• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

STEAM announcements & updates 2012 Thread 4 - winter seal is coming

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
1-D_FTW said:
I'll trade you Metro 2033, Darksiders, RF: Armageddon, and 3 CoH games.
Click to expand...
You know, until I read this comment I hadn't realised how bad the THQ situation was. Yes, I've been reading about it, but seeing how they are practically giving away their games for free, just to get enough money to survive another year, makes me feel terrible.

These games, right now, are worth nothing. Zero, naught, nada. 4 games, 2 expansions, their soundtracks, all redeeming on Steam, for as little as 1 buck. Or less than 6 bucks for the previous stuff, plus Saints Row 3, which is an excellent game. I hope they can make it, that they are able to fix their problems.


HoosTrax said:
This is me whenever I see avatars of any of the Japanese devs. I still have no idea who Wario64's avatar is.
Click to expand...
It's Travis Touchdown's father.

(yeah, I'm like 4 pages behind, so these replies may feel a little late)
 
T

Tomodachi

Member
RionaaM said:
You know, until I read this comment I hadn't realised how bad the THQ situation was. Yes, I've been reading about it, but seeing how they are practically giving away their games for free, just to get enough money to survive another year, makes me feel terrible.

These games, right now, are worth nothing. Zero, naught, nada. 4 games, 2 expansions, their soundtracks, all redeeming on Steam, for as little as 1 buck. Or less than 6 bucks for the previous stuff, plus Saints Row 3, which is an excellent game. I hope they can make it, that they are able to fix their problems.
Click to expand...
I was waiting to see if there was a spare Saints Row 3 key popping up before taking the bundle, so I could pay less than the average (I don't usually do this, it's just that I'm trying to save some money right now, I'm still studying unfortunately) but now you made me feel really bad about it, even more than before, so I guess I'll just pay more than the average and grab the whole bundle for myself D:
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
sixclaws said:
Tony on CAG is dropping non subtle hints that Spec Ops: The Line will be $5 tomorrow during the Gamespot/Amazon Friday thing.
Click to expand...
Fuck. Yea. What time will it be?


xJavonta said:
Don't know if any of you guys bought the Amnesia Fortnight Humble Bundle but the game prototypes that come with it are pretty cool. Brazen is my favorite of the bunch.
Click to expand...
Whoa, that looks nice. I haven't played any of those games yet, nor voted for my favorite prototype (in fact, I didn't read about them, even though I wanted to).
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Hmm how's the gameplay for Avadon? Reading on wikipedia it states it's turn based, are battles similar to jRPGs?
 
R

Remfin

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
huh? show your work.
Click to expand...
morningbus said:
Why? It's self funded with its Kickstarter money. The team has been assembled. It's not like Obsidian is making it in their free time while working on "real" projects.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, Obsidian has been having issues (they even point out that's part of why they started the Kickstarter), and if they get stiffed on a game they will probably have to borrow money. Money is fungible, so unless they formed an entirely separate corporate entity for the Kickstarter game it will be available to be raided and that money has no real strings attached to it in a meaningful sense so it's a great target.

If it is being funded by someone else and that continues, then great, but I've never heard of a situation where a publisher died and didn't stiff the developers for like a month (or a lot more) of pay, which manages to dump a huge debt on the developer's books without warning.
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Tizoc said:
Hmm how's the gameplay for Avadon? Reading on wikipedia it states it's turn based, are battles similar to jRPGs?
Click to expand...

Combat is nothing like a JRPG. I guess the closest thing you might think of for the combat would a srpg like final fantasy tactics, though the battles are much quicker in Avadon.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Remfin said:
As I understand it, Obsidian has been having issues (they even point out that's part of why they started the Kickstarter), and if they get stiffed on a game they will probably have to borrow money. Money is fungible, so unless they formed an entirely separate corporate entity for the Kickstarter game it will be available to be raided and that money has no real strings attached to it in a meaningful sense so it's a great target.

If it is being funded by someone else and that continues, then great, but I've never heard of a situation where a publisher died and didn't stiff the developers for like a month (or a lot more) of pay, which manages to dump a huge debt on the developer's books without warning.
Click to expand...


Not too long ago we were hearing about obsidian bankruptcy troubles.
They kind of got screwed by lucasarts and Bethesda, the latter because of a ridiculous metacritic bonus.

They should be fine with kickstarter and funds from south park if they can get it out before THQ goes under.

THQ might be in a good place as well. If they can survive long enough, they have some great games coming down the pipe. If they can release them they will have significant capital.
 
M

MMBosstones86

Member
finally finished Sleeping Dogs. Great game. Loved the city and the characters. Story felt like a movie. Little confused about the ending though :

How did Pendrew get life in prison for murdering Po, when Wei is basically running amok in Hong Kong? Did the fact that he was undercover basically give him a license to 'do whatever the hell he pleases to help the case'. Seemed odd w/ Pendrew in jail after killing one guy when basically Wei dismantled the Sun On Yee singlehandedly

Also, I only managed to finish w/ enough Triad XP to get to lvl 9.5, how do you get more once the game is over? Replay mission to get a higher score? AFAIK none of the side missions give Triad XP

Excellent game though...can't wait to continue towards 100%
 
K

Kabouter

Member
AngmarsKing701 said:
how is endless space? modern day homeworld or...?
Click to expand...

It's closer to a Masters of Orion type thing. Have to say I tried it for a few hours, and I couldn't really get into it. Went back to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion immediately after, which I think is the stronger game, despite the fact that the general concept of Endless Space appeals to me more.

MMBosstones86 said:
finally finished Sleeping Dogs. Great game. Loved the city and the characters. Story felt like a movie. Little confused about the ending though :

How did Pendrew get life in prison for murdering Po, when Wei is basically running amok in Hong Kong? Did the fact that he was undercover basically give him a license to 'do whatever the hell he pleases to help the case'. Seemed odd w/ Pendrew in jail after killing one guy when basically Wei dismantled the Sun On Yee singlehandedly

Also, I only managed to finish w/ enough Triad XP to get to lvl 9.5, how do you get more once the game is over? Replay mission to get a higher score? AFAIK none of the side missions give Triad XP

Excellent game though...can't wait to continue towards 100%
Click to expand...

I think Sleeping Dogs really dropped the ball in that regard, though I enjoyed the game quite a bit overall. About halfway through the violence ramps up significantly and largely stays that way. It goes from a game where you feel like you're trying to balance keeping your cover with doing what's right, to a game where you play a deranged mass murderer. It's the same disconnect between gameplay and story that Grand Theft Auto IV suffered from after the first island. Developers need to realize that if they're going for a serious story of that sort, they should have gameplay to match. Personally, in the case of Sleeping Dogs, I would have preferred to see more police cases and to see you actually having to make choices between doing what's right and keeping your cover. The way the story talks about
an undercover cop being exposed due to the fact that he couldn't kill
should have led to one of the most tense moments of the game and an incredibly tough choice, but it absolutely didn't. A missed opportunity.

Oh, and I finished with 9.5 Triad XP too, I have a feeling I could have gotten level 10 had I varied my combat moves more.
 
M

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Remfin said:
As I understand it, Obsidian has been having issues (they even point out that's part of why they started the Kickstarter), and if they get stiffed on a game they will probably have to borrow money. Money is fungible, so unless they formed an entirely separate corporate entity for the Kickstarter game it will be available to be raided and that money has no real strings attached to it in a meaningful sense so it's a great target.

If it is being funded by someone else and that continues, then great, but I've never heard of a situation where a publisher died and didn't stiff the developers for like a month (or a lot more) of pay, which manages to dump a huge debt on the developer's books without warning.
Click to expand...

Well, two points to make:

1) There are separate teams working on South Park and Project Eternity. Obsidian was already hit with layoffs earlier in the year, when many of the people working on "North Carolina" were laid off. This didn't affect the South Park game because the team had already been assembled and the budget was done accordingly. The Project Eternity team has already been budgeted out of the Kickstarter money. I understand your point that if their big project goes under, they might have trouble keeping the lights on at their offices, but Obsidian isn't at that point yet.

2) In regards to THQ, it's been said that Viacom, the company that owns the South Park I.P., is actually fronting most of the money for the project. THQ was mainly there for distribution. Of course Obsidian probably doesn't want THQ to go under, but the game - which is mostly finished anyway - wouldn't have trouble finding another publisher. Hopefully by Activision or Eidos, so the Steamworks features are retained.
 
M

MMBosstones86

Member
Kabouter said:
I think Sleeping Dogs really dropped the ball in that regard, though I enjoyed the game quite a bit overall. About halfway through the violence ramps up significantly and largely stays that way. It goes from a game where you feel like you're trying to balance keeping your cover with doing what's right, to a game where you play a deranged mass murderer. It's the same disconnect between gameplay and story that Grand Theft Auto IV suffered from after the first island. Developers need to realize that if they're going for a serious story of that sort, they should have gameplay to match. Personally, in the case of Sleeping Dogs, I would have preferred to see more police cases and to see you actually having to make choices between doing what's right and keeping your cover. The way the story talks about
an undercover cop being exposed due to the fact that he couldn't kill
should have led to one of the most tense moments of the game and an incredibly tough choice, but it absolutely didn't. A missed opportunity.

Oh, and I finished with 9.5 Triad XP too, I have a feeling I could have gotten level 10 had I varied my combat moves more.
Click to expand...


Definitely agree about the violence...did get pretty ramped up near the end. I found that once
Jackie got killed
it got pretty out of control.
Wei gets tortured like a champ to the point where i was wondering if they were going with a Red Dead Redemption type ending. Hammers to the leg....drilling the knee. randomaly getting cut. And then my man gets out and staggers for a bit...and starts running around free climbing and busting ass again like he never got worked over with a hammer. Not entirely believable. And then throwing that guy into the ice chipper was quite a bloody ending.

Guess i would've liked more choice between Triad/Cop instead of giving you two linear paths. Really fun game to play though
 
Y

YianGaruga

Banned
Kabouter said:
I think Sleeping Dogs really dropped the ball in that regard, though I enjoyed the game quite a bit overall. About halfway through the violence ramps up significantly and largely stays that way. It goes from a game where you feel like you're trying to balance keeping your cover with doing what's right, to a game where you play a deranged mass murderer. It's the same disconnect between gameplay and story that Grand Theft Auto IV suffered from after the first island. Developers need to realize that if they're going for a serious story of that sort, they should have gameplay to match. Personally, in the case of Sleeping Dogs, I would have preferred to see more police cases and to see you actually having to make choices between doing what's right and keeping your cover. The way the story talks about
an undercover cop being exposed due to the fact that he couldn't kill
should have led to one of the most tense moments of the game and an incredibly tough choice, but it absolutely didn't. A missed opportunity.

Oh, and I finished with 9.5 Triad XP too, I have a feeling I could have gotten level 10 had I varied my combat moves more.
Click to expand...

I didn't really have a problem with the violence ramping up, since it seemed to me that Wei's loyalties started to lie more with the triad than with the police at that point and I expected the rest of the story to play out that way. That's why I was extremely disappointed with the ending, since it was basically the most safe and happy ending they coud've gone for. Wei did a lot of shit while he was in the triad and I felt like there should've been consequences. Him just getting back into the police force and nailing Pendrew for some corruption and killing Po was bullshit.
 
K

Kabouter

Member
YianGaruga said:
I didn't really have a problem with the violence ramping up, since it seemed to me that Wei's loyalties started to lie more with the triad than with the police at that point and I expected the rest of the story to play out that way. That's why I was extremely disappointed with the ending, since it was basically the most safe and happy ending they coud've gone for. Wie did a lot of shit while he was in the triad and I felt like there should've been consequences. Him just getting back inte the police force and nailing Pendrew for some corruption and killing Po was bullshit.
Click to expand...

No I don't quite agree with that, you see, we're told at the beginning that
a firearm is very rare in Hong Kong, and that is obviously the reason the game focuses so much on the melee system. A firearm should have been a very rare thing, rather than the main staple of the missions in the latter portion of the game. More so, a single murder should be a major thing in the game world they established.
However, later on,
you routinely slaughter dozens in a single mission, with nearly everyone carrying automatic weapons or pistols. It's such a departure from the game world they established at first, and not at all believable.

Think back to the third of the four police cases
, Inspector Teng tells you that six people have been murdered, all of them triad. She mentions that HKPD doesn't put a high priority on dead gangsters, and in shock, Wei Shen exclaims "What? They're not people now?". This is after he has slaughtered gangsters by the dozens and through that shown a complete disregard for the lives of others. There is a fundamental disconnect between the game's narrative and the gameplay. The developers were clearly shooting for one type of game, but were too tempted by the idea of the big over the top Grand Theft Auto shooting missions, or were pressured into adding those to increase mass appeal.
 
H

HoosTrax

Member
Kabouter said:
The developers were clearly shooting for one type of game, but were too tempted to avoid the big over the top Grand Theft Auto shooting missions, or were pressured into adding those to increase mass appeal
Click to expand...
Oh god, that describes LA Noire to a T. Every case implausibly devolves into that kind of thing.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I'm not so sure it was pressure for increasing mass appeal so much as it was probably just an easy gameplay trap to fall into. They needed to increase the stakes and from a gameplay perspective it was probably easiest to up the scale by upping the weapon count. While I did love the story and I do agree there is a severe disconnect, I can't really see anyway to match what they did with gun focused missions while still maintaining a focus on the kungfu.

I also loved the spectacle of certain missions that used weaponry. MISSION SPOILERS SPECIFIC TO SLEEPING DOGS, NO SPOILERS FOR BLOPS 2 INCLUDED:
The Wedding, Hospital, and Funeral missions just felt right with the gunplay.
 
Y

YianGaruga

Banned
Kabouter said:
No I don't quite agree with that, you see, we're told at the beginning that
a firearm is very rare in Hong Kong, and that is obviously the reason the game focuses so much on the melee system. A firearm should have been a very rare thing, rather than the main staple of the missions in the latter portion of the game. More so, a single murder should be a major thing in the game world they established.
However, later on,
you routinely slaughter dozens in a single mission, with nearly everyone carrying automatic weapons or pistols. It's such a departure from the game world they established at first, and not at all believable.

Think back to the third of the four police cases
, Inspector Teng tells you that six people have been murdered, all of them triad. She mentions that HKPD doesn't put a high priority on dead gangsters, and in shock, Wei Shen exclaims "What? They're not people now?". This is after he has slaughtered gangsters by the dozens and through that shown a complete disregard for the lives of others. There is a fundamental disconnect between the game's narrative and the gameplay. The developers were clearly shooting for one type of game, but were too tempted to avoid the big over the top Grand Theft Auto shooting missions, or were pressured into adding those to increase mass appeal
Click to expand...
Yeah you're right. I didn't quite get that you were specifically talking about the abundant use of firearms. But at that point in the game, there is an all out war between two "factions" of the triad and that war can hardly be fought with knives and bats. I just assumed that this was a situation that was out of the ordinary and they got the weapons specifically for the war. This is where the police should've gotten involved more and the story could've gotten quite interesting, sadly they didn't do much with that.

As for Wei himself, I had the feeling that he only cared for the lives of people in the Sun On Yee, since those were "his people" at this point. That's how I was able to justify it to me, anyway. The funny thing is, the police missions for Teng seemed completely disconnected from the rest of the game and felt out of place to me.
 
M

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Secret CIA documents have less black-outs than this conversation.

Chriswok said:
+33% on trade in prices towards Steam Gift Cards too. Just made a killing. I AM READY FOR YOU WINTER SALE. READY!
Click to expand...

I had done the same here in the US with Best Buy. They were running a double-credit promotion, so I ended up getting a $50 card for just a few old games.
 
M

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
We're going to be hearing about Greenlight today, right?

Chriswok said:
Right on, morningbus!
Click to expand...

CHIXQ.jpg
 
T

Tomodachi

Member
Weird thing happened, I wanted to launch AssCreed: R after a month break (Dragon's Dogma on PS3 got a hold on me, hope it will see a PC release because it's an amazing game) but I couldn't find it! It was uninstalled for some reason but I'm sure I never did such a thing. I reinstalled it and it basically checked all the files and in 5 minutes the 9 GBs were ready to play. What happened?

Also, uplay then updated itself for about 5 minutes. Once again a job well done, Ubisoft.
 
H

HoosTrax

Member
morningbus said:
We're going to be hearing about Greenlight today, right?
Click to expand...
The new ones are already posted, just no announcement yet.

Edit: I should say that they're not finished updating it yet -- when I checked earlier, it was sitting at 35 greenlit, 7 released. A few minutes later, it read 37 greenlit, 7 released.
 
M

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
HoosTrax said:
The new ones are already posted, just no announcement yet.

Edit: I should say that they're not finished updating it yet -- when I checked earlier, it was sitting at 35 greenlit, 7 released. A few minutes later, it read 37 greenlit, 7 released.
Click to expand...

Nice! I'll have to peruse the list later.

Edit: later is now: http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/?appid=765&browsesort=pending&browsefilter=pending&p=1

Looks like Black Mesa made it. Waking Mars made it too, so hopefully the Humble Bundle will update its page with keys soon.

Neotokyo made it! Hopefully this helps the community for the game. It's so well done, it's a shame more don't play it.

Also looking forward to checking out Routine and Afterfall Insanity.

Good crop of games this time round. More than a few things I'm excited for.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I think Black Mesa was in the first wave actually.

The press release should have a nice neat list since it's hard to keep the waves straight.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Introducing Steam Families
Platform 2 3
144
9K
Robot Carnival replied
[Forbes] Steam Deck Won’t Survive 2025 Without A Significant Upgrade
2 3
149
6K
HogIsland replied
‘Modern retro stealth action’ game Spy Drops announced for Switch, PC
News Trailer
14
1K
MagiusNecros replied
Steam Adds Helpfulness System to User Reviews
16
745
YCoCg replied
Danganronpa devs and Akatsuki Games reveal “extreme” action RPG Tribe Nine for Steam and mobile
News Trailer
4
1K
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
Top Bottom