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STEAM | April 2014 - Insert witty title here.

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A

Aerocrane

Member
Fool (I dream of Zack Snyder) said:
Why is this keep happening to me? Why?

cVCEqFu.png


Guys? :(
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Try changing to a different Steam content server? I'm assuming you already tried restarting Steam and your PC too?
 
D

Dr Dogg

Member
JaseC said:
Haha, speaking of which, the game needs to go on sale again so I can buy the DLC
for the JP-specific app
.
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Hahaha I thought someone hooked you up when you magically predicted it would go on sale? I'm hoping next time it does that Jimmy's Vendetta goes in sale so I can finally get that and be done. Not that the RU price isn't cheap enough but come on, I doubt I'm going to play it this side of 2020 if at all.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Dr Dogg said:
Hahaha I thought someone hooked you up when you magically predicted it would go on sale? I'm hoping next time it does that Jimmy's Vendetta goes in sale so I can finally get that and be done. Not that the RU price isn't cheap enough but come on, I doubt I'm going to play it this side of 2020 if at all.
Click to expand...

Oddly enough I was able to buy the JP app myself, but unfortunately the DLC wasn't on sale and the game hasn't been discounted since.
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
Nzyme32 said:
Why did Mafia 1 get taken down but Mafia 2 remains? Publisher issue? Also, love Mafia 1, great game
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Yeah, Mafia rights look like they're all over the place. Took me months before I finally tracked down someone offering DLC for Mafia 2 that's only available in some EUR regions.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
jediyoshi said:
Yeah, Mafia rights look like they're all over the place. Took me months before I finally tracked down someone offering DLC for Mafia 2 that's only available in some EUR regions.
Click to expand...

Yeah, The Betrayal of Jimmy is exclusive to Eastern Europe for some bizarre reason. It's available worldwide on XBLA (and presumably PSN). Edit: Oh, wait, no it isn't.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
jediyoshi said:
Yeah, Mafia rights look like they're all over the place. Took me months before I finally tracked down someone offering DLC for Mafia 2 that's only available in some EUR regions.
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I just absent-mindedly purchased the deluxe edition with all the dlc. Wasn't aware some of it was only available in Europe. Do you know which they are? I could gift them you at some point since I'm in the UK
 
B

BinaryPork2737

Unconfirmed Member


The Last Federation is now available on Steam for $14.99, 25% off its usual price.

About the Game

From the creators of AI War: Fleet Command comes an all-new grand strategy title with turn-based tactical combat, set in a deep simulation of an entire solar system and its billions of inhabitants. You are the last of a murdered race, determined to unify or destroy the 8 others.


"Greetings, Hydral. I will be your computer for this "grand strategy campaign with turn-based tactical combat." I think that's code for "we're going to die."

Our solar system is vast and complicated, and I sense you are a little dimwitted -- so I tell you what, let's start with the simple stuff. Like escaping with this flagship you just hijacked from a bunch of angry robots. That seems important.

Please excuse my impertinence, but I believe you are the last of a murdered race, yes? My records note you Hydrals were the dictators of the solar system, so basically you had it coming. And by "it," I mean the moon that smacked into your homeworld. Hmm. So people really aren't going to like you until they get to know you. Well, only you can use the scattered remnants of advanced Hydral technology, so that's something.

Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. My understanding is that you're trying to form the solar system's first-and-last unified federation, and that's noble enough. But right now nobody wants that except you, and you've got 8 very diverse, very angry races to either unify or exterminate. So... good luck with that. I'll help how I can."

Features


  • Turn-based tactical combat, with up to 5 factions competing at once.
  • Extremely deep simulation of an entire solar system and its billions of inhabitants. Even just watching everything unfold in Observer mode is entertaining, as nations rise and fall.
  • New-player-friendly ramp-up of complexity as you play, which you can disable if you're already a veteran.
  • Eight races each have very distinct personalities and attributes. Each one even has its own completely unique political system.
  • Difficulty levels split between the grand strategy and turn-based combat portions of the game, both ranging from quite casual to incredibly hardcore.
  • Save and reload your game with ease any time, or tough it out in ironman mode.
  • Composer Pablo Vega's best soundtrack to date, featuring 54 minutes of music and the vocal finale "Lay Down Your Arms."
Click to expand...

UK Gaffers:

EmergentFocus said:
For UK GAFfers it's better to get it from the Humble Store (£8.99) rather than Steam (£11.24)
Click to expand...

No such luck for North Americans, however.
 
B

Blue Ninja

Member
JaseC said:
Just wait until you notice the utterly broken LOD system. Fortunately, though, Brotherhood and Revelations run and look fantastic.
Click to expand...

I've noticed it. It'll annoy me when I eventually do an entire replay, sure, but it's a 2009 game, I can forgive weird errors.

Is Steam down? I can't connect to the network.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Dr Dogg said:
Pacing wise yes it does bog down a bit and Johnson is a different slant to Wheatley for narration. The blobs did add something extra to the gameplay but it did stretch out into what seamed like an overly long tutorial sequence. Still miles better than anything Quantum Conundrum did. Hah take that Kim Swift!
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dunno, didn't play quancon

DocSeuss said:
Yup. Portal 2's puzzles are nowhere near as good as Portal's, and consist of an awful lot of "find the pixel" rather than figuring out how to solve a puzzle. Unlike Portal, I kept trying to overthink Portal 2's puzzles. It had a few great ones, but mostly not.

And it's so slow.

I think it's worth noting that a lot of Portal 2 discussion died down really quick after people beat the game. It only really got brought up if you asked "what's a great game?" or something. But as for talking about playing it, that died fast.

Something happened to Valve post L4D. It's like suddenly everything HAD to have memorable characters. Portal 2 and L4D2's characters try so hard to become fanart.
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yea like, the ending is memorable and wheatley is a cool bop and all but i'm still on the camp of "this never needed to be made"

mostly because the game itself proved it, while i don't regret playing it or anything, it's just so unnecessary and most feel like second tier ideas :/
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
MMBosstones86 said:
I feel for anyone in here who doesn't play Dark Souls 2 next friday. Prepare to Ignore.
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I don't get it. Who has to ignore who? If you're asking the ones who won't play it to ignore those who do, then don't worry, I won't ignore anybody. I just won't take part in those discussions and that's it.

If you're asking those who will play it to ignore those who won't, then it's OK I guess. It's not like I'm dying to talk to someone who thinks I'm not worth listening to for the sole reason I'm not interested in a game they want anyway.
 
D

Dr Dogg

Member
zkylon said:
dunno, didn't play quancon
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Ok well do/did you like Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation? If not I'd avoid it judging by your experience from Portal 2. It reeeeaaly stretches its length out.

Portal 1 was perfectly paced at just over a couple of hour but the sequel over 8-10 really shows that length isn't everything compared to a well crafted experience.

Blue Ninja said:
I've noticed it. It'll annoy me when I eventually do an entire replay, sure, but it's a 2009 game, I can forgive weird errors.

Is Steam down? I can't connect to the network.
Click to expand...

10 servers are offline in Europe. Slowly coming back though.

Oddly my PC just crashed and couldn't log in and the offending driver problem in the stack was watchdog.sys. Thought it was some Ubisoft prank until I realised what it was.
 
C

Caerith

Member
Dr Dogg said:
Never went on that so no idea if that's bad or reeaally bad. Though as a point of reference I went on the It's A Small World ride and that Michael Jackson "thing". Kind of felt like I was being indoctrinated.
Click to expand...

Pirates of the Caribbean is a ride where you basically sit on a boat as it goes from scene to scene. You watch the animatronic pirates and listen to their dialogue, then the boat moves along to the next scene. Sure, Portal 2 gates some of its scenes behind "puzzles" like "point at the only two white panels in the room," but the comparison is otherwise apt.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Dr Dogg said:
Ok well do/did you like Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation? If not I'd avoid it judging by your experience from Portal 2. It reeeeaaly stretches its length out.

Portal 1 was perfectly paced at just over a couple of hour but the sequel over 8-10 really shows that length isn't everything compared to a well crafted experience..
Click to expand...

well i only watched a couple of old cpt. kirk star trek movies at a bizarro film festival so nope
 
D

Dr Dogg

Member
Caerith said:
Pirates of the Caribbean is a ride where you basically sit on a boat as it goes from scene to scene. You watch the animatronic pirates and listen to their dialogue, then the boat moves along to the next scene. Sure, Portal 2 gates some of its scenes behind "puzzles" like "point at the only two white panels in the room," but the comparison is otherwise apt.
Click to expand...

I can perfectly see the connection. In fact I can think of quite a few other games where you are more of a passenger rather than a participant.

zkylon said:
well i only watched a couple of old cpt. kirk star trek movies at a bizarro film festival so nope
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Hahaha I'd love to know your definition of a bizarro film festival as there as some smaller niche cinemas and festivals here that really go against the grain of commercial and contemporary film making.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Just checked isthereanydeal and call of cthulhu is on sale at GMG!

No wonder Dusk was hyping it up. Will have to check it out once I get a chance. Been traveling today.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
well like other films i remember were like gymkata, a japanese kitano-esque movie about highschoolers fighting against their teachers dragon ball z-style and one about middle age giant spiders that freaked me out real hard
 
C

Caerith

Member
Dr Dogg said:
I can perfectly see the connection. In fact I can think of quite a few other games where you are more of a passenger rather than a participant.
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Lots of games do. Or, I guess, lots of "games" do." Portal 2 was just really obvious in it-- not just in how little gameplay there was compared to the first game, but in how safe it all was. And by "safe" I mean like the "scares" at a haunted house that were reviewed by engineers and lawyers to make sure there's absolutely nothing dangerous about them.

zkylon said:
well like other films i remember were like gymkata, a japanese kitano-esque movie about highschoolers fighting against their teachers dragon ball z-style and one about middle age giant spiders that freaked me out real hard
Click to expand...

Giant spiders worrying about mortgages and whether they'll have enough saved up to retire would freak me out too.
 
corrosivefrost

corrosivefrost

Member
DocSeuss said:
Yup. Portal 2's puzzles are nowhere near as good as Portal's, and consist of an awful lot of "find the pixel" rather than figuring out how to solve a puzzle. Unlike Portal, I kept trying to overthink Portal 2's puzzles. It had a few great ones, but mostly not.

And it's so slow.

I think it's worth noting that a lot of Portal 2 discussion died down really quick after people beat the game. It only really got brought up if you asked "what's a great game?" or something. But as for talking about playing it, that died fast.

Something happened to Valve post L4D. It's like suddenly everything HAD to have memorable characters. Portal 2 and L4D2's characters try so hard to become fanart.
Click to expand...

Post L4D? That just sounds like you just woke up and saw the truth about Valve. :p

JaseC said:
Just wait until you notice the utterly broken LOD system. Fortunately, though, Brotherhood and Revelations run and look fantastic.
Click to expand...

LOD?

zkylon said:
yea like, the ending is memorable and wheatley is a cool bop and all but i'm still on the camp of "this never needed to be made"

mostly because the game itself proved it, while i don't regret playing it or anything, it's just so unnecessary and most feel like second tier ideas :/
Click to expand...

I thought it felt like a continuation of the first game. Then again, I never thought the first game was everything that people gushed about either.
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Um, would anyone be willing to buy me the $6 tier of the Humble Weekly? I'll pay you back in August! It's just that things are really bad right now (not sure I'll be able to pay rent and utilities over the summer, can't afford to even buy new shoes or pajamas/jeans to replace stuff that's falling apart, and things like that). I've been talking with someone about something that might give me a bit of a boost, but I've got no idea of the ETA on that or whether or not I'll survive. My room mate owes me like $80 now in unpaid bills, and I'm about to pay two more. I may have to cancel the internet at our place and only use the school's.

I actually own Tower of Guns, hence the request for the $6 tier.

I'm hoping something works out here in the next couple of months, but, well, that wouldn't be during this weekly sale.

Ugh. I should be the ones buying Humble Bundles for other people, not asking for a loaner.

EDIT: aaaand I've been helped out. Thanks. <3

corrosivefrost said:
Post L4D? That just sounds like you just woke up and saw the truth about Valve. :p
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Nah, I feel like they went and just made good characters for those games. Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 are the tryhard game. Stuff like Legend of Chicago Ted and Companion Cube happened more or less naturally. Valve created 'em, and people loved the idea. You might have noticed that we don't get quite so much fanstuff about the other things... it's 'cause Valve tried to make us want to do that, and that always backfires.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Caerith said:
Giant spiders worrying about mortgages and whether they'll have enough saved up to retire would freak me out too.
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lol not that kind of middle age :p

tho that might've been a better movie

i want to host my own bad film festival someday

too bad buenos aires government shut down the place i could've gotten for free so they could like sell it to japanese businessmen
 
A

Acccent

Member
Dr Dogg said:
I can perfectly see the connection. In fact I can think of quite a few other games where you are more of a passenger rather than a participant.
Click to expand...

It's not innocent that the theme park ride metaphor has spread so widely over the recent years. Shooting galleries like CoD, or almost-literal theme parks like BioShock Infinite... all of this stems from a belief that players can't think for themselves. Gratuitous entertainment.
ibkVwAkrhCYK6J.gif
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Accent said:
It's not innocent that the theme park ride metaphor has spread so widely over the recent years. Shooting galleries like CoD, or almost-literal theme parks like BioShock Infinite... all of this stems from a belief that players can't think for themselves. Gratuitous entertainment.
ibkVwAkrhCYK6J.gif
Click to expand...

To be fair, playtesting in the original Bioshock indicated some people didn't even understand the game was underwater.
 
C

Copons

Member
Oh FFS so Steam was down while I was beating whatever world record of highest perfect combo at extreme difficulty in CSD?

I mean, I thought it didn't show it on the leaderboard because reasons, but NOT BECAUSE STEAM WAS DOWN.


CAAAAEEEEERIIIIITH I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna get you hard.
again :'(
 
A

Acccent

Member
DocSeuss said:
To be fair, playtesting in the original Bioshock indicated some people didn't even understand the game was underwater.
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fuck playtesting imo &#8211; I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think it only dilutes whatever you're trying to make most of the time. Not everyone understands The Shining.

edit: oh wait did you just read that amazing piece on eurogamer? I just tweeted it as you may have noticed and my brain kinda mixed twitter with neogaf haha
 
J

jaundicejuice

Member
corrosivefrost said:
LOD?
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Level Of Detail. In openworld games there tends to be lower resolution proxies (low poly count geometry and low resolution textures) of things like ambient pedestrians and environments. These are drawn at far distances, when the player crosses a certain distance threshold they'll swap to higher LOD proxies or the final geometry/textures the player is meant to see.

They're there because games have resource pools and the lower LODs take up less space.
 
D

def sim

Member
This Washington AC3 DLC would be so much better without the spirit walk stuff. Running towards a confusing mess isn't very compelling.
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Accent said:
fuck playtesting imo &#8211; I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think it only dilutes whatever you're trying to make most of the time. Not everyone understands The Shining.

edit: oh wait did you just read that amazing piece on eurogamer? I just tweeted it as you may have noticed and my brain kinda mixed twitter with neogaf haha
Click to expand...

Yup, read it yesterday. Simon Parkin is my spirit animal (he actually gave me some great advice on a piece I wrote a while ago that made it awesome).

As for playtesting... I mean, if I understood it, Bioshock's iconic reveal of Rapture underneath the sea came from that session, so that's good. At the same time, playtesting often seems to rob a game of things that would make it more interesting. I think, if I were in the position to do it (and if I find some way to actually spend real quality time on this game I'm designing, I will be), I'd use playtesting to see if I've failed at communicating information to the player.

Not "oh, I don't like playing as a girl" complaints (hi, NOLF), but "wait, we're UNDERWATER?" Basically, I want to know if people understand info required to actually understand the game, like "YES YOU ARE UNDERWATER."

-MD- said:
What.
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Basically, it sounds like the level didn't have a lot of obvious windows indicating the player was underwater, so they redesigned it with you seeing that giant "we're underwater, here's what Rapture looks like" stuff that's in the current game.
 
X

X05

Upside, inside out he's livin la vida loca, He'll push and pull you down, livin la vida loca
zkylon said:
meh portal 2 wasnt so gud

aka it was kinda laem
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I liked you man :(

JaseC said:
Song licences. Mafia 2 isn't long for this world, either, as there are collectable Playboy magazines.
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Oh, good to know, every time I see it on sale it's like "I'll get you on the next sale"... guess the time has come to finally buy it :p
 
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