Steam Holiday Seal 2015 |OT| This isn't the account you're looking for

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Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line from the message below containing the game you want to enter for. Confused? Watch this GIF tutorial or ask for help.

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Dark Dreams Don't Die -- MB-7BD8CF847814870E - Taken by someguyinahat. 40 entrants total.


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Is StreetFighter vs Tekken as unplayable as reviews say?

Something about needing windows live to launch game

It's playable, but GfWL is planned to be shutdown. So eventually you won't be able to verify it/DRM.
 
I seem to remember reading upon release that Assassin's Creed 2 was not great on PC, is that still the case or is it fine now?
 
got my 3 card drops but can't open the inventory page to see them...guess I'll have to try later

Same. I'm waiting to buy Rouge and Unity because of this.

Ubisoft and Volvo, plz. Fix your damn cars on your own time.
 
I seem to remember reading upon release that Assassin's Creed 2 was not great on PC, is that still the case or is it fine now?

While the game runs well, it's capped at 60fps, has a broken LOD system and requires this fix if you have a wireless controller. The 60fps cap and wireless controller issues aren't the end of the world, but Ubi turning the LOD system down to zero and never bothering to fix it almost ruins what should, even today, be a visually pleasing game.
 
Should I buy Volume? I thoroughly enjoyed Thomas Was Alone, and like stealth games. I've been interested in Volume since its conception, but I can hold off on buying it *unless* it offers very deep gameplay, with a lot of interrelated systems to mess with. It looks somewhat simplistic, is it a case of actually playing it being more complicated than it looks? Does it have a narrative like TWA did?
 
Should I buy Volume? I thoroughly enjoyed Thomas Was Alone, and like stealth games. I've been interested in Volume since its conception, but I can hold off on buying it *unless* it offers very deep gameplay, with a lot of interrelated systems to mess with. It looks somewhat simplistic, is it a case of actually playing it being more complicated than it looks? Does it have a narrative like TWA did?
It's less of a straight stealth game, more of a puzzler with stealth elements. No deep interconnected systems. You need to figure out how to use limited available tools and noise to disrupt enemy patrols so you can collect all data points and reach the exit.
 
Here comes a... Weird, sort of rough recommendation from me.



Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Complete Pack - $9.99


Not even close to the best game you'll play, but... Well, Here's some things I wrote about it in the past in a LTTP thread:

I played the first four episodes of the main game with some friends a year or so ago and REALLY didn't like it at the time I played it, so didn't go back to it a while.

However, today decided to just marathon and beat it with a few other friends, so we stood our ground and played all 14 missions in the game (the main game and the Echo Six DLC expansion missions).

Resident-Evil-Operation-Raccoon-City.jpg


I can't believe really that I'm saying this, but I actually warmed up to the game substantially than from when I originally played it. If you had asked me even just yesterday what I thought of Operation Raccoon City, I would of responded that I really didn't like it, the shooting felt unresponsive, the levels felt dull, and it was my second least favorite RE game next to Gun Survivor 2.

Replaying through the first four missions, I enjoyed myself more than I did the first time. I played the same class, same difficulty, so I'm not really sure what changed, but I found myself enjoying myself more through it. Still, I would of only classified it as an okay at best game going off the main campaign. The bosses weren't really fun, the levels weren't designed all that great, the story was ehhhh, only a few music tracks stood out, co-op made things more fun, but that can be said for any game almost. It was hardly remarkable, but I would of classified it as not terrible as I initially thought of it.

That is, until we got to the Echo Six expansion side of things.

This is going to have to be my weirdest recommendation I've made in a long time. The main campaign was ehhh to okay to me, but for some reason, I really liked the Echo Six DLC expansion part of the game. It was literally better than the main game in every way.

First of all, it was just as long as the main game, so 4-5 hours (split between 7 episodes). I wasn't really expecting much from it, as by the time ORC had been coming to a close I had been getting a bit tired of the formula and expected these episodes to drudge on me. But they didn't. They're harder than the main campaign, sure, but I also came to feel that they were much, much better designed.

More than that, it progressively got better. The first episode alone was better than any episode from the main game in my opinion, but on-top of that the episodes got better and better as they went on. The people I was playing with agree'd with me.

resident_evil_operation_raccoon_city__spec_ops_echo_six_650x488.jpg


The Echo Six DLC Expansions are split into two parts, with part one have three episodes and part two having four episodes. The first half, the first three episodes, mainly retread locations from the main campaign with a few new areas sprinkled in. A lot of this campaign of these are tied loosely to Resident Evil 3, as you run into Jill and Carlos on multiple occasions and have scenarios with Nemesis throughout the first and third episodes. What I noted here from the start was that they had substantially decreased the encounters with enemies with guns in this campaign, which was only a plus. And this remained true through most of the episode, enemies with guns were kept to a minimum and most of it (like 80-85%) was spent fighting zombies and BOWs.

Next thing I noticed was that enemies that were really underplayed in the main campaign played a much bigger role here, and there was twists on enemies as well. This also applied to objectives, which changed how you approached levels and gave you new, more interesting things to do than before.

More than this, I liked the characters more, the music was better, and the story while still not brilliant was better.

What surprised me the most is that the bosses in these first three areas were not only more frequent, but also more enjoyable. I just overall found it a more enjoyable experience.

Then came episode 4, and my opinion blew a lot higher for the game.

Episode 4 is the beginning of Echo Six DLC Expansion Part 2, and they did a lot here. Firstly, the second part of the DLC takes place almost exclusively in brand new areas with only the rare returning area, but drastically changed.

Secondly, the graphics department got a BIG upgrade. The lighting looked substantially better, and more than this, the art direction seemed to have a big upgrade as well.

And on-top of this, they introduced suddenly a lot of new gameplay mechanics. There were now areas in complete darkness where you had to light it up with flares to progress, a presence of a stalker enemy that was more prevalent and fun to avoid. The encounters were even better paced and designed, and more twists to gameplay was added both to enemies, hazards, and the stages themselves. There were a few dips here and there, but the Echo Six Expansion quickly became leagues better than the main game for all of us, and it concluded with an actually unique and fairly enjoyable final boss encounter.

More than all of this though, the last five missions of the Echo Six Expansion actually caught moments that felt like it was Resident Evil, rather than some weird other thing set in its universe. It actually had some good atmosphere in places, and while still shoot-shoot, bang-bang, was a lot more tense and the areas, design, and just how it all came together felt more in-line than the rest of the game.

protecther.jpg


Honestly speaking, I don't know what happened between the main game and the Echo Six expansion, but the content there was actually leagues better than the main game. There was even moments where it felt like you were playing a survival-horror game, and even handled some of its horror elements better than RE5 or RE6, surprisingly. I think the game would of been much better received if he DLC was actually the main game. As it stands, it's some bizarre situation where I wouldn't recommend the main game really unless you were a series die-hard and don't mind a sort of meh game with co-op, but I would recommend the DLC as it was legitimately enjoyable and was better than the main game in every way, and only got better as it went on.

I have no idea how Echo Six ended up being leagues better than the main campaign, but somehow that's how it ended up. Echo Six had a great final boss fight, too.

I'm trying to process specifically what about it makes it better. I mean, most of the enemies are the same, only a few new ones are introduced. The gunplay didn't change any. There are some obvious things, like I thought the music was better, and I liked the characters and story more. Also the last four episodes had an upgrade in their lighting engine that actually impressed me a few times and had better art direction in my opinion as well. And obviously, focusing far more on the zombies and BOWs over people shooting you is appreciated.

I'm almost tempted to say that maybe some more people from Capcom and the RE team got involved in the project on the DLC, but I have no proof about that. Just the DLC saw a rise in quality, pacing, design, atmosphere, and overall better quality, Just something about it felt a lot more Resident Evil-like than the rest of the main campaign too.

And I agree with you, the final boss was actually pretty fun. More than that, the other bosses were too, which is weird since literally I found no boss in the main campaign fun, but found every boss in the DLC pretty enjoyable. My two favorites being the final boss and when you face Nemesis in the factory area.

With a few hours of thinking, I think I know the main reason we liked Echo Six more than the main game.

In the main game, the pacing is absolutely borked, the design is sloppy, and the scenarios they often throw you into are just not fun. There are a few interesting concepts, but they're not really utilized to the fullest. The first mission in Operation Raccoon City for instance is a boring cover-based tutorial level with forced 'sniping' through most of it, and then a kind of interesting idea of being chased by William Birkin, but that while more interesting still doesn't really feel fun and feels very underutilized. And the game does this a lot in the main campaign, and the difficulty is all over the place with random difficulty spikes, and not a lot of what you're doing really feels that compelling. It's more fun to overcome obstacles with friends, but I found in the main campaign we spent a lot of time beating each other up and my friends weren't really paying attention to the story, because it was very uninteresting, and the scenarios we found ourselves in were mostly uninteresting with a few exceptions. Most of the gameplay came to three forms, cover-based shooting, on the move to the next waypoint, and crowd-managing with zombie type enemies to not let them get too close. It wasn't terrible and we weren't not having fun, but it lacked engagement, variety, and good design.

In an overall sense, I would say the campaign was mostly meh, with the fun I was having with friends mostly kind of stupid fun.

On contrast, the Echo Six missions.

I think the main difference between the two is its pacing, design, and how it brings everything together. It's not fully noticeable at first, in the first couple missions I thought they were better than the missions in the main game but they were much the same sort of thing from the main game, just harder and a few new mission things (like the part where you have to barricade the doors to stop Crimson Heads from bustling in, or the part where you have to save spec-op soldiers from Nemesis from a rooftop). But around Chapter 3 it started going into new directions and taking more on its own spirit.

I think they successfully changed up pacing so that it felt progressive and varied. While the original game was rather samey a lot of the time, Echo Six amends this by giving a variety of tasks that create new obstacles and challenges rather than just going to the next waypoint and shooting up more enemies, Objectives like leading an invincible stalker Nemesis to use a rocket launcher he's aiming at you to destroy a gate, in a completely dark environment so you have to use flares to see, aiding Sherry through the dark and from harm's way, tackling a battle as a giant turret sits and makes getting out of sage areas deadly and involve timing and distractions... Among many other things, the variety of task is expanded, and makes the gameplay substantially more interesting.

Next up, the bosses. The bosses in the main game often felt like bullet sponges, and all you had to do for all of them in the main game was shoot them until dead and then move on, making them just feel like tougher enemies, and didn't break any tedium. I like how the bosses in Echo Six's were different than the main gameplay while also being built up to, and the bosses being tackled with mechanics outside of just shooting them that also tied in with either the monster or the level itself, with mechanics from previous encounters coming into play. For example, you fight Nemesis with a gattling gun in the main campaign, which is kind of cool but in the end very meh outside of concept, as all you really do is take cover and shoot him, like anything else. In Echo Six, the fight with him is much more interesting as he's more like the stalker enemy sort who's invincible to your bullets, and instead you have to avoid him, and try to lead him to areas to be poured on with molten metal to get damaged and stall and avoid him, which both is more in-line with his character but also a far more interesting boss fight. And the same applies to most other bosses, all of the bosses in Echo Six had more mechanics that just "Take cover and shoot it," and the mechanics were actually fun.

Also with that, the nostalgia factor is stronger as the events that happen in the campaign are more in-line with events with Resident Evil 2 and 3. There were a few moments in the main campaign, but often they felt too different that or were too brief to really have any effect. In the case of Echo Six, the events feel much more tied with the events of RE3 and RE2, and while the game is mostly not canon, it provides interesting 'answers' to certain elements in RE3 and RE2, as well as what you do is more closely related to the events of those games.

They also tone down from going shoot-shoot, bang-bang all the time. That is still very much the game, it is still definitely a third-person shooter action game, but they play up elements from the series more, and more interesting elements as well. They allow segments of no enemies, there is build-up to things and payoff, and introduce new gameplay mechanics that successfully make you feel like you're doing more than just shooting and progressing, and work well with the game's mechanics and character abilities.

On-top of this, even when the game had the occasional shoot-out, I thought the arenas you fought in were much better designed with more thought put into it.

And the music was better and the lighting was prettier, that too.

Would Echo Six be decent in single player?

Probably not, I played co-op and I guess you could, but Operation Raccoon City as a whole to me feels like a co-op focused game. Even with single player, you'd still have three AI companions.

I gave up after I kept dying at the part
where Nicolai runs off as the lickers swarm in from the ceiling
. Do I have a lot left before it ends? For that matter do I need to finish the main game?

It's not a long game, but I believe that's towards the end of mission two of seven. If you mean to finish, I think it depends. On one hand, I think the main campaign is rather meh. But on the other, Echo Six is harder than the main game, and I think the knowledge of how to take care of Lickers
and Hunters
well enough is beneficial beforehand, as there's more of them in Echo Six, so if you had no idea what are good strategies against them, I could see them being a problem as there are some sections in the DLC where they're kind of rampant later in and tossed in with other enemies.

I dunno why I expected it to not be available. Anyways, I really doubt Capcom will put a sale on a GFWL game/DLC of theirs. They have pretty much forgotten them (RIP RE5). They can prove me wrong anytime they want, though.

20euros is what I paid for both my copies of ORC together. I'm not paying as much for its DLC.

Definitely understandable, and I'd agree. The Expansion Six missions are just as long as the main game (around the same length hours-wise, same number of missions), but then I almost feel they should be part of the main game, is my biggest problem with it. Capcom seems to be avoiding putting it's GFWL games on sale, which is a shame as the service has been expanded, and the prices are a bit too steep for the game. I would say that it was worth it at the 75% pricetag it was something like a year, year and a half ago, which would be five euros it seems.
 
Here comes a... Weird, sort of rough recommendation from me.

All those words for a terrible game.

Here's a recommendation from me: Ignore Dusk Golem's recommenation. Operation Turd City is bad[/b], so bad that even dragonlife29 won't play it.

Awful. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
 
Been playing Batman Arkham City and just defeated
Mr. Freeze
Gotta say on the one hand that was a good boss fight.
 
So far this has been a nostalgia filled sale for me and thats about it. I basically only bought old games I didn't own digitally like Tropico and Age of Empires II. I wanted games like Pillars of Eternity but I thought it was still a little bit too expensive for me :/ There is always the next sale though.
 
All those words for a terrible game.

Here's a recommendation from me: Ignore Dusk Golem's recommenation. Operation Turd City is bad[/b], so bad that even dragonlife29 won't play it.

Awful. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.


I would of agree'd with you when I first played it, I despised the game, the shooting felt unresponsive, the levels felt dull, bosses weren't.

But in some weird twist of fate, the fucking DLC expansion for Operation Raccoon City, which is just as long as the main game (5-7 hours) is for some reason actually kind of good. I don't know what happened between the main game and the DLC, but somehow the DLC I almost wish was a separate game, since it's actually decent, especially the last five or so missions of the 7 in it.

Which is why it's a weird recommend, but it's only recently been going back on sale so I thought I'd mention it. I have a much more solid weird recommendation coming in a second for LP2.
 
Hmh since Fallout 4 got a sale price today, don't think it had any reduction before, and seeing as it's been topselling through out the sale, wonder how pissed people are at that?O_o
 
I bet Valve is not saying shit about the security fuckup in hope that everyone forgets it.

Fuck Valve. No apology, no official response, not anything.

That a 3rd party (SteamDB) is what kinda turned into being Steams PR is pathehtic by Valve.
 
I just noticed that Starforge has overwhelmingly negative reviews. What happened? I remember people liking it a while back. Seems like they didn't deliver on the promises they made in early access.
 
I just noticed that Starforge has overwhelmingly negative reviews. What happened? I remember people liking it a while back. Seems like they didn't deliver on the promises they made in early access.

They stopped working on the game and released it as if it was complete. Then they started work on a different game (Reign of Kings) and it seems that they did the same thing.
 
I just noticed that Starforge has overwhelmingly negative reviews. What happened? I remember people liking it a while back. Seems like they didn't deliver on the promises they made in early access.

The devs abandoned it. Next game they released on early access was Reign of Kings which a lot of people bought. I warned SteamGAF about buying it, some people still bought it.
What happened? The same thing as with Starforge. The devs abandoned Reign of Kings.
 
I just noticed that Starforge has overwhelmingly negative reviews. What happened? I remember people liking it a while back. Seems like they didn't deliver on the promises they made in early access.

They rushed it out the door way before it was actually done and slapped a 1.0 moniker on it and said they are finished, while it missed a lot of the stuff they promised to add. Then they moved onto Reign of Kings which is in a similar situation I believe, the studio Code}{atch is awful, I won't buy anything from them again.
 
I bet Valve is not saying shit about the security fuckup in hope that everyone forgets it.

Fuck Valve. No aplogoy, no official response, not anything.

That a 3rd party (SteamDB) is what kinda turned into being Steams PR is pathehtic by Valve.

I'm not defending it, but that's standard Valve.
 
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