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2010 Steam Holiday Sale Thread: of GAF collectively handing over wallet to Based Gabe

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S

SolarPowered

Member
The only games that interest me so far are the Jedi games, but that has more to do with the fact that I've only got ten dollars left to buy games with. DoD at fifteen bucks with DRM is useless(I'll get it on the Wii), the hitman games will come in the square pack, I've already got TF2 and I don't need Call of Pripyat or Far Cry 2 right away.

Also, I've achieved a steam rating of 10. Who says people on steam don't play their games?

:lol :lol :lol
 
L

Laurentius

Member
~Kinggi~ said:
I would be interested to see a breakdown of where the money gets split between Valve, publishers, and developers for a sale on steam.
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True, they probably only make a very small percentage off of every sale.
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Im_Special said:
Holy shit my wallet today : (

Defeninity picking up:
STALKER Complete
FarCry Complete
Supreme Commander 2
Guardians of Graxia

Not sure on:
Empire & Napoleon: Total War: GOTY Edition
Command & Conquer 3 & 4

Anything listed here I shouldn't get? I'd love a reason to not spend so much today. I know nothing about C&C games, and although I've been eyeballing the Total War game for awhile, I'd rather wait for a complete pack that comes with the other Total War games (Rome / Midevil).
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I put up some GoG impressions on p. 243 that may or may not talk you out of that one at least.
 
O

Oreoleo

Member
echoshifting said:
Can anyone explain why the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. bundle never includes Clear Sky?
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1. It's unanimously agreed to be the worst in the series.
2. Chernobyl and Pripyat's story lines are connected at least a little bit. Clear Sky's is not.
 
Im_Special

Im_Special

Member
darkpaladinmfc said:
Play the demo for SupCom 2 first, you might not want it.
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Whats wrong with Supreme Commander 2? I won't have time to try any demos today I seems like a Starcraft 2 clone and with a 77meta rating can't be all that bad, is also only 3.75, but there's almost a 100% chance I'll never touch online and just play it for single player.
 
X

Xater

Member
Im_Special said:
Whats wrong with Supreme Commander 2? I won't have time to try any demos today I seems like a Starcraft 2 clone and with a 77meta rating can't be all that bad, is also only 3.75, but there's almost a 100% chance I'll never touch online and just play it for single player.
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You'll be very disappointed. :lol
 
A

Amneisac

Member
Kind of sucks I already have Shadow of Chernobyl, but I'd like to get Call of Pripyat. Feels like a waste to buy both games again and throw one away.
 
O

Oreoleo

Member
Amneisac said:
Kind of sucks I already have Shadow of Chernobyl, but I'd like to get Call of Pripyat. Feels like a waste to buy both games again and throw one away.
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I don't know, $5 for a GOTY contender that's been out 10 months seems kind of like an awesome deal.
 
M

Mr. Luchador

Member
I got East India Trading Company thingy in the Paradox Pack, its a canny game. I check steam tonight and 2 new expansions have suddenly just appeared in my library for it. Nice! :D
 
M

MmmSkyscraper

Unconfirmed Member
SolarPowered said:
The price and DRM on DoD is really hurting that game. It didn't even chart...

damn
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Mmm, TAGES.

simpsonlemonfgdr.gif
 
cicero

cicero

Member
SalsaShark said:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=411010
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Thanks for this suggestion, I hadn't seen this thread.


echoshifting said:
I see a lot of requests for Guardians of Graxia impressions...I bought it at $5 a day or two ago and have put a few hours into it, so I'll do my best. This is based on the first few campaign missions...I haven't tried skirmish yet. My account shows 30 minutes played but I've been on a train so I have a lot of offline playtime unaccounted for.

The game makes a really bad first impression. I had to turn the detail wayyyyy down on my laptop to get it to run at all, and it's still kinda choppy (think Sims-style choppiness; no matter what you do there will be some choppiness). I expect it to run much better on my PC at home, but I was surprised that an indie title in this genre would have so many issues. There's a lot of unnecessary animation on the field which I'm sure contributes to this. I remember reading in a review somewhere that it looks much better than most $10 games...I disagree with this statement, and I would suggest that its poor optimization sorta makes it a wash anyway. For comparison's sake, this computer can run Starcraft II with low-to-medium settings without dropping frames at all.

To make matters worse, the tutorial doesn't explain nearly enough about the game's many statistics. You will spend your first few games a little frustrated when you make a move that looks like it makes sense only to find that the enemy unit you are attacking has so much defensive support it cannot be harmed. I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it; it sort of reminds me of my experiences with the GalCiv series, in that the information is there, it's just a little hard to put the pieces together and wrap your head around it.

I haven't really figured out how the decks work yet either; it seems like in the campaign you either earn cards or change decks; there are different cards in the second campaign mission but no explanation as to why. I had thought this would be sort of a SRPG with a little M:TG thrown in but this doesn't appear to be the case, unless things change down the road.

Fortunately, the gameplay is actually pretty fun. You move characters around a game board, swapping turns with your opponent; this basic structure should be familiar to strategy game fans. Your opponent's objective is to kill your team's Guardian - the most powerful character in your arsenal, though the power difference between it and regular units isn't so far off as Demigod or anything like that - and each campaign mission will present two available objectives. If you complete either objective, you win, and if you manage both within a certain period of time, you earn a "Guardian" rank for the level. It's fun enough that going a few rounds with some friends whose understanding of the game's mechanics are about as limited as your own would be a lot of fun. Too bad there's no multiplayer, then, right? On the other hand, I've been very impressed with the AI in the campaign; this might be an effect of the AI having a better understanding of the game's rules than me, but from what I've played it does seem to make tactically sound decisions. This is key for a game with no multiplayer, of course, and I'm looking forward to fiddling with it in the skirmish mode. It does seem to turtle a bit too much, and this might be an issue in the skirmish mode. It works for the campaign, though, since you only have a few turns to complete your objective.

When you first start the game, you'll see a tutorial, five campaign missions and four skirmish missions...and there doesn't appear to be much more than that. This is my big issue with the game - there's no random map generator, no custom maps, and no multiplayer. The gameplay is pretty good and the AI is impressive, but with so few maps the game's replay value is inherently limited (though each of the campaign maps has a "normal" objective and a "hard" objective which is genuinely difficult to achieve). The UI appears set up to add additional campaigns and guardian decks, but that's all speculative. I would have been pretty unhappy if I had paid $10, but I'm content at $5. $2.50 is a good enough price for any strategy fan, just be aware that your hours-per-dollar on this one isn't going to come close to many of the other games selling for the same price during the sale.

Best point of comparison for gaffers: Culdcept, though this isn't half as good.
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Thank you for the impressions! Might this have been the review you saw?
http://www.outofeight.info/2010/11/guardians-of-graxia-review.html
 
V

vocab

Member
SolarPowered said:
The price and DRM on DoD is really hurting that game. It didn't even chart...

damn
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Which is a shame because DoD is amazing. I would of bought it the second I saw it, but I just can't support tages. Ubisoft knows best though so no arguing with that.

MotorbreathX said:
Hasn't it been patched out?
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retail box, not the steam version.
 
T

tehbear

Member
I knew a C&C discount day would come, and it has.

C&C3, C&C3 exp, RA3, RA3 exp all bought, Dawn of discovery thrown in there as a bonus.

I think I've spent 5 times the amount of money during the steam sale than outside of it :lol I still haven't installed Dragon Age or SimCity 4 yet. I don't want to find out how long these downloads will take on my slow ass DSL.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
How are the modern C&C games? I got Red Alert 3 a while back and it was alright but the forced coop thing kind of killed the SP campaign. Haven't really played any other since the 2d games in the franchise.
 
T

teiresias

Member
Amneisac said:
Kind of sucks I already have Shadow of Chernobyl, but I'd like to get Call of Pripyat. Feels like a waste to buy both games again and throw one away.
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I'd have qualms buying a physical bundle and having extra copies of a game on disc - purely for conservation and environmental reasons, but on digital purchases it doesn't bother me at all, particularly since it's still a good deal just for the one game.
 
S

Scipius

Member
Orellio said:
1. It's unanimously agreed to be the worst in the series.
2. Chernobyl and Pripyat's story lines are connected at least a little bit. Clear Sky's is not.
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1. It is indeed the worst, but that's compared to the other games in the series. The much maligned Clear Sky is still a STALKER game and as such a much better game than most FPS of its time, especially with the Complete mod.

2. Clear Sky's story is very much connected to the rest of the games. Unlike CoP, it also features many of the same areas as SoC (though larger versions of them). I'd say CS is more of a prologue than CoP is an epilogue.

Any STALKER fan will need all three games, period. It's a pity they don't include Clear Sky in some kind of bundle; normally I would suspect publisher issues, but on Steam it seems to be self-published...
 
O

Oreoleo

Member
teiresias said:
I'd have qualms buying a physical bundle and having extra copies of a game on disc - purely for conservation and environmental reasons, but on digital purchases it doesn't bother me at all, particularly since it's still a good deal just for the one game.
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Yes regardless of being bundled with a 2nd game or not, this is the cheapest Call of Pripyat has been on Steam. All these people crying about the price are gonna wet their pants once they get into the game :D
 
D

DreadTheUnDead

Member
a recap ? excuse me im new~ish to steam sales. so are they gonna put a bunch of older games back on sale for people that missed them ? and this is going to be on the 2nd theoretically yeah ?
 
V

vocab

Member
DreadTheUnDead said:
a recap ? excuse me im new~ish to steam sales. so are they gonna put a bunch of older games back on sale for people that missed them ? and this is going to be on the 2nd theoretically yeah ?
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Yes. Top sellers to be specific.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
DreadTheUnDead said:
a recap ? excuse me im new~ish to steam sales. so are they gonna put a bunch of older games back on sale for people that missed them ? and this is going to be on the 2nd theoretically yeah ?
Click to expand...
yep and yep :)
 
O

Oreoleo

Member
DreadTheUnDead said:
a recap ? excuse me im new~ish to steam sales. so are they gonna put a bunch of older games back on sale for people that missed them ? and this is going to be on the 2nd theoretically yeah ?
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It will presumably be a "best of" the 2nd week of daily deals.

Scipius said:
1. It is indeed the worst, but that's compared to the other games in the series. The much maligned Clear Sky is still a STALKER game and as such a much better game than most FPS of its time, especially with the Complete mod.

2. Clear Sky's story is very much connected to the rest of the games. Unlike CoP, it also features many of the same areas as SoC (though larger versions of them). I'd say CS is more of a prologue than CoP is an epilogue.

Any STALKER fan will need all three games, period. It's a pity they don't include Clear Sky in some kind of bundle; normally I would suspect publisher issues, but on Steam it seems to be self-published...
Click to expand...

I haven't played Clear Sky yet so please don't take my response as FUD towards the game, it's just what I've gleaned from others talking about it. Totally with you on the 1st point; a bad STALKER game is still better than most other FPS's.
 
T

tehbear

Member
Bebpo said:
How are the modern C&C games? I got Red Alert 3 a while back and it was alright but the forced coop thing kind of killed the SP campaign. Haven't really played any other since the 2d games in the franchise.
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I love RTS games, so I might be biased but C&C3 was really fun. C&C always felt closer to my gateway drug Dune 2 than others so even though modern C&C has its share of flaws at $5 to $7.50 it's hard to complain. Where else will you get a harvester in a field of spice, err Tiberium.

C&C3 especially I think it's a good value if you like SP cause it's one campaign where it felt it might have been too long.
 
J

jaundicejuice

Member
Dawn of Discovery looks awesome but so long as Ubisoft continues to treat their paying customers like criminals with the DRM they use I'll simply spend my money elsewhere.
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
jaundicejuice said:
Dawn of Discovery looks awesome but so long as Ubisoft continues to treat their paying customers like criminals with the DRM they use I'll simply spend my money elsewhere.
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That's too bad cause it is really good. I understand though...
 
J

jaundicejuice

Member
That's nice that Ubisoft has removed the requirement for persistent online connections for other games, I might consider buying games like Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed now, but DoD uses different DRM.

Dawn of Discovery's Steam store page said:
3rd-party DRM: TAGES™
3 machine activation limit
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Now I've seen people mention that this was patched out in the retail version, but can anyone confirm this is the case for the Steam version?
 
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