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[Rickenslacker]

Marriage (followed by kids) is the one true hardcore game. It makes Dark Souls look like Secrets of the Magic Crystal.

I dunno what you're trying to imply here as going by the stats SotMC seems pretty hardcore to me!

Personally, I can't make heads or tails of the pinball games on Steam. It's like there's a bunch of random things happening, stuff getting activated, and I have no idea what I did to trigger them, and what I'm supposed to do to trigger the next event. It all seems rather poorly explained. Too much flashy, shiny, blinky stuff everywhere, that I can't pick out what things I should be aiming for.

The general rule of thumb in pinball is basically... aim for the flashy shiny blinky stuff. Though pinball has gotten pretty excessive over the decades and if you're playing something like Pinball FX it's only going to be even weirder as it's designed around being a video game and not rooted in reality.

I find that I really like the simple older decade pinball tables myself. Try out Pinball Arcade and give the table Black Hole a try, it's really simple and I find myself going to it the most.

 

[RavenValor95]

Published Gemini Rue as well. Personally, I think the AGS engine they use is really antiquated, and in particular, mouse input has always felt clunky and not very smooth to me.

I totally forgot about how weird the mouse feels, but you have a good point.
After long sessions of Resonance I'd go back to the windows mouse and feel so sloppy with it since I got used to how the mouse feels in the game.

I'm not sure if any of the other games have this problem but it always bugged me that you had the option to play the game at non 16:9 resolutions, I wish there was an option to play it at 1920x1080 with black bars, but everytime I tried setting the resolution up to that it just stretched the image out and made everyone look obese.

 

[Tellaerin]

You know, I'd love for Pinnacle Profiler's "apply Xinput emulation" thing to work with a first person game for once. Decided to give Shadow Warrior a go since it's been on my backlog for a while and for some reason, I can't get the game to recognize my gamepad. An Xbox 360 pad sending inputs through In-Home Streaming works (until the lag goes batshit insane and crashes the game), but a PS3/PC gamepad hooked directly to my rig doesn't work at all. And because there is no profile on Pinnacle's site (presumably because everyone else has it work right the first time), I'm stuck manually assigning commands to get the damn thing to work.

Honesty, you're better off using KB/M for Shadow Warrior, if at all possible. The katana's a huge part of the fun, and it feels so much better that way than it did when I tried it with a gamepad.

 

[Turfster]

What's wrong with it? It seems like an interesting concept but it ran horribly on my laptop and I haven't gotten around to trying it on a real system.

I managed to run into a game-breaking bug in the first tutorial level by just playing the game.

 

[derExperte]

I find that I really like the simple older decade pinball tables myself. Try out Pinball Arcade and give the table Black Hole a try, it's really simple and I find myself going to it the most.

Black Hole is pretty good as far as the older tables go which are usually more difficult and unfair. Only problem is the soundtrack. Dododododododododododododododo. If you like the space theme try FX2's Mars, not too complicated either.

And a good starting point in Pinball Arcade are the five regular and wizard goals, check what is needed to achieve them and then go for it.

 

[Zia]

I was super into the concept, but Frozen Synapse really was a miss for me when I tried to get into it. My big grip was that during the realtime execution phase so many things would happen that could not be accounted for in planning. And by that I don't mean tactical options, I like the idea of having to deal with my enemies moving around and whatnot. What I mean is more stuff like fields of vision not working as expected. Shots hitting corners that they should have gone around. Units not turning around to fire when expected. Combine that with enemies spawning in all over the place and I found my ability to reliably tactically plan really hampered. I played a few hours, but after borking a long mission at the end a few times due to issues that felt like game / AI hiccups or RNG smackdowns as opposed to incorrect tactical planning I just gave up on it. Might be just me that feels that way though, as lots of other folks like it.

MP is where it really shines.

 

[RionaaM]

I found Earth Defense and Sorcerer's Lair really easy, and I'm not that good at pinball either. I'm not sure if these are with the base game or not though.

Can't remember if I own either of them, but if I do I'll give them a try.

Ms. Splosion Man table is quite easy.

This one I do have, and I remember liking the free trial.

Try the World War Hulk and Star Wars Clone Wars tables I think those two are the easiest to get a decent score on.

I have the latter from one of the Star Wars packs, don't know about the former (I own the Marvel packs that came with a Humble Bundle a while ago).

Personally, I can't make heads or tails of the pinball games on Steam. It's like there's a bunch of random things happening, stuff getting activated, and I have no idea what I did to trigger them, and what I'm supposed to do to trigger the next event. It all seems rather poorly explained. Too much flashy, shiny, blinky stuff everywhere, that I can't pick out what things I should be aiming for.

I felt like this on every pinball game I ever played, lol. I just hit things until something happens or I lose all 3 balls (it's usually the latter).

I forget who mentioned it(sorry)
But I think someone said they were interested in buying Hitman Contracts on Steam?

Squeenix is having a sale on Humble Store right now and it's $1.74
https://www.humblebundle.com/store

Steam key? I'm getting a copy tonight if so.

 

[Lain]

Ittle Dew is quite the fun and charming little game.
Graphics are well drawn and animated.
The characters are lively with funny comebacks (and this applies to the enemies as well).
The puzzle solving isn't too hard but still poses a challenge.

After the bad taste left by Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan I needed something like this.

 

[MMBosstones86]

C'mon Steam, why are you not downloading Bioshock Infinite!? I wanna play episode 2.

Gotta keep that shit installed. Mine just downloaded itself overnight. Can't wait to get mindfucked. I hope it reached Primer levels of fuckedup-ness. I want to look at a timeline when I get finished.

 

[Dolor]

Having multiple servers for different users would actually (in reality) probably slow things down. Their request would hit the "regular" server, which would be checked to see if you're on the "VIP list" and then if so you'd be directed to the "premium" server for processing.

Having profile flair as an Enhanced Steam supporter might work though. I would have to have a way for Patreon supporters to send me their Steam username to make it work, though.

jshackles, any thoughts on the idea that when and if Steam starts allowing user-generated stores, that Enhanced Steam would be an amazing platform to develop your own alternative store-front?

Since you basically have a service that is better than Steam in many ways right now, would it be possible for you to build it into an actual store if they gave people the greenlight?

Also, if you haven't thought of that idea yet, I will gladly accept 1% royalties from your future store in perpetuity.

 

[Deques]

Ittle Dew is quite the fun and charming little game.
Graphics are well drawn and animated.
The characters are lively with funny comebacks (and this applies to the enemies as well).
The puzzle solving isn't too hard but still poses a challenge.

After the bad taste left by Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan I needed something like this.

I just beat the game. A very charming game, indeed. Going to get all the achievements for this

 

[Tellaerin]

I felt like this on every pinball game I ever played, lol. I just hit things until something happens or I lose all 3 balls (it's usually the latter).

That's kind of the way it is with real-life pinball, too. Over time you work out which targets do what and in what sequence, but at first, it's enough just to try to keep the ball in play as long as possible and hit whatever you can.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Ittle Dew is quite the fun and charming little game.
Graphics are well drawn and animated.
The characters are lively with funny comebacks (and this applies to the enemies as well).
The puzzle solving isn't too hard but still poses a challenge.

It's easily the best Zelda clone I've ever played. In fact it's the only Zelda clone I've played that got the formula right. I still need to go back and give it a replay to figure the shortcuts out.

 

[TheFightingFish]

MP is where it really shines.

I'd buy that, and for the record my complaints were from SP experience only. Stands to reason that if you removed much of the near-instadeath spawning AI moments and were working with two humans who both had to deal with the game engine not doing what they expected from time to time things would feel much more fair.

 

[RavenValor95]

Steam key? I'm getting a copy tonight if so.

Yep, it comes with a steam key.


Edit:

Just to make extra sure, I asked them on twitter and this is what they said.

 

[PandaPedinte]

Scourged up enough cards to cover the difference for Crusader Kings 2. Can't wait to really dig into the game; for some reason, I had overlooked Paradox's games, but that trailer and the demo sold me on CK2.

What's good to know you M_B, these games are going to suck your life.

 

[jshackles]

jshackles, any thoughts on the idea that when and if Steam starts allowing user-generated stores, that Enhanced Steam would be an amazing platform to develop your own alternative store-front?

Since you basically have a service that is better than Steam in many ways right now, would it be possible for you to build it into an actual store if they gave people the greenlight?

Also, if you haven't thought of that idea yet, I will gladly accept 1% royalties from your future store in perpetuity.

I would be open to the idea of starting my own storefront on Steam, it will be interesting to see how they carry forward the execution of this.

So far though, they've given no indication that operating your own storefront on Steam will yield anything financially.

 

[Vlad]

I was super into the concept, but Frozen Synapse really was a miss for me when I tried to get into it. My big grip was that during the realtime execution phase so many things would happen that could not be accounted for in planning. And by that I don't mean tactical options, I like the idea of having to deal with my enemies moving around and whatnot. What I mean is more stuff like fields of vision not working as expected. Shots hitting corners that they should have gone around. Units not turning around to fire when expected. Combine that with enemies spawning in all over the place and I found my ability to reliably tactically plan really hampered. I played a few hours, but after borking a long mission at the end a few times due to issues that felt like game / AI hiccups or RNG smackdowns as opposed to incorrect tactical planning I just gave up on it. Might be just me that feels that way though, as lots of other folks like it.

I had a similar feeling in the beginning, as I tried a bit of the demo and I ended up more frustrated than anything else.

After trying it again a bit later, it really clicked with me, mostly due to me doing a little reading about the stuff that the game does kind of a poor job explaining.

For example, that stuff you said about shots hitting corners, those are probably the "fake" shots that you saw. Basically, whenever two units engage, the conclusion is VERY non-random. There's lots of factors (cover, movement, line of sight, etc), but any given situation will resolve itself the same way every time. There's a specific amount of time that it takes for a unit to get its "kill shot" that's determined by the above factors, and all those other shots you see the unit firing before the one that kills the other guy are just cosmetic.

 

[Dolor]

I would be open to the idea of starting my own storefront on Steam, it will be interesting to see how they carry forward the execution of this.

So far though, they've given no indication that operating your own storefront on Steam will yield anything financially.

I don't have any specific knowledge of Valve's plans other than as an avid observer of what they say (when they actually say anything), but I definitely think this is in the cards.

 

[nampad]

Wow, the indiegala and gala sites are really badly designed. I don't have any idea what I am doing with all their points stuff and like the other guy I don't know if I can easily up my purchase price to get higher tier items.

 

[JustinBB7]

Thanks Zafir for BF3, here's hoping they will come back to Steam soon!

 

[ashecitism]

After trying the Shadow Warrior demo I put it on the wishlist, but sadly it doesn't perform that well for me to buy it yet :/

 

[jshackles]

I don't have any specific knowledge of Valve's plans other than as an avid observer of what they say (when they actually say anything), but I definitely think this is in the cards.

If that turns out to be the case, then yes I'll be making my own Steam storefront, the proceeds of which will go towards Enhanced Steam.

 

[Big_Al]

Come on Microsoft, give us Viva Pinata, Gears, and Halo.

Whilst they are at it they can give those lazy cunts at Epic a kick in the balls and tell them to get a move on with Bulletstorm and Gears Of War. Remove the GFWL, get the multiplayer working on Gears.... and release them to Steam. Chop chop you lazy fucks.

Is anyone else hyped for Wolfenstein the New Order?

The guns sound crispy and everything looks beautiful.

Yessir, one of my most anticipated games this year Whilst for a lot of people Wolfenstein was about the multiplayer for me it's always been about the single player in the series. Having the newest one focuses on that makes me very happy indeed

After trying the Shadow Warrior demo I put it on the wishlist, but sadly it doesn't perform that well for me to buy it yet :/

Don't give up hope just yet. They're redoing SW for x64 and are looking to release an updated version soonish. Supposed to bring a lot of improvements in performance so you might just benefit from that

http://www.dsogaming.com/interviews...-optimizations-mantle-mod-tools-future-plans/

DSOGaming: Shadow Warrior seemed unable to max out our quad-core and take advantage of all four CPU cores, which resulted in low-performance in various scenes. A simulated tri-core CPU was performing the same with a quad-core CPU. Is that due to a limitation of the API (DirectX)?

JP: We set dual core CPUs as our minimal requirements. Two threads (main and rendering) were running all the time. Additional threads were used for physics, sounds, streaming textures, calculating decals. The game was limited mainly by every single CPU frequency than by the number of cores.

KN: We have recently moved to job based engine architecture. Additionally we have optimized serial code paths and replaced DX9 with DX11, which has lower CPU overhead. Currently it scales much better and most of the time uses all available cores.

MS: In fact we are planning to release a new PC version of Shadow Warrior intended for 64bit processors (Windows 7 and up) that uses new version of our engine – you will be able to test it by yourselves. Our internal tests show a significant performance increase compared to the current PC 32bit version.

 

[Miker]

Thanks for Starbound, Zafir! I missed the train on Terraria (despite picking it up for $2.50 on a price release much later down the line), and I should see what all the fuss is about. The hype around it seems to have died down a bit since its early access release though.

Don't give up hope just yet. They're redoing SW for x64 and are looking to release an updated version soonish. Supposed to bring a lot of improvements in performance so you might just benefit from that ]

I also found Shadow Warrior to run a bit poopy relative to how it looked, so this is good news.

 

[Grief.exe]

Whilst they are at it they can give those lazy cunts at Epic a kick in the balls and tell them to get a move on with Bulletstorm and Gears Of War. Remove the GFWL, get the multiplayer working on Gears.... and release them to Steam. Chop chop you lazy fucks.

Epic sold the Gears of War franchise entirely to Microsoft, so I would imagine it would fall on them.

Bulletstorm is a weird situation as EA is the publisher. I have a feeling they discussed it, but either couldn't secure funding, couldn't agree on compensation, or EA didn't want to directly support the Steamworks platform.

 

[Big_Al]

Epic sold the Gears of War franchise entirely to Microsoft, so I would imagine it would fall on them.

Bulletstorm is a weird situation as EA is the publisher. I have a feeling they discussed it, but either couldn't secure funding, couldn't agree on compensation, or EA didn't want to directly support the Steamworks platform.

Oooh yes good point, so there's at least hope for Gears then Bulletstorm still makes me sad. It actually makes me sad that I will have to resort to a pirated copy to even be able to play the thing in the future. That's disgusting IMO.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Bought original Deus Ex (again) to have it on Steam time for a (kinda) replay. I have played it on PS2 and started it on my old school PC laptop just before it crapped out on me but never finished it.

 

[Big_Al]

I also found Shadow Warrior to run a bit poopy relative to how it looked, so this is good news.

Yep, they are looking at mod support too! The future's bright for a Shadow Warrior fan

 

[Salsa]

man, I remember even posting here as I was beating the Blackwell games

thing is, I already don't remember anything about them

 

[Henry Swanson]

Woot.

To celebrate, new thread giveaway, hoorah!

Thanks for Civ V, Zafir!

 

[FiveElementNinja]

Don't give up hope just yet. They're redoing SW for x64 and are looking to release an updated version soonish. Supposed to bring a lot of improvements in performance so you might just benefit from that

http://www.dsogaming.com/interviews...-optimizations-mantle-mod-tools-future-plans/

That is excellent. I looked forward to playing it and then when I got it it ran like ass. Maybe I'll be able to play it after these updates.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

So has anyone tried Nosgoth yet?

 

[Wok]

I dunno what you're trying to imply here as going by the stats SotMC seems pretty hardcore to me!

SotMC feels like 2048 to me: the goal seems easy to achieve but you have to grind a lot to achieve it.

 

[Tizoc]

OK weird thing going on with Mercenary Kings.
I run it and want to try it out single player, but the game seems to treat my only DS4 controller as 2 Controllers so it starts with asking me to choose 2 characters from the top. I can control them both but that results in a really small screen @_@
Guess I'm playing this baby online until I can find a fix.

 

[Turfster]

Wow, the indiegala and gala sites are really badly designed.

They are, even after all the little tweaks they've been doing. They were even worse.

 

[Salsa]

I started playing RE: Revelations but I think im gonna go ahead and play both episodes of Burial at Sea while people are still talking about it

 

[ashecitism]

Don't give up hope just yet. They're redoing SW for x64 and are looking to release an updated version soonish. Supposed to bring a lot of improvements in performance so you might just benefit from that

http://www.dsogaming.com/interviews...-optimizations-mantle-mod-tools-future-plans/

Hmm, not sure that's going to help that much for my notebook. I had to run it at lowest settings and got like 20-30fps with occasional bigger dips.

 

[Last Baron]

man, I remember even posting here as I was beating the Blackwell games

thing is, I already don't remember anything about them

The voice for Rosa is a burlesque dancer, that's all I remember.

 

[Rhaknar]

I started playing RE: Revelations but I think im gonna go ahead and play both episodes of Burial at Sea while people are still talking about it

you reminded me ep2 is out so I should finally play them together. I go to redownload Infinite and its...41 gigs? good lord

 

[ashecitism]

I swear tweets like these

im interested in what valve can do for VR, but then i see the steam controller and i dont have much faith at all

yes, because devs were totally not impressed by Valve's demo and comparing those two totally makes sense

 

[zkylon]

Wrapped this one just now. Lovely game and a massive improvement over the two earlier games, the dev said himself that he spend a 2-3 months on previous games, and this one took almost two year.
You still need to play the earlier games first, else the story won't make any sense, and this is very much a story driven game. Puzzles are almost non-existent, with most of game time being spent either on conversation or cutscenes.
Artwork is still 320x240, but it looks simply stunning, very much on par with late Sierra games (too realistic to compare with LucasArts output). Music is great as well, main motif gets arranged into various, mostly jazzy tunes. Only low point was the ending nu-rock song, which completely didn't fit the rest of the game.
Commentary mode has ~30 minutes of content, but I must say, I'd prefer if it wasn't as much focused on voice acting - roughly half of the entries deal with stories about that.

interesting

i had kind of given up on the series after 3

 

[RionaaM]

PvZ
most of the Star Wars tables, especially Clone Wars (Boba Fett is hard)
Ms Splosion Man
Epic Quest
Spider-Man

From what I've seen in the trial version, Epic Quest seemed very funny. I should play that one.

 

[derExperte]

https://twitter.com/devolverdigital/status/448921366926852096

The next Broforce update from @Free_Lives is going to blow minds and melt faces.

Was already good fun when I played the free version (aka Brototype) months ago, can't wait.

 

[Tizoc]

How should I go about creating and buying items in mercenary Kings?

 

[Volimar]

Thanks for Dead Space 3 Zafir!

I'm up to 99 games now.

Er, wait that's origin. Back to 98 steam games. Two origin games though, so woohoo?

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Why does MSE keeps checking Ys Oath in Felghana.exe file? It ask me to send it every now and then.

 

[RionaaM]

That's kind of the way it is with real-life pinball, too. Over time you work out which targets do what and in what sequence, but at first, it's enough just to try to keep the ball in play as long as possible and hit whatever you can.

What I always wondered is even if you know exactly the triggers you have to hit and in which order to progress, how on earth do you manage to do that? I already have a hard time trying to survive, let alone pointing the ball to wherever I want it to go.

 

[mrgone]

Why does MSE keeps checking Ys Oath in Felghana.exe file? It ask me to send it every now and then.

Because it says "Wise" but it's prounounced "Ease". That's crazy!

 

[Knurek]

Oh for FUCKS sake.

Restarted Alice on Easy, played for an hour to get to the part I was in previously, finished one of Hatter's sublevels and got my game stuck with a well known and (thanks EA) unpatched bug.

Since the game has only auto-saves, and it saves after you get hit with the bug, that's an hour (plus two hours before restart) down the drain.

Screw it, rage-quitting for now. Game's not worth playing through the tutorial for the third time.