels like D3 launch day; guess I'll wait til tonight to see if there's anything I need.

Nothing of interest - well. I picked up THQ pack since I never completed Darksiders, Homefront, Metro 2053, and Saints Row 3. DoW 2 and Space Marine is just bonus. Titan Quest on my spare time. Best value pack IMO.

What titles does everyone see?

I've got: MW2,grimrock,heroes VI,shogun 2,ridge racer, terraria, crusader kings 2, portal 2

The 9th one is whited out saying it's not available in my region.

The sale must have started, because I can't access the store for shit.

Goddamnit rk47, never buy the packs until the last day of the sale. Rule number 1 of Steam Sales.

Sorry
The Steam Store is experiencing some heavy load right now. Please try again later.

Indie Bundle 1 is what you are missing. The same thing was happening to me when the sale started. If you're using a browser, did a force refresh and see if that helps.


Exactly.

I'm debating grabbing this one as well (later, obviously); does anyone know how Darksiders and SR3 play on PC?

Deus EX 3: $7.50  :drill:

The missing box is a $10 Indie Bundle with Cave Story+, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Edge, Lone Survivor, The Baconing.

Both play fine. SR3 plays great with a mouse and keyboard. Darksiders feels better with a controller.

Why? Is there something I'm missing?

Some of the individual games in that pack will likely be on sale with a deeper discount during the sale period. If you were going to buy most or all of the games within a pack then the pack will be the better deal. Otherwise you should wait to see if the titles you really care about go on sale individually.

Yeah I got the THQ pack last year and it was worth it. Hell I'm only just getting around to Metro (hard game!)

Darksiders gave me hand-cramps trying to play with a mouse so I stopped playing it. It was fine in terms of PC-power but there were one or two moves you plain couldn't do on a KB & mouse nearly as effecively as a controller. I think it was blocking.  Control+alt+backstep or something like that.

Steam's pricing system is fucked up again. Check the pricing on bundles to make sure you are actually getting a good deal. E.g. the Crusader Kings II Collection is more expensive ($29.99) than buying all the items individual ($17.53).

CK2 happens to have a daily deal in addition to the collection which is until until 23 July (good call on that)

God dam it, I don't need anymore games!

I'm fucked.

Still fucked up that the collection isn't reduced in price while CK2 is on Deep Discount.

Yeah Shogun II has it right where the Shogun II Collection is also a daily deal so the Collection price properly accounts for the individual game's daily deal discount price.

I'd recommend SpaceChem for anyone who hasn't gotten it yet. Damn fun puzzler. Flash sale right now for $2.45.

Have we determined that its ok to buy something that is on a Daily Deal or Flash Deal now as those will likely be the best prices for a while?

Packs are great if you plan on playing all the games, but individual games in the packs are likely to be discounted further during the week.

The Flash Sales and the Community Choice sales screw up the normal algorithm for determining when the best time to purchase a game is. I.e. the Daily Deal price may not be the best price anymore. We don't have enough data yet to know if something that has a had a Daily Deal will never show up as a Flash Sale or Community Choice with a deeper discount later on.

About the only thing you can do is do risk analysis against the day. If you want a daily deal, wait until they are about to flip and see if they are a flash sale.

Is Mafia 2 any good?

I loved it. YMMV.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20285.0

Hmm. I don't own a gamepad.

Is there no meta-game this year?  :heartbreak:

Good, I wasn't a big fan of that last year as it literally forced my hand to bitch slap my wallet until it opened up and allowed me to buy more games that I didn't want just so I could go chasing the ding-grats of a new fucking tf2 hat. Tough enough to resist a lot of games on this sale that already aren't desired, don't remind them meta-games make doing so impossible :oh_i_see:

That said, 4 of my friends who have been dicks and haven't played portal are now owners of both games whether they like it or not, off to a great start of proving I have no will power!

Last year the ticket thing was a good excuse to install and play some of those games I had bought but never got around to before.

At this point I own most of the games I want on Steam, so the sale itself isn't very exciting. The meta-game that got me to reinstall and play old games that I otherwise wouldn't have was the fun part.

Crusader Kings 2 at less than $10 was too good to pass up.

EDIT: Oh and Saint's Row 3 just went on sale for $12.50, so I grabbed that too.  :grin:

Well.. fuck Steam.

Grabbed SR 3, Mafia 2 and Shogun 2.

All I need now is Witcher 2 and I have my main wants. A few other things I might grab if they're cheap enough but not overly worried about them.

Bought Warlock. Saw the screenshot, asked a friend 'why does it look like Civ V?'

'it's a fantasy mod of the Civ V engine basically'.

FFS! BUYING NAO!  :awesome_for_real:

Warlock is pretty solid. Even though I suck at at it, I bought it in June for 12 bucks and didn't regret it.

It shall be mine! Warlock master of the Arcane looks good too, I question the fun but at that price....

CK2 Collection is $12.50 for me

Yay, CK2 expansion for basically nothing.  :heart:

Legend of Grimrock had been gifted to me when I logged in, fortunately they wanted Warlock so 2 copies of that. Wanted cave story and for a couple more bucks no reason not to get the pack.

I'll consider fortune summoners and probably buy Reckoning or Skyrim if they come up on real specials (33% off taking it to 59.99 USD isn't much of a special). Laughed at Rage for 50 USD, and brink at any price.

Spotted Hard Reset in passing. And will probably buy and watch "Indie Game: the movie" with the wife.

 :heart: steam, so much interesting stuff.

Thanks, Trippy and Merusk. I might just buy SR3 now since it's 75% off ($25 for the collection with all the DLC still isn't bad) and grab Darksiders when it gets discounted for more the 33% off.

CK2 looks awesome. Shame I'd never ever have the time to play it properly.

hm.. same for Grimrock, as well, apparently.

Yeah they fixed it.

WAKE UP! Darksiders is now on sale at 75% off.

Fuck, Saints Row 3 came and went while I was asleep. 8 hours sales don't work on a global scale.

No, they do not at all. They're just as bad for people who also work. Hasn't affected me at this stage, and there's little I personally want to buy, but still a bad idea. Just passed on Trine 2. I'm trying not to buy shit I'll never play this time around..

If you have access to the internet at work (and it isn't blocked), you can buy stuff through store.steampowered.com, at least.

First day: bought Terraria and Trine 2 for a grand total of € 5.73  :awesome_for_real: ; tempted about CKII but beside the huge backlog of games I still have to finish, right now I simply don't have time to dwelve into it (oh well, Xmas sale I guess).

Did someone say Legend of Grimrock? *yoink*

Nothing else jumps out of me at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be adding 10 more awesome games I won't ever have the time to play to my library by the time this is done.  :awesome_for_real:

Legend of Grimrock at that price simply screams "buy me now!!!"  :heart:

Steam is just taking all my monies so far.   Already grabbed Trine 2, Legend of Grimrock, and Spacechem so far.

Wow Sanctum for $2.49 for the next 4 hours. I recommend it, it is pretty fun. I bought a 4pack a few months ago when it was on sale.

I just bought SpellForce 2.

Anyone tried Sanctum that likes Tower Defense games?  Wondering if I should ping the roommate to buy it for me while it's on a flash sale.

If you like tower defense AND if you are playing it with someone else it's easily worth $2.50.  It's pretty much exactly what you would expect for a TD/FPS hybrid but it's done well enough.

https://twitter.com/GEICO/status/223507480783765505  :awesome_for_real:

532 re-tweets already, someone in marketing at GEICO deserves a raise.

Thanks! Grabbed that and now I think I'm done.

I thought it was pretty good. A bit short in the usual single player but the co-op seems cool. It does take a bit of graphics horsepower to run well though (my old 4870 would chug sometimes, new 7770 has no problems).

I wouldn't mind buying the Sanctum soundtrack... but it's dependent on owning the game which looks a bit repetitive for a solo player. Though you can buy the soundtrack off their site as well.

They've also got a mobile app for iOS/Android that lets you buy games and/or start downloads remotely.

The website does the remote downloads thing too, just to clarify. (If people didn't know that yet, of course.)

Hmmm, think I'm getting Max Payne 3 when I get home.

My main problem is getting the authorization.  Even if I remember my password, I've got to get the e-mail to approve it from a new location.  Technically we're locked down pretty tight.  (I can bypass it if I really wanted to, but I actually believe in enforcing the policies I help set for others.)

Use your phone to check your e-mail?

Oh Anno 2070. I would buy you if you'd remove that stupid TAGES.

My phone is the dumbest thing imaginable.  I have it for emergencies and system pages.

Bleh. Missed two flash sales of things I would of bought (damn sleep and getting called into work early).

Today's sales do absolutely nothing for me. I'd buy some of the Ubisoft stuff if Anno was a bit cheaper, and well.. not Ubisoft since I refuse to buy their shit. Also wanted Max Payne 3, but not at that price (but I knew I'd be waiting until the Christmas sale or next year's summer sale for that one).

My wallet is safe for the day.

Yeah today is meh for me too. Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the nostalgia factor is the only one I'm pondering at the moment.

I got From Dust for the hell of it. Exciting!

Picked up E.Y.E, Divine Divinity, and one of the Ys games today.  Still debating getting Spacechem. 

Other than that, I'm not seeing much that excites me that I don't already own.

Picked up From Dust from the daily and Toy Soldiers from the flash sale just now. I liked both when playing the XBLA demos, though not enough to pay XBLA prices for either.

Bought Saints Row the Third and Lara Croft and The Guardian of light (Purely for the Raziel + Kain DLC) :3

Finally picked up Trine 2 and Space Marine. TBH they had lots of really tempting deals today, especially in the flash sales. No meta-game is pretty disappointing but I guess cheap games are pretty cool too.

Grabbed the Binding of Isaac finally and Space Marine.  

Probably wont get too much else, I still got a lot of games left over from previous sales.

Assassins creed pack for $30 is probably the best I'm going to get I spose...

Bought Legend of Fae for 2.50, I used to go to the same forums as the developer. Also the game looked interesting.

So far I've restrained myself to Saints Row and Bioshock 2.  I'm really only waiting for Batman Arkham City and a nice Fallout deal now.

Blood Bowl Legendary edition is on sale for $10 for 8 hours googogo!  :drill: :drillf: :drill:

So I bought SR3 yesterday, then just now bought Bioshock 1 & 2, and a bit earlier bought Bejeweled 3 for 4.99 because sometimes you just want a PopCap game to pass the time!

This is getting expensive (and I still have a ton of games I have bought in the past and never even played) lol.

Warlock is a great disappointment to me due to how much potential it had.
It could've been a much more solid game, but it's clear that the devs were aiming for a budget price and devoted very little care into the game.
They're using Civ V engine and they still did not clone the key shortcuts.

Pretty F to forty does nothing. Press G to Go to does nothing. Spell selection with unit sometimes botched and can't be cancelled. Diplomacy is utter shit. The lack of heroes is puzzling. And the DLC leaders is a joke. I REALLY. want to like this game. Nothing makes me angrier than playing a game I really want to like yet it lets me down with stripped down features that screams 'sorry, we're low budget lolol'.

According to the devs it isn't the Civ V engine? http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?591801-Err..-civilization-5-!&p=13581499&viewfull=1#post13581499

Could have fooled me, though.

They really need to do some kind of "Grab Bag" or "Build you own bundle" discount promotion.  Nothing drives me crazy more then seeing 2 or 3 games in this bundle, and 2 or 3 games in that one that I would love to get, but really cant be arsed to buy two $45 bundles and the 10+ other games i know i will never even touch just to get the couple of games I do want.  Also drives me nuts when they do things like the "Assassins Creed Bundle" and then the "Ubisoft Bundle" but dont stick all the AC stuff in the main publisher bundle.

I skimmed through the 27 page pdf manual. ABSOLUTELY NO HOTKEY REFERENCE.
HOPE IS THE FIRST STEP ON THE ROAD TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

Anyone ever try Blades of Time (http://store.steampowered.com/app/208670/)? On sale for $9.99. Plenty of info suggesting this is a hidden gem but also plenty suggesting it's garbage. Also looks like the PC version may actually be the better release. It's tempting me.

Otherwise only picked up Legend of Grimrock and Trine 2 so far.

This is on sale. I'm wondering if i shd buy it.  :pedobear:

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/829607/awesome/MagicalDiary%202012-07-15%2000-03-59-82.jpg)

Is 16 too old for :pedobear: ?

Well if you didn't already own Skyrim, I'd say WTF are you waiting for at less than $30.

I'm waiting for it to be less than $10, that's what.   Only a few more months and it'll be there.


Fallout:New Vegas and the DLC are all 40% off if you buy them individually.  Click on the Bethesda collection to see the prices.  Fallout3 GOTY is $12 and includes all the add-on packs.

It's a cute game, and the teacher route is uh. Interesting. A little fussy to get on, though, although I did it by accident.



Also, Tropico 4 sale, hooray.

First purchase of the sale for me: Frozen Synapse

Two Worlds Two, too. Bundle version.

Probably get Risen 2 when/if that goes to 75%, otherwise not much to attract me with TSW/GW2 and dammit I spent more on McVey minis before they close their store for a couple weeks.

Two Worlds 2 isn't really a good game but I still kind of liked it (enough to buy it on steam now)  :uhrr:

I thought Two Worlds 2 was rather dreadful.  At least the intro is. 

Dead Island for $10.. tempting.

Yeah I'm waiting to see if Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition gets a flash sale or anything, not like i'm in a hurry.  I've been plowing through Saints Row for the last couple of days now. 

Arrrgh, Skyrim half price.

I know, I know, I'm the last one who hasn't played it yet...

I was going to wait and see if it went for 75% at any point, but my patience has never been very good so pulled the trigger on it. So far it's been Max Payne 3 and Skyrim for me.

Newp.


Dead Island IS tempting, how's it play? Is it worth the extra for the DLC?

I was thinking about Two Worlds 2 as well, Bhodi, Ingmar, any opinions?

I got Portal and Syberia bundle earlier in the week (don't judge me). Bioshock bundle was actually cheaper on Amazon so I got both games for less than $8.

I'm kinda hoping to see Hearts of Iron 3 for 75% off :p

Picked up Borderlands GOTY for 7.49

Nah, I haven't played it either. Don't really intend to, though, it just doesn't interest me much.

Janky. Buggy. Annoying Oblivion-esque autoleveling of zombies with you so you never feel like you're getting more powerful as you level up. But still kinda fun, especially co-op.

Edit: I know nothing about the DLC, sorry.

Seems like Risen 2 isn't going to even go on sale.  I'm hoping the first one will at least go to 75% at some point so I can put it on Steam.

Grabbed Orcs must Die and Borderlands GOTY for ~£8. I'm happy with that

Witcher 2 went on flash sale. Trying to get it, but the Steam Store has shit the bed.

Sorry Merusk, I don't even remember buying Two Worlds II, and I haven't tried it yet. It might have come along in some bundle or something.

Plays fine. I didn't mind the auto-leveling personally, you need it to keep exp flowing at a reasonable rate in the first part of the game where you do a lot of backtracking and the better weapons you find plus the skills you gain do make you feel more powerful over time. The weapon wear mechanic and inventory management gets old really fast, however You can stomp on zombies to death to save on weapon wear but that's really really slow and tedious (some characters get a skill that helps with that but that's later on in the game). I played it through with a hack that prevented weapon wear and enjoyed it better that way.

L4D2 is up for -75% for another 5 hours. Probably worth the price.

Or was I the only one who didn't have that game yet?

Nope, don't have it, but not snagging it. I liked the first one well enough, but didn't play it enough to warrant getting the sequel. Hell, I still haven't played/bought KOTOR, and that's only 2 and some change right now.

Bought Plants vs Zombies since I've had it on the iPad and occasionally like logging into it for quick fun.

Nothing else has taken my fancy (or I already have it).

I keep looking at all the games I bought that are still unplayed from the last two sales and am trying to hang onto my money

I got L4D2, so you're not the only one.

Also got Borderlands.

Still curious about Fray, but it looks to be multiplayer only.

I'm waiting it to hit 30$. For 44.69 USD$ I won't buy it on principle.

Tempted by witcher 2, but I still haven't finished the first. Perhaps even look at two worlds at that price.

It's $29.79 USD right now.

Not on my version of steam.

<- Australian.

Two worlds and Dead Island both look more annoying than fun, Frozen synapse... I can't tell.

That's what is continuing to stop me from buying anything. Everything I have almost bought just makes me go "but I already have X and don't have time for Y."

Just snapped up Witcher 2 which will hopefully be my last purchase.  Also bought Crusader Kings 2 and Terraria earlier.   A few of the games in the indie bundles look interesting but none of the ones I want are in the same bundle.  Should have let me make my own!

Batman: Arkham City flash sale right now. Don't let the price on the main page fool you, that's the franchise price (+Arkham Asylum and Gotham City Imposters).

Yeah I picked that up.  Even owning Arkham Asylum already it was worth it.

If i already own Arkham Asylum, would i be able to gift the extra copy?

Nope, I was hoping I could as well.

That's cause you don't own the games you are paying for :awesome_for_real: :oh_i_see:

People have spoken highly of tropico before, number 4 is on sale today (6GBP or 12GBP with DLC), also is LA Noire any good (6GBP incl. DLC)?

Arkham city I can't decide if GFWL is horrible enough to stop me buying at today's price of 6 pounds.

Thanks for catching that, Trippy.

24.99 is great for the complete pack, Games for Windows live is giving me pause though.  :heartbreak:

Interesting thing - Legend of Grimrock was on sale earlier, and is now up for a community voting deal.

For the same discount, I noticed that as well so I voted for something else even though the alt discounts are not as good.

Today is shaping up to be my most expensive day yet with Batman, L.A. Noire, Dead Island and Civ V. But all of that for less then full retail of one new game.

I installed GFWL the other week for WH40K:DoW2. It's pretty much ignorable, don't let it put you off.

For those playing along at home, I decided GFWL isn't going to stop me buying Batman, because, you know, Batman.

In reality I just refuse to buy GFWL games at full price, this is my ineffectual protest against the man.

The revolution will not be televised.

I skipped on batman, like I probably have many times before, because steam + gfwl + securom is just ridiculous. It almost tempts to pirate it just to prove a point.

... but I won't, because I'm too lazy to do so and there's lots of other ways to burn time and support indie games. So +1 frozen synapse to my pile.

I was going to buy Batman, but in general I'm in the same boat about the overbearing DRM.

That's why Ubisoft hasn't made any money off me in years.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/48093114/FFFFfffffu.jpg)

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffffffff-

Ok, Two worlds 2 is fucking awesome multiplayer.

Its like an 8 player oblivion with a really creative magic and crafting system. You can even make a town.

Argh, I have always in the past been able to avoid getting itch trigger finger on the big steam sales. I have not been so successful thusfar this year. Picked up Borderlands, Bioshock 1&2, Orcs Must Die, Magicka, a couple Civ V DLCs, and Legend of Grimrock all in the last day. Would have bought bloodbowl but I overslept yesterday morning.

Wait, what?

http://twoworlds.wikia.com/wiki/Two_Worlds_II_Multiplayer

Seconded. It just lay there in the background when I played Arkham Asylum, it's no reason not to own a great set of games.

Are the controls even good with a keyboard and mouse?  I played asylum on ps3 and can imagine the controls being good without a controller

Raziel + Kain DLC just uses voice clips from the original games hamfistedly spliced together. What faggotry is this?

They're passable.  Movement isn't as smooth with WASD, obviously, but it works well enough. 

This sold me, grabbed it for a friend too while its still cheap.

I've been pretty good the last few sales and went into this one with the same attitude of "I haven't even played all the games I got yet, so I don't need more" and quickly turned to "I'll buy that for later, and that and that".

So added to my list so far is

Alan Wake and exp
The Batman Arkham Pack
Trine 2 (and 3 more copies for my kids and nephew)
Serious Sam 3
Vessel

All I've gotten is Tropico 4 for $7.  Can't beat that and I've enjoyed the series.

Two worlds two also has *laughable* animations.. so don't buy it for that.   Still, I haven't found it terrible beyond that.

Passed on Two Worlds, Batman games, and the Witcher 2, personally.. even though they're all on my want list to varying degrees. They just weren't cheap enough to warrant sitting in my list un-played until at least Christmas.. so I'll look at them again at the Christmas sale. Did grab KoToR, though.. because I've never played it and for $2.50 why the fuck not?

Glad I grabbed SR3, though.. really enjoying it -- a lot more than I thought I would.

I hear these days you can even hook up a controller to a personal computer!

If Just Cause 2 hits community sale (up for vote now) or 75% daily, grab it. It's up there with SR3 for just fun mayhem stuff, I actually liked it a bit better.

Two Worlds II has a 3 activation limit, if anyone cares. 

I started Warlock finally.  I was actually a bit skeptical as I got a bit burnt out on this stuff from playing King's Bounty/Civ/etc.  I started doing normal random stuff then I took over an undead city and realized I could build undead from it.  :drill:

Twenty minutes later I realized my weekly plans are now fucked.

Warlock certainly trips my "one more turn" switch. The game works, looks good, but it's a shame it didn't get the last bits of game-play polish it needed. It's so close to awesome.

I can't finish a medium size map due to tedium to be honest. I managed to beat AI on small maps though. Cause you should realize by now, there is NO REASON NOT TO EXPAND.
And the Diplomacy is mostly shit. It's like playground bullies all over again. GIMME UR MONEY. NO. OK ME BEAT U UP.
But yes, I enjoyed it for what it is. Not polished enough, but at that price, definitely value.

After vomiting with rage at Lara Croft's Kain + Raziel DLC I went ahead and tried Saint's row the third for 38 minutes, 20 of those minutes being a scripted sequence.

And what a scripted sequence it was :awesome_for_real:

Best twenty minutes of scripting you ever got isn't it?

Monkey Island SE and LeChuck's revenge for less than $4.  Totally worth it.  If you already have MI:se (like me) You can get LeChuck for $2.50.

About 20 minutes in and I can already see why people love Trine 2, and why I am going to go insane playing it.

Saints Row 3 Co-op is fucking hysterical, especially if you have Ventrillo going.

The Egosoft X Universe games are on -75% atm. Anyone know if X3: Reunion or Terran Conflict are any good?

Don't bother with Reunion.

You're better off just getting Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude unless you really want the earlier games; also cheaper.

Edit: And to actually answer the question; I found Terran Conflict quite enjoyable, but the X series has a massive learning curve to its games. Can take awhile to get the hang of them and get to the fun.

I never made it past the learning curve.  I wish they had a 'get in and fly' mode.  I simply don't have the time to learn how to play the damn game.

Cheers Ceryse. I've already got at least one of the early ones, not played for aaaages though. I'll pick up those 2 newer ones to scratch my space sim itch :)

Picked up Saints Row 3rd this morning, what an awesome game. Ridiculous, outrageous fun, right from the get-go.

New Vegas on flash now at -75% just over 4 hours left to go

I havent purchased anything yet, in two minds about the Hit Man pack (I've got Blood Money on the XBox but have only played it once) and I'll probably get the armoured vehicle DLC for SR3 (which I haven't played yet)

Grabbed Alan Wake, Arkham City, and Grimrock so far - for about $30 total. Only took a day and half to download Arkham, though it wasn't helped by the fact that Steam pauses the download when I'm playing other games.

Got Grimrock (slow slow, but I think I'll play it enough to justify), Crusader Kings II (struggling to get my head around it), and now Fallout: NV Ultimate. Oh, and Bastion (not really that impressed TBH, story is not so amazing as yet...)

You can tab out once your game loads and hit the pause button to resume.

I'm tempted to buy Saints Row because it's probably pretty competent, but each time the enforced "wackiness" of the videos just destroys any belief I could get immersed in it. I wouldn't mind a good sandbox shooter with some change of pace wackyness, but this almost seems too much. That and a criminal gang having tanks and VTOL aircraft.

Is it really as silly as it sounds?

I can relate, the wackyness is largely what put me off

Thats said the tank & VTOL appear to be the most 'believable' of all the DLC!.......

Got Tropico 4 for the SO and Darkness 2 for myself.

Saints Row 3 may be the best part of this sale, tbh. If you can't "get past" the ridiculous portions of it once you start screwing around in the gameplay (especially in co-op) I question your definition of fun.

I just picked up Fallout NV for $5

You can switch back to the Steam client while in the game (assuming it supports alt-tab or it's running in windowed mode) and resume the download(s).

Saints Row 3 seems silly.  It is.  But it's actually a great game.

I don't know what the Armor pack comes with, but you can get armored vehicles early on if you're willing to work for it.  I did buy the Nyte Blade pack for the Bloody Cannoness outfit.  :drillf:

The military has the tanks and VTOLs not the criminal gangs. And a lot of the silliness is under your control. E.g. If you think the the dildo bat is stupid (or the shark gun or the Genki catapult or the...) you don't have to use it. Or if you think driving a tank around the city and crushing everything in your path is dumb don't use the tank.

Everyone needs to vote for Beyond Good and Evil for the next Community Choice sale so I can get it for 75% off without having to buy a studio bundle.

No controller support I think for that one.  Disappointing because it seemed a bit awkward with kb + mouse.



And.. Some stuff I want on sale now.  Ass Creed pack, Rage (kinda), Fable 3 (kinda), and Shogun 2.   I just need to remind myself that I don't really have time or any time coming up to play any of this.  BE STRONG. 

Seriously, TSW right now, GW2 soon (prolly, not 100% I'm buying) and then Borderlands 2 on mah birthday.  I need to clone myself.  I'm pretty sure a slightly less sharp version of myself can do my job equally well.

Saint's Row 3 was a game I didn't buy for the longest time solely because of the wacky factor. It just seemed so over the top I wouldn't like it.

I was quite wrong. I normally hate that shit in my games, but they do it well enough and its very cohesive as a game with it that you either love the wackiness, or in my case, can ignore the worst of it and be thoroughly amused by what you can't.

As for today's sale.. as always, tempted to buy the Assassin's Creed games.. but, Ubisoft. Nothing else I want.

Yeah, lol. Combat is good though.

I wish I could recommend Shogun 2 - the parts where you're playing the game and not looking at a loading screen are really cool. But sweet crackers, the loading screens make the elevators in Mass Effect 1 feel zippy.

Thinking about getting Metro 2033. Any "gotchas" to be aware of?

It's nothing special but I kind of liked the story and feel (enough to actually play it thru). It was good enough to get a sequel which will be released "someday".

I'm enjoying it, even though some of the segments are hair-pulling as I suck at FPS beyond spray-n-pray so I'm always running out of ammo.

I hated it personally. The "immersive" UI did nothing but drive me up a wall. The atmosphere otherwise is pretty good.

I loved Saints Row 3, at first I thought some of the stuff was silly, but I really got into it.  I put like 20 hours in the game the first 3 days I had it.

Bah, how did Mirror's Edge win?  It's a good game but it's on sale for $5 every other week it feels like.

I got Spec Ops:The Line in the bundle (along with Bioshock II, Duke Nukem Forever and some other games I don't really care about) and it's well worth getting by itself, if you've ever played CoD, MoH, BF or any other FPS in the last decade. Not for the gameplay, that is consoled and nothing new, but for the inverse plot you get to play of any other FPS. Really good story.

I missed this... oh well a penny saved... (That and I'm sure it'll be back at the end)...

Flash sale right now for Civilization V, $7.49.

Still $17.49 here.

Isn't the price difference in Australia more to do with your own laws and government than with Steam?  I know Australia has some wacky rules when it comes to games and other media.

It's nothing to do with our government and everything to do with the publishers arrangements with local distributers.

The only 'wacky' law we had was the one about classification and no 'R' 18+ rating for video games which is currently getting addressed.

Weird; I would have thought that the extent of Steam's deals with local distributors would have been a crayon drawing of Gabe Newell giving the middle finger.

Afraid not. It only really has an impact on the big titles, as the smaller and indie titles never get such deals in place and sell for exactly the same amount as they should...

Bloody annoying still.

It was like that 3-4 years ago, but I've noticed more and more games are being released as 'full' Aus prices - which means 80-90USD.  Even now SR3's normal price is USD50 (gah, that should read US59), which means at 75% off its still USD12.50.  Very annoying.

Edit: Gah, I fail at reading prices in Steam.

It's the publishers that set the price, Valve games themselves are priced at the US price for us, as are most independent and small house games.  The worst offenders for us in games are Bethesda, 2K, EA and Activision.  Ubisoft where bad too but just announced recently they where going to address pricing down here and seem to be moving towards parity on steam.

In this case that's the same as it is in the US, then.

For Australia at the moment Saints Row 3 is


$10 more at base price.  The franchise pack is the same price for us though ($24.99) which is what I bought

The trick for us is sometimes they have an extra pack like this one with all the DLC or some other games and they overlook regionalising it and we can snag it at the US price.  There have been a couple this sale like that.

Im curious, what's the one not available in my region (Europe/Finland)? Never seen that happen before.

I think it was Deadrising 2.

New flash sale.  Crisis 2 for $11.99.  Well worth it imo.

Oh, and a chance to vote for Batman:Arkham City 66% off or Witcher 2 for 60% off.

Voting for stuff that's already been on sale is really annoying.

It's not bad to have a second shot at it. I would not be surprised if this isn't some sort of experiment with how to select the flash and community sales.

There's a page that does pricing comparisons (http://www.steamprices.com). Some of it is really silly, like RAGE at 67% less in the US for a game that should be desperate for attention. Current winner being modern Warfare 2 at a 78% discount in the US (67.49 vs 15 USD after 25% off).

I guess it could be because our PC game retail sector is so awful and focused on making huge profit margins off the big-name games and the publishers go along. So the sooner game retail dies the better.

I occasionally drop into our local (Aussie) EB and remind them how much cheaper I can get stuff online or direct from the US.

"Oh that's on sale for 1/10th your price"

They remind me that I'm killing their industry.

I grin.

Fuck 'em

Bought Metro 2033: I'm also thinking about Crysis 2: Maximum Edition and the Dungeon Siege pack deal (all three games for € 7.49) : not really because I want to play DS, but because thanks to the first episode, you can play Ultima Lazarus, the remake of Ultima V, and I lost my DS disks :P

... I do pretty much the same. Pretty much the only use of EB is a good laugh. It's funny they get annoyed because they never cared about PC gaming before steam came out.

It shocks me there's a potential use for the DS disks, cause the game was many flavors of dull.

http://www.u5lazarus.com/

 :Love_Letters:

One more thing: I already mentioned them in other posts, but right now you can purchase the two, excellent Eschalon games (old school style CRPGs) for € 1.99 (book I) and € 2.99 (book II, which is the direct sequel). Look them up on Steam! There is also a demo for the first game.

Wow, this summer sale is killing me much like last year.  Bought a package deal that will keep me obsessed with playing for multiple weeks.  I both love it and hate it at the same time.

It's not even noon yet and Steam is shitting the bed. Anyone else able to get there?

Working fine for me, mang.

Spec Ops, Binary Domain and Sniper Elite were all cheaper on Amazon's sale.  :heartbreak:

If you want to play quite a curious and (very) atmospheric platform/adventure (mostly platform, though), give "Limbo" a try (€ 2.49) . IMO, it can make for a nice, "introductory" videogaming experience for your son/daughter/fiancee.

And man, only € 6.23 for the entire Company of Heroes franchise? Whoa.

Nothing like introducing your small child to gaming by watching another small child die repeatedly.  It's also pretty difficult (I suck at platformers).

Teach 'em while they're still young!!!  :drill:

But yeah, I guess you have a point  :grin:

Alright, alright; alternatively, go for The Tiny Bang Story (which was on sale in yesterday's Indie Bundle, I think), then...Or Machinarium.

Amnesia's usually on sale too.   :awesome_for_real:

Think I'm going to buy Batman: AC, even though I'm like the only person that didn't think AA was GOTY material.

It can also happen if there's some problem loading the page.  I've seen it a few times, and I'm in Canada, where everything's available.  Reloaded a few minutes later and it was fine.


It doesn't mention it, but the version of DS1 that you get in that pack is neutered (no multiplayer, for example) so I'm not sure if mods work with it or not.

It finally started working again right about noon, just in time for me to get Dear Esther. I've been wanting that for a while. I'm tempted by the GTA IV thing. I've seen a buddy play that on the PC at work and it looks fun, but now I'm regretting not grabbing Saints Row 3.

I'm gonna be up to my ass in cover-based shooters. Max Payne 3 the other day, Gonna get The Line and Binary Domain too.

I have like 420GB left on my steam drive and I'm starting to get worried I'll get close to punching it out after installing all of this shit and I'm damn sure I'll come close to my DL cap from Comcast.

30gb for Max Payne, like 25 for Rage I think, God knows how much for The Line and Binary Domain (I'm sure a bit less, but still)...

What's wrong with me?  I'm very tempted to pick up Train Simulator 2012 even though I have no interest in it because "What the hell, it's $3.49 and I've never tried it before."

I should really buy that for my son.

Probably a stupid question but is Arkham City worth the price (and it's DLC)?

I have Asylum but haven't got around to playing it yet?

The great thing about it, is that it has no DLC whatsoever  :grin:

No idea, but for that price I grabbed it anyways. It was really the only game I had planned on getting.

As a father with a son who loves trains. I figured the horseshoe curve pack for 7 bucks along with the normal game was a pretty good deal.... Now of course he will want the challenger and the big boy pack... But he can buy those with his own money. If he wants. Or ask for a present.

Even at 50% off the price of all of it is staggering!

I bought the entire GTA complete bundle for $12.50

Oh and I bought the Indie bundle because the Train game and War game sounded cool.

Yes it's worth buying at that price and not playing it :why_so_serious: You can always just use it a graphics card benchmarking tool :awesome_for_real:

Does anybody know if Call of Duty: Black Ops zombie mode still has an active player base? Tiring of ME3 MP so looking for another horde mode game.

Picked up Warlock based on comments here from others.  Good fun for $12 a good bargain.

I am done, I spent my quota. 

Mirrors Edge, Fallout NV -  Ultimate Edition, Bioshock 2, Saints Row 3, Arkham City collection, LA Noire, and Super Steet Fighter 4. 

5 more days still -- you will break.

Dear Esther and Limbo today, those have been hanging out on the list for a while.

Arkham City isn't 75%! Xmas sale fodder, especially since it would sit unplayed until then anyway.
I'm in the VAST minority, but I really liked GTA4 more overall than SR3 (pro-tip, learn how to turn off the cell phone and do it obsessively). SR3 is definitely more of the fun over-the-top visceral gameplay, but GTA4 pulled me in more.

Looking at my Steam stats, I have 24 hours played in SR3 (which I am still semi-active with) vs 37 hours in GTA4. Except that's my de-disc'd hours for GTA4...I had about 70 hours into the disc version....

Yeah, I got Dear Esther and Limbo too--seem like interesting "art" at the boundaries of current gaming norms. (At that price, it's not much of a risk.)

Crusader Kings II... Who is responsible for recommending this? Stayed up to 4:30am trying to become the king of Ireland last night (success, only to die and start a three way war of succession right after)..

Sounds like a good recommendation! (I bought it but don't dare install it until I go and come back from holidays

I've been trying to play CK2, but either I'm doing it wrong or there's a lot of downtime where I'm figuring out how to take territory.

In fact, I'm sure I'm doing it wrong.

You might be doing it wrong! There's really not a lot of Total War-style expand-expand-expand in CK. You'll often get more done strategically marrying all your kids and waiting.

Man Dead Rising 2 OTR is pretty bad port. Crashing like mad. Had to look for a fix.
If I could get a refund or swap with something else, I'd do it. There is no fun in here. Even the zombie bash ups were lame as hell at the start.
Hopefully it'll improve.

I bought a game - Age of Empires III. Because I'm way too lazy to dig up that giant CE from the storage shed.

Hmmm. This requires some thought then.

Consensus on Stronghold 3 was that it sucked, right? Like, wait for $5 bad?

Think of it more as a role playing game. You have to act in accordance with the political situation, which includes what people think of you and who is married to who, and then formulate a plan that works in line with that.

EG: After my king of Ireland died a lot changed very quickly, the immediate heir died in the successful battle with his brothers, the next in line considered himself Irish not Norwegian, bitches were uprising, etc. I had to make him bribe everyone and crush a few heads, working out who is imprison and who to release. Now it seems to be a game of "wait out the angry bastards who are down on my for executing a few traitors" before I can even think of anything else, any weakness and my great-uncles (original kings brothers) jump back in to war.

Steam forum consensus was that just about any other use of your time would be more fun, they really don't like that game.

Fuck - I broke down and threw my CC at the monitor after swearing I wouldn't :(

LA Noir, SR3 + DLC, X-Com series and a few 99c DLCs for other games.

Thinking about Dear Esther and the Unreal series - I have them all except UTIII but hate looking for the CDs when I want to install them - same with the Quake series.

Must... resist...

Started and finished Botanicula, goofy/cute little adventure game. Pretty much in the same vein as other Amanita games (Machinarium etc.) and worth a look if you like that stuff. Quite liked the music this time as well.

Hey monkey. There was a CK II thread a while back. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21881.0) This may provide some tips and/or entertain you with stories.

So far this has been much more expensive than the previous sale  :ye_gods: Good thing we're halfway through...

My list (of games that I'll never have time to play) so far:

Divine Divinity                 4.99 EUR
Warlock - Master of the Arcane  6.79 EUR
The Guild II Collection         9.99 EUR
Trine 2                         3.24 EUR
Crusader Kings II DLC Combo    12.49 EUR
Frozen Synapse - Two Pack       4.59 EUR
Tropico 4                       7.49 EUR
Summer Sale Indie Bundle Day 2  9.99 EUR
Summer Sale Indie Bundle Day 3  9.99 EUR
Orcs Must Die!                  3.49 EUR
Payday: The Heist               4.74 EUR
Metro 2033 All Languages        2.49 EUR
Summer Sale Indie Bundle Day 5  9.99 EUR
Dungeon Siege pack              7.49 EUR
Eschalon: Book I                1.99 EUR
Eschalon Book II                2.99 EUR
Duke Nukem Forever              4.99 EUR
Unreal Deal                     9.99 EUR
                              ==========
                              117.72 EUR

How much was the X-Com series at the height of the sale?

Just Cause 2 is a flash deal at -75% right now for whomever that was looking for it.  Just under four hours to go.

Yeah, I got that today. Less than $6 for the game and all the DLC... thank you very much, Gabe Newell.

And oh shit, there goes Saints Row 3 again for the next 6 hours.

From CAG, it will be $9.99 on Amazon today or tomorrow.  You can get any DLC for today's discount directly from Steam and then the Steam code from Amazon for the full game.

I don't think I can resist Call of Pripyat today.

Bleh. Need more of a discount on Sins before I throw more money at the franchise.

Is anyone else coming to the realization that you don't play a lot of games, but play the heck out of a small handful? I have the urge to buy more (cheap) games but I've only played  2 games out of 21 in my steam library for more than 2 hrs. 

Heh. More than 2 hours? 32 of 242  :why_so_serious: :ye_gods: :uhrr:

Also, wtf 25% nonsense?

Picked up the GTA package and SR3. Yay for more games I can't play when my son is awake  :oh_i_see:

Just noticed the 3fer pack for the first one + expansions is 5 bucks.  Going to wait until a better sale for Rebellion though.

SR3 is comedic violence.  It's totally okay for him to watch! ;D

Yah.  I thought I might be able to get away with Legend of Grimrock while my daughter was awake, but not so much.
Where are you going Daddy?  Can I play? Daddy, why is the spider trying to eat you?  KILL IT DADDY KILL IT! 

The language is not, however.

Wait till you get to the BDSM club.... :grin:

Are we still talking about the game?

Sacred 2 seems to no longer be offered on Steam.  I see on Amazon the multi-player servers were shut down a few months ago, which I don't care about.  Any idea if it comes with a Steam key, or if maybe a Gold edition is coming out?

8 games out of 64, but for some reason all my Civ IV hours are missing and I lost all my progress with The Witcher.

Don't do it.

How good is the stalker series?

I was held in rapture by the STALKER series for 2 days. Then I got bored.

Agreed, don't think I was able to get past Character Selection.

I got a good week or two out of the first stalker, but I had just read the book and was into it.

Just caved and picked up Railworks 3 (Haulin' USA Pack) + the Acela Express add-on.

Dear God why?!   :ye_gods:

Yep, LA Noire w/ DLC for $7.50. That was one I wanted if it got down under $10. The Steam sale is the great Internet meta game ever.

What can I say other than i like trains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkKJfcBXcw[/url)?

LOL, nice anecdote :grin:

And here's my typical reaction whenever a new sale comes up (but I guess it's not only me :P) :

NSFW  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sNZ7ulO1RQ

Risen 2 is on my list and is on a 33% off on a lash sale, but I think that at least 50% off was my breaking point.

Picked up GTA IV and LA Noire. Passed on everything else I've seen lately as a no interest, not cheap enough, or already own.

Still hoping to see a decent deal on a couple games, but I'm getting close to my pre-set budget for the summer sale.

Yeah, enough on the plate that I can hold out until Xmas. Really want to play though, 50 or 66 might break me.

Anyone have any info on the Game of Thrones RPG? Its on Flash Sale for -50%.

Cyanide.

Literally or figuratively?

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/829607/plane/11/wtf.jpg)

Interesting, I show it as $6.24 for the bundle.

You can't buy the DLC separately? I bought DA:O on release but it looks like there is a lot of DLC I can't get on steam unless I buy the game again (Ultimate edition) which includes the DLCs.

edit: nm, I'm dumb.

They must have added the Ultimate pack since that screenshot. I see the option for it; $7.49 for the game, Awakening and all nine packs.

I liked that Stalker:Call of Pripyat had a "Loyalty discount". You got a cheaper price on the game if you owned one of the earlier titles, first time I've seen steam do that.

Also bought Thief II. Plus Fortune Summoners to support Carpe Fulgur bringing over Japanese indie titles.

Sins of the Solar Empire Rebellion any good for someone that has never experienced the series?

I played Sins when it launched for a while and just bought Trinity for $5.00.  Supposedly Rebellion is good and adds a Titan class of ships to bring to the fight.  But $5.00 is a bit different than $30.00, so I went cheap. 

If you're brand new to the series, it's hard to beat Trinity for $5.00.  It's not 4x though, more like RTS/4x hybrid.

I almost bought Sins, and then I saw "Stardock" and blind Elemental-caused rage took over.

Shit :( Just killed it for me

Bought Company of Heroes pack and the DeadSpace pack. I've already got Company of Heroes but not the expansions and it's nice having it available on Steam, not played either of the Dead Spaces but did see that prequel animated movie a few weeks ago so thought I might as well have a look.

If it helps any Stardock is just the publisher here.  It's made by Ironclad Games.  I absolutely adore Sins and honestly, Trinity for $5 is a god damn steal. Rebellion at just 25% off though  however isn't enough for me to pull the trigger.  I'll get it eventually, but I've got enough backlog (and hell, I've barely scratched the surface of Entrenchment) that I'm not feeling I need to rush out and get it (read as Winter Sale and hopefully 50% off will be my sweet spot).

Same here.  I played the shit out of release, but I can't justify $30; not when I just got burned by SOTS 2. 

Wow. I finally got to shut down my home PC this morning. I've been downloading games since the weekend.

Avadon
Dungeons of Dreadmoor
QUBE
Zombie Driver
From Dust
Age of Empires 3
Audio Surf
Two Worlds 2
Ys Felghana
Warhammer 40k Space Marine

That list seems short, so I probably forgot a couple.
Warhammer was the biggest culprit, that was like a 10 gig download.

Alan Wake... been waiting on that one either to get it on the 360 or if it was cheap enough on Steam. $10 for all the Alan Wake stuff including the new expansion. Yep, that'll do.

Finally picked up Amnesia.

I'll probably never get up the nerve to play it though.

The count so far: CK2, Trine 2, Grimrock, Sanctum and LA Noire.

Longest Journey bundle for $6.24. yea or nay?

What about the Witcher 2? Reviews seem good but everyone here seemed to be pretty negative about it.

The combat sorta blows, and it's needlessly complicated, but the gameplay is solid and the story is fun.

I just really couldn't get into the control scheme.  It makes the game a lot harder than it needs to be.  It's just so goddamn clumsy.   Minor annoyance: they  made Geralt's supporting cast younger/douchier looking.


Great game (never finished).   Pain in the ass to get working on most modern operating systems.  I'd check the forums to see if there are still compatibility problems before buying.

Saints Row 3 is $10 on Amazon today.

Was just noticing this myself.  I've been spending like a maniac this sale, but I've somehow developed some weird phobia of new games.  I have bought and installed The Last Remnant and it's sitting on my list ready to be played, but something just keeps dragging me away from the "play" button.  Grabbed a ton of interesting sounding indie games (Genemi Rue, Last Survivor, A Valley Without Wind, etc.) and they're all just sitting there, rolling my eyes as I click on Warhammer 40k AGAIN.

How was Alan Wake?

I'm a couple hours in to Alan Wake, and so far the atmosphere is outstanding. The actual gameplay is a little bit pants on head silly, but I'm enjoying it.

I've always wanted a flashlight that had a turbo button on it...

Does that mean that the flashlight turns on faster?   :oh_i_see:

Obviously you need Jamie's magic psychedelic flashlight/torch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMNG2LtF41o).  :awesome_for_real:

Anyway, I picked up Bastion, Legend of Grimrock, Saints Row 3 and Frozen Synapse so far. Close to pulling the trigger on Amnesia, but I already have too many freakin' games!

It's on Steam today at $15.99 but note that for a dollar more you can get it plus the original Witcher at Gog.com (http://www.gog.com/en/promo/the_witcher_series__gem__promo/) (direct from/to the devs) for another 11 hours.

Well, I guess I'll finally purchase Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition. Now on flash sale for € 3.74  :awesome_for_real:

The F:NV ultimate tempts me, first thing this entire sale.   :oh_i_see:

I felt a twinge over Grimrock, but I'll probably hold out for $5.

The GoG version should be DRM-free, shouldn't it?

Was really happy about that.  I've heard the expansions made it a lot more fun, but I wasn't ready to pay full price for a game I'd already bought.  Now I've got it on Steam and never have to get the silly Stardock downloader, too!

Dammit, I missed it. I've been wanting that for years, since Stardock used to be so niggardly with their IPs.

Vote for risen I need to throw away my direct2drive account.

Civ 5 on sale again, and again with no discount on Gods & Kings expansion.  Even 20% would sell the shit out of it.

In a Crysis 2 vs. Deux Ex, which is more recommended? I'm leaning towards DE.

EDIT: I'm full of shit.  Gods & Kings is 25% off @ $22.49.

Deus Ex is a fantastic game.  It's the only game I can think of in years that I bought for full release price and was completely happy with the purchase. (it's not perfect, ending kinda sucked, but very few complaints)

Never played Crysis 2 though.

Terrible, repetitive combat that never fucking ends.  Fun enough game otherwise.  Cool characters.  Good atmosphere.  I highly recommend playing on easy just to get through the terrible combat parts as quickly as possible. 

If you head into DE knowing that you should just cheese your way through the bad boss fights, it's fantastic.  Great game that I played compulsively and had a lot of fun with.    Haven't played Crysis 2.  I didn't care much for the orginal.

Turn your difficulty down to easy right before every boss fight. Otherwise, you'll be punching baby kittens. Boss fights are pretty terribad. The rest of the game is really good, though it can't hold a candle to the original.

Just save up for fully powered Typhoon and they're all giggle worthy.

Just bought the CKII bundle at lunch as I saw it was a flash sale (had missed it the other day) was the first purchase for me in like four days.

I am still baffled by people complaining about the deus ex boss fights. Yes they were leaps and bounds harder then all the other fights so in a way they were jarring but I had almost no trouble beating any of them. YMMV

For me, the problem with the boss fights wasn't that they were hard (though they were), the problem was that they were straight up combat scenarios as opposed to the "solve this in multiple ways" situations the rest of the game challenges were.

Exactly, I'd gone a full stealth build with no Typhoon at all. That build was 100% worthless in the bossfights, other than maybe the first one. Second one I won by complete accident while shooting randomly, third one I had to super cheeze grenades and mines and it still took about 12 tries.

The difficulty isn't what makes them jarring (I didn't think they were really all THAT hard), what makes them jarring is the game decides to turn into a completely different game for them. That's why they're stupid.

They also just weren't very interesting as boss fights go. They were gimmicky, and totally not in tone with the rest of the game.

It depends a lot on your build, especially if you were going for non direct combat oriented stuff to the exclusion of everything else.


On another note, Far Cry 2 is only 2.50.  I like open world stuff, is there fun to be had with it?

Why is Valve pimping its smartphone apps when they are still in closed beta and you can't even use the fucking things?

Hm? I downloaded the Steam app from the Play Store and it works fine. Or are they pushing something else?

On iOS you need to enter a special key through a desktop client before you can use the iOS app.

I had to do the 'first time logging in from a new device' thing (same thing you have to do if you log into the store in a web browser on a new computer, etc), but it just emails you the code and you can enter it right in the phone app (for Android).

Oh...then it's not a closed beta :oh_i_see:

After VtM:Bloodlines I learned my lesson.

Community Choice: "We're sorry. This game is not available in your region"

WTF? I hate publishers that region-lock.

Any ideas on what it is?

Currently?  75% off Risen.

I really enjoyed it and keep meaning to go back and get deeper into it. It's a really good game in 3d Vision, with the way they handle the map (an actual map you hold) and driving. Like Far Cry, most of the time I just messed around shooting stuff and wandering.
I had a lot of fun with that game, but I'm the resident franchise fanboi.

edit: Burnout Paradise is a wicked fun arcade racer (with a gamepad), btw. Thought about getting Driver SF, but probably won't until it's $5 :)

Far cry 2 was atmospheric, the shooting was good and the constant re-spawn of locals was a bit tedious. The story wasn't bad either from memory.

I feel so weak.  I've bought 7 games so far.  My only saving grace is they were all 5~7.50.

Vampire: Bloodlines flash sale for 4.99.  If you haven't played it, what's wrong with you?

$5 seems a lot for what, a ten year old game?

I picked it up.  I've heard a lot of good things about it but $20 was too much.

It's easily worth 5 bucks, even if it is 10 years old.

Yeah, $5 seems like a lot for one of the best games of all time.

Seriously.  Get it.

ProCycling Manager sounds like it must be an easy game: you just hit the button that says, "Have Some Steroids!" over and over.

I think you also need to organise sponsors so you can pay for the next treatment? I mean the screenshots seem to be dripping with product placement.

Sports games confuse me, sports management games doubly so.

The latest Football Manager and Out of the Park Baseball are always near the top of my "stuck on a desert island" games.  But I love spreadsheets, and sports games in general so your mileage will vary.

When talking about VTM: Bloodlines, yeah, $5 is SO worth it. Hell, even at that age, it's still worth $20 IMO. Despite the bugginess, it's just such a solid game.

New day, new deals.  Among the new deals is Arma 2 40% off and Batman:AC 66% off.  I might get Arma 2 just to check out the DayZ mod and B:AC is definitely worth $10.

Is Evochron Mercenary any good?  It looks a bit interesting.

I picked up Divinity 2 since it was on my wishlist.

Arma II.....17.99....Will it go lower....

At only 20% off Arma II has been hovering in the top sales all sale, so I don't think it will go any cheaper at least this sale than today's special.  I've been waiting for it the whole sale too but I'm kinda spent now and can't make myself pull the trigger on it.

Waiting for the Day-Z mod to stabilize / mature / collapse under the weight of expectations is not a bad choice. Especially since it may go stand-alone and not require arma-II at some point.

I tried Evochron Mercenary. I like the idea of indie games, but that one was well over the boring / ugly threshold I could manage.

Getting every single Warhammer game and expansion for twenty-ish bucks was irresistable. I love the aesthetic even if RTS is really not my favorite gameplay.

I'm glad I can't get the fucking Summer badge because I had a business trip.

During the Summer.

Dumb.

phone app has voting baked in.

Aye, the phone app's been pretty swank for staying informed about all the deals and stuff.  Kinda gives Steam an 'out' for getting away with 8-hour cycle deals.

Universe Sandbox on flash sale for $3 for ~another hour (11am est).  Probably worth it just to play around in.

Batman:AC - any good?  I enjoyed AA, but I heard differing reviews of AC when it first came out.  How has it held up?

My opinion was that it's fun to play as long as you can put up with the terrible, terrible writing.

I liked Batman: AC, but it definitely felt shorter than AA.

How is Costume Quest and Stacking? I already have Psychonauts, but the Double Fine bundle looks somewhat tempting.

Costume Quest was pretty fun but the combat gets repetitive pretty quickly.

Have to say I was pretty disappointed by this years sale (the good news is that I didn't spend much though)

I was hoping/expecting Guild Wars 1 to be on sale given that 2 is just around the corner and there were a couple of items in publisher sales that I wanted that never made it up as individual items (the Doom games specifically, I've got all the other ID games in the pack)

So I _only_ ended up getting Batman Arkham City (plus DLC), the Unreal pack (to de-disk) and a Saints Row 3 DLC

Yeah, wasn't nuts about the way the sale was run.  The whole flash sale thing is infiruating to me, and I ran into the "out of town for a few days, no badge for you" issue.  Kingdom of Amalur was the main game I was looking for, and it never touched the sale (I guess EA doesn't manage the Steam version, which means it's probably gonna be in stasis for a while).  I picked up most of the other stuff I was looking for, though.

I still spent way more than I intended to, probably because those bloody flash sales and voting thing had me checking the site every few hours, and all those impule buys add up.  I think I spent like $50.00 on DLC alone, just $1.00 or $2.00 at a time.  My inbox is like two pages of "Thank you for your purchase".

I believe that is the case with Amalur.

Looked at Galactic Civilisations II but wondered if I'd retain the enthusiasm through a game, and generally dislike games where it involves sending hordes of your faceless minions in to wear down the enemy. Watching a long play pretty much confirming that it's not my sort of thing.

Something where your units are more at the level of the individual, like Jagged Alliance : Back in action is more my thing. That game got slammed in the reviews but apparently has had some major patches since then. Somewhat tempting... anyone playing it?

I was annoyed by the amount of repeats, the flash sales to daily to community choice sales were cycled between a lot.

Yeah, I wish they'd saved a few fun surprises for the end. Kind of just whimper, not bang.

There's a phone app now?

Actually, maybe I'm better off not installing it...

Just picked up Skyrim for sub-$30 at the end of the sale. Pretty happy with the summer sale myself.

Purchased a lot of games I either wanted or already played. It feels real good to legitimately purchase and own the games I pirated and enjoyed. Spent just under $80.

Big fan of the sale, probably blew over $100 on stuff across 10 or so games or packages.

Pretty much. Best buy of the lot is still Saint Row 3 & Warlock for me. Everything else are kinda bland and just impulse Sub $10. purchase for me.

Even though I picked up a decent number of games, including a couple I'm really pleased with (SR3 and Divinity 2), I was disappointed in this year's sale. Number of games on my maybe list didn't get a sale and I missed a couple others, or they never won a vote.

Of course its hard to complain overall given its basically bitching about how much money I could of thrown at them for stuff I may or may not ever actually play.

I've got about 1 week's worth of actually packing lunch and not sneaking off to subway to make up for this sale. Medieval 2 and two worlds 2 will probably be the only ones that see significant playtime before GW2 or Torchlight 2 drops. 

I got a lot of bargin-bin games that had caught my eye but were never cheap enough for me to give a go, and Batman: Arkam City for ridiculously cheap.  Really happy with the sales overall.

Ok, I think I'm done. For € 54.23 I've purchased:

- All the Fallout:NV DLC
- All the Fallout 3 DLC
- Just Cause 2 (plus all the DLC)
- Saints Row ( plus Third Season Pass DLC)
- Metro 2033
- E.Y.E.
- Stalker: Clear Sky 
- Stalker: Call of Pripyat
- Terraria
- Trine 2
- Eschalon Book II
- Gal Civ II: Ultimate

Good haul, Lucas.

$20 got me:

Two Worlds 2 + DLC
Dear Esther
Limbo
GalCiv2 ultimate

I spent E37.91 total for
- Legend of Grimrock
- Frozen Synapse [x2]
- Bastion
- SR3
- Eschalon Book 1+2
- Avernum: Escape from the Pit
- Avadon, Avernum 4, Avernum 5, Avernum 6 bundle

The last two items weren't on a super-crazy sale ('just' 50%), but I got them due to my extreme nostalgia for Spiderweb games... I spent way, way, way too many hours playing the Exile series back in the day.  :awesome_for_real:

e: All games were below 5E except for SR3 (7.49E) and the Avadon/Avernum 4-bundle (7.98E). Pretty good deals, all told!

One or two I'm still considering.  But the haul for $65, or about the cost of one current new release is -

• Galactic Civilizations II Ultimate
• Arma II: Combined Operations  (For Day-Z)
• Beyond Good and Evil
• Saints Row: The Third
• E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy
• The Longest Journey + Dreamfall
• Cave Story+
• Frozen Synapse
• From Dust
• Legend of Grimrock
• Trine 2

I also won 4 games from Steamgifts.  :awesome_for_real:

• Secret of the Magic Crystals
• Cricket Revolution
• Dear Esther
• Dungeon Defenders - Warping Core Challenge Mission Pack DLC

In true Steam fashion I haven't even installed any of them and continue to just play DotA 2.

Football Manager 2012 for $7.49.

SOLD!

Change DotA 2 to TSW and yeah. Yay Steam!

As I posted:
http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11268.msg1091279#msg1091279

I spent like $60 bucks on probably a dozen games. I installed SR3 and played for about an hour, installed Bejeweled 3 and have played like 11 hours of that. Damn you Zen mode!

Yep, Bejeweled 3 is very addictive: I love lightning mode and Quest, of course. It's just a great piece of software (unless of course that kind of genre is not your cup of tea) and very recommended for casual playing in-between more "serious" gaming sessions.

$24.  Not sure if I'll manage to play Arkham City or SR3 this year.  I might!

I was a pretty good boy this time around. Spent around $30-35 and got Terraria, Fallout:New Vegas Ultimate Edition, All the Unreal games, Swords and Soldiers with Sausage Fest and Evochron Mercenary. I *almost* bought the whole Dawn of War package for $30 when it was at 92% off but remembered how much I suck at RTS games. It was tempting though.

I got SR3, a bunch of WH40K stuff, Blood Bowl and the Introversion bundle (Darwinia, Defcon, etc) because a mate of mine wanted to play some of them multiplayer.

SR3 was the pick of the bunch, I've put 30 hours into it and hugely enjoyed every single second :)

"Nah, don't need any more games at this time, Steam need to play list is backlogged to heck, can't think of any games I want anyhow, broke, etc..."

Picked up:

Alan Wake (played the first few minutes, its awesome so far! fell asleep)
BEEP
Crusader Kings II
Far Cry, Far Cry 2
Galactic Civs II
the indie pack with Limbo and Lone Survivor
Terraria

Probably some other stuff too, at least I managed to grab them all at steep discounts. Whew, glad that's over, feel like a boxer that went too many rounds, and I'm glad there was no last day reprieve because I had my eye on a few others.

Aaand back to playing Avernum: Escape From The Pit, about 20 hours in and barely scratched the surface, sweet...

I bought a shitload of stuff as usual, you'd think there wouldn't be anything left for me to buy by now.

So far my favorite buy is Botanicula.  :heart:

When does this end?

Yesterday.

Oh, oddly my steam store just switched over to the regular page look.

Oh, one other thing, was browsing the Steam item schwag store thinking "who buys this crap" and ended up with this:

Speaking of cool Valve/Steam moments - NASA sends Portal 2's Wheatley to Spaaaaaaaace (http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/nasa-sends-portal-2s-wheatley-space-902750).

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Driver: San Francisco
SplinterCell: Double Agent
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction
Alan Wake Bundle
Napoleon: Total War - Units of the Coalition
Napoleon: Total War - Peninsular Campaign
Napoleon: Total War - Imperial Eagle Pack
Serious Sam 3 BFE
Darkness II  
Two Worlds 2 - Pirates of the Flying Fortress
From Dust
Trine 2
Legend of Grimrock

For a total of €67,71.

The flesh is weak.

I have yet to install any of these.

For ~$30 I grabbed Darksiders and the complete SR3 pack; I haven't installed DS yet but I put about 2 hours into SR3 before buying TSW and becoming addicted.

Quoted for truth.  My failure reel:

• Nexus - The Jupiter Incident (this was on my wishlist, I forget why, though)
• SpaceChem + DLC
• Fortune Summoners  (adorable, but the controls are floaty as hell)
• Warlock - Master of the Arcane + DLC (Probably the purchase I'm happiest with so far)
• Crusader Kings II DLC Combo (I dislike these kinds of games, but people here kept on about how great it was, so I guess peer pressure won out)
• Two Worlds II Bundle  (Before I found out about the DRM)
• A Valley Without Wind (Looks like a cool idea, but the graphics are shit on a biscuit ugly)
• Saints Row: The Third - Buncha DLC
• Dear Esther Game Plus OST  (I can't resist an OST bundle, even if I've never heard the music)
• Divine Divinity
• Assassin's Creed Revelations - Gold Edition (disliked AC1, but AC2 was a lot better, hoping they continue the trend)
• Fable 3 - Buncha DLC (I can't believe I paid actual money for a dog costume in a video game, goddamn me)
• Civ V Denmark and Korea DLC (Gods and Kings was still pricey for me)
• Crysis 2 Maximum Edition
• Binary Domain  (because of the radicalthon)
• Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (haven't played, heard good things about it)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky (the only one of the series I don't have yet, but I haven't played any of them)
• Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers Soundtrack Edition (CURSE YOU SOUNDTRACK EDITION, looks interesting though)
• The Longest Journey
• Tribes: Ascend - Steam Starter Pack (I keep meaning to give this an honest run someday)
• Galactic Civilizations II
• Red Faction: Armageddon + DLC (another "the only game in the series I don't have" purchase, I suspect it'll be bad)
• Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box (Not sure why, since I don't generally play these)
• Risen
• Payday: The Heist
• Jade Empire (not sure why I got this, since I have it on XBox, but meh)
• The Sims Medieval  (been curious about this one for a while)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode II

Huh, I never noticed Jade Empire hitting Steam!

Age of Empires 3 Complete
Divinity 2
Indie 6
GTA Complete
Fallout NV
Witcher 2
SpellForce 2 Faith in Destiny
Saints Row 3
Crusader Kings 2

Total Damage: $92.72

Was a fun sale:

• Warlock: Master of the Arcane
• Saints Row 3, Season Pass, Money Shot
• Spacechem
• Sanctum + Soundtrack
• Binding Isaac + Soundtrack
• Super Meatboy + Soundtrack
• Indie: The movie
• Hard Reset
• Stalker : Clear Sky
• Renegade Ops
• Fortune Summoners
• Indie pack with Cave Story+, the Baconing, anomaly
• Longest Journey (Gifted)
• Legend of Grimrock
• Thief II

Enough to keep me busy till xmas and of it at ridiculously good prices.

In the end:

Bastion (a letdown, doubt I'll play much more of it)
Crusader Kings II (already bought SOI and played 33 hours...)
Fallout NV Ultimate (never played this, should I turn off the DLC for my first run through?)
Legend of Grimrock (combat system kinda sucks IMO)

I'd say I already have (or will have) value for money from every title, so I'm happy with that.

This...

End result:

• Crusader Kings II

Stuff I missed:

• Fallout NV
• Saints Row 3
• Mount and Blade
• Shogun 2
• Random Indie packs

But on the other hand I still haven't installed Crusader Kings yet so it's a good thing...

Hah, day after the sale and saw Jade empire on sale for $3.75 and bought that.   :oh_i_see:

Whoa, Jade Empire at big discount AFTER the sale ends. Sold!

Ended up with more than I expected to. I went in to it just looking to get Arkham City.

Jade Empire
LA Noire Complete
DNF (it was under $5...)
Pendulo Adventure Pack (5 games)
Arkham City + Expansion
Alan Wake + Expansion
Legend of Grimrock

$62.46 CDN for 11 games and 2 expansions.

Not as much as I had hoped to spend really - Really wanted to see Gods & Kings  as well as Sins Rebellion go for at least a little more of a discount, so held off.

SpaceChem
Trine 2 CE
Legend of Grimrock
Railworks 3 - Haulin' USA Pack + Acela Express + N-S SD40-2 HighNose

38.39 all in all

On a side note - looks like Amazon is going to be throwing up some sales here shortly as well. 

http://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/x2bd6/upcoming_amazon_726_730/

Ah, good, the Bioshock pack will be on sale again.

I think I spent around $30. I went in not really needing to buy much so my "It's only $2.50, why not?" impulse got stopped a few times by my "Goddamn, I will NEVER have time to play that" response. I ended up with:

Arkham City Harley Quinn DLC
The entire Alan Wake library ($10 how could I not?)
Just Cause 2 and all DLC
Saint's Row 3 (but held off on the DLC)
Dear Esther (which I've already finished and glad I did)
LA Noire with the DLC

A lot of the indie stuff ran up against that time-factor argument, and the rest was stuff I already had and hadn't played from Christmas.

So is the x series.

I picked up Fallout 3 because I wanted NV, but had not played the series yet.  I thought this would help get me into that series.  Man, this game is buggy as hell.  I keep getting random freezing screen/game.  Only way to get out is control-alt-delete and shut down manually.  Been searching for solutions, but looks like there have been problems like this from game launch.  Six years of the issues and they haven't fixed it?  Only fixes I can find are way too complex for me to care about.  Doesn't look like Bethesda is supporting this game, nor really ever did.  Guess I'll give up on the Fallout sereis.  If anyone has a simple fix, let me know.

The Void is on sale for $2.49. Tell me if that's worth it.

Depends what you're looking for.  It's a very, very weird game, I couldn't get into it, but it's definitely unique enough that I don't regret the money I spent on it.  I think it's like the video game equivalent of a weird art house flick, the kind of thing you pick up if you're interested in the medium, just to see what it is and how it works, but it's not likely to suck up days of your time like Battlefield 3 or something.

For me one of the favorite games I've ever played.  Yes, it's weird, but it's artistically ambitious and uses the medium in a really fascinating way to deliver its 'message'.  The main reason against buying it is that the game is quite unforgiving and intentionally so.  You have to be willing to deal with a pretty brutal difficulty curve to get into it.  It's rather satisfying once you do, and the difficulty in my opinion is justified (the game wouldn't be the same without it).   If you do end up picking it up, it'll help to conceive of the game more as a resource collection/strategy game, because it is one, even if it doesn't feel like it at all at first.  Have multiple saves, you will need them.   Keep an open mind, as the game thrives on defying expectations.  There are some useful tips in the void review thread on this forum if you do pick it up.

Honestly, I had more fun watching the let's play than I ever would have playing the game.

Fallout 3 and NV both 66% off again for the Quakecon sale, for those that missed them in the summer sale.

I got FO3 as I didn't have it on steam + DLC.

Only seems to be 25% here, did I miss it?

Yeah, it was yesterday's special sale for the QuakeCon event.  Sales cycled about five hours after lamaros' post.  Today it's Quake 4 and Doom 3.

Fallout 1 2 + Tactics on sale for another 3.5 hours.

I didn't realise at first, so bought them all individually and wasted $3.40!

Dead Space and Dead Space 2 for $9.99.  Two for the price of 1/5 of a couple of whole ones!  Does that make sense?

Didn't want to make a thread for it, but what's up with today's sale, A Valley Without Wind?  Any feedback is appreciated.

Anybody want a 75% off Portal 2 coupon?

Sky,  you totally need to get portal 2. Think of the motion sickness the woman will get!

Dunno if I'm in time here, but may as well.  Haven't played it extensively, there's a Quick Look up at Giantbomb (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-a-valley-without-wind/17-5976/) if you want more detail.

Generally, from what I've seen so far, it's mostly a resource gathering/crafting type where you're wandering around harvesting stuff by blasting trees and mushrooms and things to sell to crafters at your home base.  It's very vaguely like Terraria except that you aren't really building houses or mining, just harvesting stuff to sell back at the camp and upgrade.  Control is mainly like Terraria, too, in that you're moving with WASD and aiming with the mouse.  It's EXTREMELY indie, everything has a slightly janky feel and the graphics are among the worst I've ever seen, but it seems to work.

Also, the game has permadeath.  If your character dies once, he's done.  You can keep going in the same world, and your new guy can salvage your old guy's gear if you get to it, but your skills are gone.

Personally, I'm not nuts about it, it just doesn't click for me.  It's really, really weird, there's not much explanation of what's going on, and the whole "permadeath" thing makes me nervous to learn too much on my own.  I don't hate it or anything, it's just that if there's anything tremendously interesting or engaging about it I haven't found it yet in the ~45 minutes I've given it, it's just been mediocre platforming with shit graphics and an awkward UI.  I keep feeling like there's something there, so if someone else jumps in and says "you're doing it wrong" they're probably right, but I'm not feeling it so far.

Yeah, I do at some point. I has no monies, even for a 75% off cheapo. I'm for reals broke thanks to getting back into painting minis.

So also little time for gaming, I'll be in the den painting a lot this winter.

My fiancee dreams of a valley without wind IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

 :rimshot:

Deux Ex: HR 75% off through to the 18th

Gateways is a little indie platformer I picked up on a whim because it was $3.99 (until September 20th) and looked fun. Basically Metroid meets Portal with all sorts of stupid twists only comprehensible in 2D. Solving the time travel puzzles, for example, is an excellent combination of brain-bending planning and nail-biting execution. The only challenge I found frustrating rather than invigorating was navigating around the complex... and that was because I hadn't looked at the instructions and learned there was a map available by pressing 'M'.

About as long as Braid, a third the cost and less than a hundredth the pretense. I recommend.