Hah, I think this may be the first Steam Summer Sale where I don't buy that much, only because I still haven't gotten to games I bought during the 2012 sale, much less last year's. Will probably pick up a few cheap indie titles though.

I already have my eye on a fair number of games that I will gladly buy at their current rates, but I'm gonna sit around and see if they land on a daily or flash sale before buying them.

This time, I will be stronger than Valve.

I already spent all my money on the GOG summer sale. Because fuck you guys, at least I know my laptop can run everything there!

/me Alpha Centauris for the next decade

Summer Sale is making me its bitch so far

Already forked over money for Hotline Miami ($1.49), VVVVVV ($2.49) and now Super Meat Boy ($3.44).

It's the really cheap ones that are getting me

So much cognitive dissonance from Decapre. The dumbest Street Fighter character imaginable. But a catchy theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNz6xuyI_I

And really fun to fight. Whenever someone catches me off guard with her mix ups I get a feeling of "Damn I should've known better" and it's such a rush. I suck at using her though because I go overboard with her teleports and leave myself wide open.


The sad thing is that I'm in the top thousands for overall rank and top hundred for certain character ranks. I didn't get super good out of nowhere. So few people just happen to be playing this game for my rank to be that high and it's Capcom's own fault.

Mike Haggar would've been a perfect new character and people would've loved a full Final Fight roster. Capcom would've printed their own money. A lot of people wanted to see Alex or Q again. I wanted Karin Kanzuki and R Mika was another one people wanted.


Think I'm going to have to move to a different fighting game. I'll try out Super Smash Bros for Wii U and see how I like it.

So it looks like I'm pretty much done with the GOG sale. Nothing else I'm particularly interested in (except maybe Hotline Miami, I hear a lot of good things about that one). Averaging like $1.50 per game, my library has expanded to include (everything comes with whatever expansions are available for it) :

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Baldur's Gate I and II
Icewind Dale I and II
Neverwinter Nights I and II
The Temple of Elemental Evil
Dragonshard
Demon Stone
Unreal 1 and 2
Unreal Tournament + UT2004
Papers, Please
Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy/whatever it's called
LoK: Soul Reaver
Shadow Man
Painkiller
Rise of the Triad (the remake)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
System Shock 2
Ultima I-IX
Ultima Underworld 1 and 2
Sam & Max Save the World, Beyond Time and Space, and The Devil's Playhouse (basically just all the Telltale games)

That's thirty eight games for the price of like one and a third new games. I almost got the whole Legacy of Kain bundle, but it didn't come with Blood Omen for whatever reason, only BO2, and I seem to recall Morri loving the first and hating the second, so I took her word for it and just got Soul Reaver. I also considered getting the first three Thief games, but decided against it admittedly arbitrarily.

Thief rules, your loss! I got the whole LoK bundle on the cheap during the Steam winter sale I believe.

Steam sale is killing me! Already bought the Orange Box (had it before on a different account but I need it on my new one) and I just bought Amnesia 1 & 2 for $7. Contemplating pulling the trigger on Rage for $5 but I've heard really mixed reviews of it...

Edit: Just voted on the next round of Community Picks...hopefully it will lead me to being able to buy Shadowrun Returns for $3.75!

A quick PSA - if you have an AMD GPU, contemplate no further - the answer is a resounding "no".

At this point it's pretty rare that games that interest me go on sale which I didn't already buy at earlier sales. Or they're still too expensive for my taste. I don't even buy any games anymore that are over 10 €. Not when I still have such a huge backlog.

Only got the Rayman Bundle and I Have No Mouth... so far, both on GOG. Love that site.

Maybe I should buy Far Cry. There's a bundle on Steam for 15, but part two is clearly a waste of money and perhaps it's too early to get the third 'cause I'm planning on treating my PC to a substantial upgrade sometime this or maybe next year, so it's probably smarter to wait and get any recent gen games when I can play them on some powerful new hardware. The original Far Cry on the other hand is such an old-ass game that I kinda find it should be available somewhere for less than 2.50 - but then again that's already as cheap as a mozzarella sandwich. Hm, but what if it goes on sale on GOG which would probably be cheaper and also DRM free?

It's like you need a PHD to make video game purchase decisions these days.

Bought the Witcher 2, thinking about Far Cry 3. Other than that, nothing in the daily deals has interested me so far. I almost had a moment of weakness for Red Alert 3 that came up in the flash deals, but I've heard mixed things, and how could it top RA2 anyway? I'm hoping Dark Souls 2 gets a major reduction!

I've seen Far Cry pop up in a flash deal before, so it's certainly possible it'll be back. I've seen some of the same crappy zero budget indie games get the flash deal treatment like five times already so it's bound to pop up eventually.

That's good to know. Thought I've seen it reduced on GOG recently, but wasn't sure. And, yeah, those pointless indie titles are a plague. There's this website called Indie Royale that rapidly churns out bundles consisting almost exclusively of those kind of half-cooked games. Great way to amass a humongous backlog of games not really ever worth playing.

Add Octodad to my list up there.

I've never been happier.

So last night I started playing Expeditions: Conquistador, which is one of many games I got off GOG's sale (the first time I've ever indulged in a digital sale). Anyway, such an awesome game so far. Only put in a couple of hours, but I've thoroughly enjoyed them. Very nice setting, a fun combat system that isn't too difficult to get to grips with and some cool concepts that I assume will be expanded on once I get into the meat of it. It's one of the more expensive games I got from the sale, at around $7.00, but so worth it.

I also started playing Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. After playing a childhood favourite of mine, Blood, earlier in the year I wanted to indulge in some more of that kind of game. I'm surprised at how well these old FPS have aged. Hard as nails though, Shadow Warrior especially.

All the Build engine games are pretty brutal I think. With the action/enemies and variety being a bit more "vertical" than Doom I think they're a lot harder.

Well I've never played Doom, but I have played Hexen, which is on that engine, and I have to disagree actually. Mouse support seems a lot more stable with these build engine games, which makes utilising the vertical aspect easier. I could imagine it being really hard if using only a keyboard, and the page up/down keys to aim, but with a mouse, it's been mostly fine for me.

Differences may vary though, of course.

If you play Doom, go for Brutal Doom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89iszJNcKQw

I know, I know. As soon as Doom comes on GOG, I'll get it for sure though I'll be honest, it doesn't really look nearly as interesting as the games it influenced.

I feel like you just took a dump on my mothers face. Where's Nightgaunt when you need him?

Doom is freaking timeless man. When I talk Doom, I'm talking the community and megawads too though. I'm sure I don't need to dig up the Doom vs CoD level design joke image, but seriously brilliant and creative level design everywhere. Anyone can argue something like Ultima Underworld had a lot more complex things going for it and was more ambitious, I like them, but I don't give a damn, Doom is fucking amazing and it doesn't get much more fun. Shotgun blast of fun to the face and forever the best game that goes with metal. I'd even compare it to the Souls experience, getting through levels can be that rewarding and exciting.

I don't like Wolfenstein, but the difference is night and day. I vastly prefer Doom to the Build engine games, but I also vastly believe they are incredibly different, despite being two main big dogs of the genre... they play and feel very different. Doom is 3D Megaman, shoot stuff and don't stop.

Doom with mouselook is nasty. Please never do that.

Well, where I was coming from is Duke Nukem, Blood and Shadow Warrior just seem more aesthetically pleasing with some interesting characters (from what I've read, the Doom character has no personality. I may be wrong). Of course, that's only the icing on the cake, while the cake itself is the gameplay and design of the levels. That's where I can't really speak about Doom yet. So maybe the level design in Doom is a level the latter games failed to achieve? Maybe.

As for mouse look, how bad is it in the Doom engine? It works quite well on build engine games, the whole landscape distortion issue aside. I don't remember ever using a mouse in Hexen though, so I don't know. Is that something that the build engine just improved upon substantially?

Well, there's no mouselook in the original version really (vertical aiming is automatic), but any source port will allow you to use a mouse correctly if you want to play like a civilized human being.

Duuuuuuude! What a great reason to replay Doom for the thousandth time. I also really love having the Doom 3 BFG edition since I have everything Doom at my fingertips, but I'm probably going to look into downloading this mod! I also second everything Xeogred said about endless Doom love. I really don't think it's only the nostalgia, it's just such a fucking good game (I'm mainly talking Doom II). Some things he didn't mention include the music/sound effects, amazing enemies, weapons, and the damned premise! Essentially one of the most metal game series ever.

I imagine it was discussed a few pages back, but what do we think of the Doom 4 announcement? Obviously I'm skeptical now that John Carmack is AFK but I'm still fairly optimistic id knows what they're doing.

Also, if you play Doom, you must play this:



You can still download the map from the official Morbid Angel site.

Hmmm, is Age of Empires 2 hd any good? And by good, I mean, did they change anything over the original? I'm thinking of buying it along the Mount&Blade bundle on steam

Chambers of Dis? It's alright...played it before.

Whoever said Doom II was great, it really isn't. Some pwads like alien vendetta and plutonia are infinitely better. Doom II has really lame music and while it starts really great (coming to a head at the awesomely creepy Refueling Base) The "city" levels are totally uninspired (save for maybe Suburbs) and the game really sort of just peters out...

Yeah, Chambers of Dis. I don't even know if it's possible to be beaten, there are so many cyber demons in it.

I've played most of the expansion packs that came with Doom II and a couple full conversion mods. Doom is always going to be a great FPS no matter how much time passes.

DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO SEE THE FUCKING TRAILER I POSTED.

Is anyone into any of those X space-sim games? I picked up X3: Terran Conflict from the steam sale. I played about an hour of it and it seems pretty neat, but really overwhelming. Anyone have any general tips/pointers?

Also the super-shotgun negates anything negative about Doom II.

It's not that it's bad it just feels like a waste of time when the vertical plane doesn't have any baring with the hit detection. You shoot straight and you'll hit anything in front of you, below, or above, that is straight ahead from your view. Which I honestly like, otherwise yeah, mouselook in these can be a bit disorienting to me.

I wouldn't even compare the level design. The Build engine is easily a bit more advanced and offered more complexity and freedom. There's a lot of it that actually makes me think of Jedi Knight (some of the mountain levels in DN3D come to mind). They were going for a bit more of a realistic feel as well, but sometimes that bugs me. It's subjective but I get lost more often in Build engine games than I ever do in Doom. Oh, the switch for that gate was under this desk looking thing? Doom is simpler. Also someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "stacking" was technically possible in the Doom engine, you can't have multiple floors of a stage above one another, the entire engine is built around the idea of having one singular plane. But to consider the limitations and witness some of the brilliantly designed levels out that that can fool that, can be very impressive. The Build engine games have far tougher and more dynamic enemies, but Doom throws the enemies at you in numbers. I've never cared for the monster spam levels, but even beyond those I think the enemy count is probably 10x higher on a Doom map compared to DN3D or something. The combinations of enemies and the level design end up requiring you to use your wits and come up with a strategy (ie here's a bit of the Souls games theory I think, anything is possible, you just have to know what you're doing). But simply put I just think there's something satisfying about tearing through demons showcasing that you are actually the most feared monster of them. Those Build games arguably have more personality, charm, and character with the heroes... but, Doom unleashes that inner demon and feels oh so satisfying.

It just boils down to the aesthetics for me. lol, tl;dr I love them all, but Doom is the champion by miles for me and 20 years later remains to be one of the most highly replayable games to me.

I agree with some others above on Doom 2. I might like Doom 1 a bit more level design wise, it's more consistent, but Doom 2 brings in the super shotgun and all the new enemy types... which all these are staples in the fan megawads that followed. The vanilla games are easily worth playing and have their moments, but it's another experience going through the fan made stuff out there, Alien Vendetta, Memento Mori, Hell Revealed, the Community Chest Packs, etc, it's also really cool hitting up multiple levels by specific authors and kind of getting to know what to expect out of them. But I'm sure that's the case with the Build engine stuff as well and is sadly something we'll just never see anymore, awesome maps with their own personality made by one person. It's just cool how simple these games are and teams nowadays made up of hundreds or thousands of people and several times more advanced technology and freedoms, simply can't capture that kind of magic.

I did see the trailer (and the horrible song that accompanied it), and I can't really say I'm too impressed after already playing Blood. Unless there are things other than increased gore that it adds (which, being a Doom virgin, I wouldn't know about). Cool idea though, Blood-ifying the game.



I can understand all that. As we know in metal, sometimes simplicity can be more enjoyable than complexity. All the fan made stuff is really awesome though (I believe there's fan made stuff of Duke Nukem too, but not to the same level). I remember playing a lot of fan-made Age of Empires maps years ago (though I suck tremendously at strategy games), when you didn't need to be an expert at getting into game files and scripting and shit to do it. It's a shame most of that has now disappeared, with the exception of maybe some indie games. As Elder Scrolls shows, allowing people to make new things with a game can prolong its replayability to an unprecedented level.

Steam sale is killing me. Poor, poor wallet.

Mwahahaha, haven't spent a dime yet.

To add to this, if you plan on playing Brutal Doom, mouselook is required as the game won't take care of vertical aiming for you in this one. I enjoyed playing this way for a change when I first checked out Brutal Doom (and still do now and again), but I agree with Xeogred that original Doom is better without mouselook.

Also, one crucial argument for Doom's superiority over the Build games; killing things just feels more fun in Doom. The super shotgun was mentioned a few posts up and even the thought of the sound it makes as you reload after you've floored a cacodemon and then continue to shred the three imps hiding around the corner fills my heart with such joy. Nothing compares!

Ended up buying the complete versions of Borderlands 2 and Skyrim for $20. Wont see it at that price again, so I figured, what the hell.

I originally...acquired...Skyrim from elsewhere but I've played it recently enough that I didn't feel the pressing need to buy it just yet. I did, however, buy that Borderlands 2 GOTY (and the one DLC it didn't come with - Ultimate Vault Hunter Pack 2). Also got Fable, the Bioshock triple pack, just bought the Mass Effect bundle...ugh. Not to mention that there are a handful of games on my wishlist that I will buy at their current sale prices if they don't go on daily/community/flash sale before the summer sale ends. So many games...

Foulchrist, the shotty does sound nice from what I've seen on Youtube, but I dunno man. Setting enemies on fire in Blood with the flare gun or aerosol can + lighter while hearing your characters demented laughter is immensely satisfying too.

As for sales, I must have spent nearly $100 on the GOG sale. That's not including the $50 Witcher 3 pre-order. It's amazing how quickly you can get indulged in them when games are going away so damn cheaply.

Haven't bought anything from Steam so far. Part of the reason is that their current translation of "10 Dollars" is "11.50 Euros", which means a price-up of almost +1/3, and that's bloody ridiculous. GOG doesn't have regional pricing differences, so I got Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Spelunky, Rayman 1-4 and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and I'm considering buying some Oddworld games too. Can somebody give me a recommendation on those?


From my experience that's a mistake.

Meaning the game sucks, or the port sucks? I played it back on Xbox back in the day and while it certainly didn't live up to all of Molyneaux's hype, it was still a pretty enjoyable action RPG. I figure $2 to play it again (it's been quite a long time) ain't no big deal.

Edit: Apparently the PC port was highly praised (meaning they didn't botch it) because of the tweaks to the story and content. Seems like it was a solid purchase, then. The sequels, on the other hand, got progressively lamer for sure, but I did like the first game well enough.