- Sale has started, SteamGAF GOTY will start when the 2015 thread starts, details will be out then.
- DO NOT POST DAMAGE LISTS ON WHAT YOU BOUGHT DURING THE SALES.
A big thanks for the following people for writing recommendations this month: More_Badass, Dr Dogg, Uzzy, Rayge, Yrael,
zkylon, SilentMatthew and Arthea.
Satellite Reign - More_Badass
Forget Starbreeze's FPS Syndicate; Satellite Reign is the Syndicate successor you've been waiting for. Guide a team of four augmented
mercenaries, using your skills and equipment to hack, steal, shoot, bribe, and infiltrate your way through a cyberpunk city. Trench coats
flap in the windswept rain and neon signs light up the night in this tactical RTS from the creator of Syndicate Wars
METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES - Dr Dogg
Well better late than never. Actually it's a very pleasant surprise to see Metal Gear back on PC. Released earlier in the year on PS3,
360, PS4 and Xbox One, MGSV: Ground Zeroes is a taste of what's to come for the true sequel The Phantom Pain. The events of the
game pick up a few months after the end of Peace Walker. Speaking of which while this might seem daunting for newcomers but there
is a text based catch up via the title screen to explain who some returning characters are and set the scene but it's fairly self contained
and the start in a new chapter of Metal Gear.
Snake (Kiefer Sutherland's first outing as the legendary hero) infiltrates Camp Omega, an American black site in Cuba, with the objective
to extract Paz Ortega, an innocent schoolgirl with a hidden secret and Chico, a former child soldier who both go missing at the end of
Peace Walker . Providing mission support is Kaz (Master Miller from the first MGS) from Mother Base. As Snake scales the cliff face
leading into the camp a commander of the mysterious Special Forces unit XOF who are in control of Camp Omega is leaving on a
helicopter. Is the figure known as Skull Face behind this? I won't spoil anything about the story but the comparisons with The Tanker
chapter of MGS2 are very apt and this is a great setup for TPP.
On the gameplay front there is one main Op and four additional Side Ops that can be undertaken after finishing the main story segment.
The Camp is a open and quite a large area with various viable approaches, entry and extraction points. Stealth and sneaking are still the
main orders of the day with CQC and the threat detection system still big parts too. Binoculars allow you to mark enemies now and
there's a new gadget in the iDroid which serves as a holographic map of the camp, used to select helicopter extraction points and a few
other functions. If spotted there's the new Reflex system which slows down time and focuses in on your enemy to quickly silence them
before alerting others. Seeing as iPods weren't around in the 70's Snake has a Walkman now and you can pick up tapes which have
recorded messages as well as some MGS series tunes to play whilst sneaking. On the PC side of things there looks to be a good amount
of settings to scale the game to a wide range of hardware as well some additional or expanded effects work from the previous releases.
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris - Uzzy
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, from Crystal Dynamics, is an isometric twin stick shooter for up to four players, in solo, co-operative
and/or competitive gameplay. Temple of Osiris sees Lara travel to Egypt, where upon being trapped in the temple along with a rival
archaeologist, Carter Bell, finds herself having to work with him and two Egyptian gods, Isis and Horus, to battle their way through the
tomb, dodging traps, fighting monsters and solving puzzles to recover the remains of Osiris and save themselves from Osiris' curse of
death.
Back when Lara Croft spent her time raiding tombs, a little gem of a game called Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light came out, pushing
the classic themes of the Tomb Raider franchise to the fore. But with the rather different path the latest game went down, I feared that the
series was dead, so the announcement at E3 of a sequel where Lara would return in all her dinosaur killing, Thor’s hammer wielding,
Keeley Hawes sounding, tomb raiding greatness was really quite a delight. The original was a great mix of platforming, arcadey style fast
paced combat, and puzzle solving, and the sequel looks to be keeping to that formula, and expanding it with the addition of 4 player co-op.
BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend - Rayge
I know what people are thinking with this release. “Man! Why the hell are they not giving us the latest and greatest?” Well first off, not
even the consoles have the latest iteration of BlazBlue. The arcades already have a newer version with 2 additional characters. Second,
I feel like the company wants that’s publishing this wants to bring the entire story of the series over as well. Third, you should be
celebrating ladies and gents, this is the first ASW fighter we’ve gotten that didn’t have a PC port already. I’m very excited with this
release as it’s the first sign that ASW is really wanting.
As for the game itself, you’re getting a more streamlined retelling of the first games storyline without all the needless fluff along with a
continuation from what happened in the first game. I believe this is one of the few fighting games that does not have a convoluted story
line. So those looking for coherency in their fighting game story, feel free to dive right on into this one. It’s almost like a visual novel.
There are more characters from the last iteration which increases the roster from 12 to 19. Mechanics from the last game have been
reworked and renamed. The combo system has been tweaked to allow for more variations while giving a penalty to those who consistently
string the same move in the same combo. On the defensive side of things, this game does not favor “turtlers” and “dp” mashers. There’s
Burst Break which can be used to get out of a combo string, but it depletes you Guard Primer which puts you in a guard break status when
it reaches zero. There’s a beginner mode for those who just want to enjoy the game’s story and are not really into the competitiveness of
the whole fighting game scene. Finally, the most important thing, this game WILL have online play. My Steam name is Rayge if you’re
looking for a punching bag.
If you’re looking to get more ASW fighters on Steam, try to support this game. From their recent tweets it looks like they are really giving
PC some serious thought. Maybe BlazBlue CT and GGXX performed better than expected. If they didn’t, we surely wouldn’t be getting
this. I feel like we can expect a console AND Steam release of BBCP 2.0 whenever it gets released for consumers if things go well
enough. Hell, we might ever see Persona and GGXrd within the next year.
The Talos Principle - Yrael
A game that I'm looking forward to trying when it releases in December is "The Talos Principle." It is a rather tricky puzzle game with a
philosophical bent, involving players working their way through a number of open environments (each with rather gorgeous graphics) by
solving puzzles. As you progress, the narrative becomes more introspective - as described by the creators: "You must decide whether
to have faith, or to ask the difficult questions: Who are you? What is your purpose? And what are you going to do about it?"
You may well enjoy this if you liked Portal. There is already a free to play public test on Steam for those wanting to check it out!
Dead State - zkylon
Dead State is doublebear productions' first game, a "zombie rpg" that combines classic fallout turn based combat and character
interaction with base management, exploration and scavenging, rescuing and training survivors and other such x-com-y things.
You're the leader of a small texan town's survivor shelter, tasked with managing the morale and needs of the other survivors, setting
up defenses for the shelter and jobs for everyone, piecing up clues of how the apocalypse came to be and eventually heading outside
and bashing zombie (and looter) skull to find food, antibiotics, weapons, etc.
Interesting details for rpg fans like myself are things like the crisis events, in which characters might rise against your rule or fight each
other over depressing apocalyptic stuff, forcing you to make tough decisions and alliances, a highly reactive story with multiple endings
and "middles", and a leveling system that awards experience for completing tasks rather than for killing stuff (aka the best experience
system there is) and well, brian mitsoda (of vampire the masquerade bloodlines and alpha protocol fame) is helming it, so there's that.
Mount & Blade: Warband's: Viking Conquest - SilentMatthew
Viking Conquest is the latest expansion for Mount&Blade Warband. Like its other DLC/expansion,Napoleonic Wars, Taleworlds contracted
a team from its massive modding community to work on this project. The team in question were modders of a mod set in Dark Age
(6th-7th century) British Isles called Brytenwalda. Which had an impressive single-player with a great many of additions to the
Mount & Blade sandbox formula. Although, its multiplayer was forgettable at best.
As it should be expected from this former mod team, Viking Conquest would have a historically accurate map of the Frisia, Norway,
Denmark and the British Isles. Of which would include 21 kingdoms and a story mode involving the sons of Ragner. Minor additions and
fixes introduced by modders to the singleplayer of Warband over the past three years. Major additions include: building and customization
of your homebase and fleet (as well as your personal ship).
This expansion will have multiplayer with factions such as Picts, Irish, Britons, Saxons and Vikings. It is expected that servers can
support up to 200 players like Napoleonic Wars. Most servers will have manual blocking enable, which would put your M&B skills to the
test. Up! Down! Left! Right! Block! Feint! Hold attack! Chamber(parry)! Stay moving! is all you need to know. Also learning weapon
animations/timing might help. Just a bit.
Dungeon Defenders II - MRORANGE
DDII builds on the highly successful first game, as you may know the game developer has decided to branch out the game as a moba
but the sequel is a seperate entity and DDII is still the same tower defense game that we all love and admire. Expect everything from
the first game from the loot system to the stratetic swarm encounters, this time round everything has been refined with new combat,
skills and weapons. This game however really does shine as a co-op game with friends, having played with 4 other mates I can truly
say this was one of the more rewarding experiences in tower defense gameplay I have ever encountered. The first one sold like
bucket-loads and I won't be surprised if this one does the same.
Final Fantasy 13-2 - Arthea
Have you ever thought what would happen if you went back in time and killed you grandfather, later changed your mind, went back
before you killed your grandfather and killed yourself, then added to all that reincarnation is as real as taxes? Here you have FF13-2 in
the nutshell. There are time paradoxes, then there are paradoxes of paradoxes and then there is a paradox scope, that paradoxifies a
paradox.
As your sanity is at stake here, just don't try to comprehend story of this game, ignore it. That being said, it has some nice endings,
yes, endings, plural. Now, when we are done with fun part, let's talk business. People complained a lot about FF13 not being a FF
game and lacking everything from cities to talks to NPC, to sidequests that aren't hunts, to minigames, to exploration, to things to do.
Surprisingly enough SE listened. FF13-2 has everything: a city, NPCs to talk to, sidequests, puzzles, quizzes, minigames,
exploration and more exploration in different timelines and even monster catching. Gameplay is certainly better and variety is there.
Not to make a game too good, random rare encounters are back and there are only two playable characters. But even then, if you
were unhappy with FF13 being not FF enough, FF13-2 tried to remedy that and partly succeeded. It is a better game of two.
