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STEAM | July 2014 – 25TH THREAD EDITION (2008-2014)

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Quick reminder since only some minutes remain:

So, after the steam sale, I'd like to thank you all steamGAF for your generosity with the giveaways. I managed to get some games and save some money so I decided I would give something sweet in return. Also, please read the block of text after the modbot quote:

ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible
- This giveaway is a raffle. The winners will be selected by random draw 3 hours after the draw was created. Any games not claimed after that point will be given away first come first serve.
- This giveaway has a manual blocklist. The giver has identified members who abuse giveaways and restricted them from participating.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:

Prey -- MB-0A7E8F6B9099E88A - Taken by KenOD. 51 entrants total.


t1404252542z1.png



If the winner of this giveaway is like me and also loves to collect physical retail games, I can also ship you the game, you just need to pay the shipping fees. I'm from Portugal and don't mind shipping overseas. If the winner doesn't want the physical edition as well, I will open the same question to the rest of the gaffers.
In that case, please take notice that the cdkey will not activate on steam (because I'm sure the winner of the modbot raffle will activate it), but the game remains to be fully playable outside steam.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
So, last week I finished Witcher 2 and I posted my opinions in the sale thread so obviously no one gave the tiniest fuck about it.
But, today being the FIRST WEEK SINCE ITALY WAS KICKED OUT THE WORLD CUP THANKS TO SALSA AND HIS CANNIBAL HOMIES I QUIT SMOKING, I decided fuck it and reposted because, I dunno, I cared about my post, and I was actually interested in reading some of your insights about it.

---

The Witcher 2, against any expectations, was a bit of a let down.

First and foremost, the graphics.
I loved TW1 art style and I loved TW2 even more, but for fuck sake, to fully enjoy it you basically need to take a screenshot, becase in movement... eh, it kinda sucks.
I mean, it has huge inconsistency in quality and polish between the art and the tech, if you get what I mean.
Colors, designs, compositions, everything really, are wonderful.
But then you get constant texture pop in, very obvious dithered shadows, bad collisions (even in cutscenes!!), huge "darksoulsesque" DOF blurring even in relatively small (or even closed) areas, and an overall feeling that this game was NOT polished at all, like they got to some point in QA and then just released it for good.


But I'm not a tech bitch, I played turning all details to zero for dozens (like, 1 dozen) of years, so I would still have been fine with it.
If the plot, or better yet, the writing didn't fail so badly in the last chapter.

(SPOILERS ABOUT WITCHER 2 - of course - BUT ABOUT WITCHER 1 TOO)


WARNING #2: I TOOK THE IORVETH PATH, so if you took the Roche path and don't want to know about Iorveth quit reading!

Until Loc Muinne I'd say that everything proceeds smoothly. Maybe the tutorial is a little too "in medias res" and too long, but still. After that, I found the plot intriguing and engaging. I was seriously challenged with moral decisions, and when I picked Iorveth over Roche, I actually needed a couple of hours off to think of all the pros and cons of supporting Scoia'taels instead of Dho'innes.

Vergen is great, even though crossing the battle of the damned 3 times is always a fucking pain in the ass.
But the city of Vergen and all the cliffs around are incredibly well designed, to the point I was actually speechless thinking of how much work (and talent!) they put in that chapter's level design.

So hey, great props to CDPR for being able to create a consistent world AND what is for me the most interesting fantasy setting ever for the second time (and after the sale, when the thread will be quieter, I'm gonna ask you all about Witcher novels).


And then Loc Muinne.
In TW1 the ending arc was full of suspense, a climactic run that spanned from the burn of Vizima to the very end. I don't remember what happened, but I do remember it was kinda frantic.
Loc Muinne instead is a location like any other. You proceed like always, with secondary quests, dice games, arm wrestling and all that stuff. Until you decide it's time to end the game, meet Iorveth and start a long cutscene with the final boss fight in the middle.

And then in the most anticlimactic moment of all, you get a 15 minutes long full fledged explanation of about every mystery you confronted during the game.
And then... they give you the choice to spare Letho. Like, WTF? 30 hours spent trying to find this guy's butt to kick it all day long, and then "eh ok, he explained everything to me, he's such a cool guy".

I spared him because after 15 mins of cutscene and 15 mins of Letho talking at 2AM, I just wanted to end the game asap. (also because it fit better my interpretation of Geralt, but really I didn't care to fight at all)


I don't know anything about TW2 developing history, but it really seemed to me that it all went exceptionally well until some point, where they just stopped refining and polishing the game.
You can see it in how the graphics work, in the ending arc of the game, in the combat system (I've played with the rebalance mod, so I don't know the original one, but I didn't like the rebalance at all), in menus, inventory management.
For fuck sake, even the save system is broken: every save is an almost 1MB file PLUS an almost 1MB bmp image. After a bit I noticed a HUGE slowdown everywhere, until I discovered an almost 1GB saves folder, that was impossible to cloud sync on Steam and, worse, crashed the game every now and then when I opened the load game menu.

So, I guess they REALLY should take their time for their games.
Think about Valve, but with a release date for the third chapter.
oh so i'm no one now

well fuck you too
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Sad but this probably happened cause you gifted too much. Steam finds that suspicious.

I had the same thing happen to be last sale (not this one, the winter one)

I thought it was funny :p
 

drakaenae

Member
.
ModBot said:
Instructions for drakaenae:
Press the quote button to the left of this PM, select the quoted text, copy, and paste in the thread. You can remove these lines from the version you paste.

Instructions for participants:
I am giving away 2 Steam keys. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below that corresponds to the key you want (if you include more than one game, you will be blocked from entering).

Rules for this Giveaway:
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


Thief Gold -- MB-6D94B938DF9DCCD7 - Taken by LostAtLife
xheRJRF.gif
Alien Hallway -- MB-F307A2745752F653 - Taken by bluechox2

By the way, there were some errors processing your keys...
Note: The key you added for Alien Hallway was already listed in ModBot from a previous giveaway of yours, but was not taken. Updating key info to match new giveaway.
 
Quick reminder since only some minutes remain:

So, after the steam sale, I'd like to thank you all steamGAF for your generosity with the giveaways. I managed to get some games and save some money so I decided I would give something sweet in return. Also, please read the block of text after the modbot quote:





If the winner of this giveaway is like me and also loves to collect physical retail games, I can also ship you the game, you just need to pay the shipping fees. I'm from Portugal and don't mind shipping overseas. If the winner doesn't want the physical edition as well, I will open the same question to the rest of the gaffers.
In that case, please take notice that the cdkey will not activate on steam (because I'm sure the winner of the modbot raffle will activate it), but the game remains to be fully playable outside steam.
Ooo, Prey is one of those games I missed out on due to me transitioning to the new generation late. And then by the time I had new hardware and a 360, I had forgotten all about it. Condemned was the same situation for me, but at least that is available for purchase on Steam... Thanks for the chance at this!
 

Caerith

Member
I'm not sure if I'd like this! I love visual novels, but I majorly suck at life sims for some reason. I always put all my points in the wrong category, start switching them around halfway through the game, and end up mediocre at all of the skills by the end of the game.

The key is to think of a theme. Like, magical girl Elodie-- put your points in magic, divination, etc. Or economist Elodie-- points in economics and related.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
No link in the last sales thread and suddenly I go 24 hours without posting in here. Couldn't have possibly missed much, right?


...


This is how I miss two or three threads at a time before I realize what happened.
 

yGray

Banned
So this is like my second week of having a GAF account and SteamGAF made this my favorite forum experience ever. You guys are the best.
 

Mono

Member
ModBot won't send me the giveaway I registered. ;A;

EDIT: Never mind!

ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible
- This giveaway is a LIGHTNING raffle. The winners will be selected by random draw 15 minutes after the draw was created. Any games not claimed after that point will be given away first come first serve.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


A New Beginning Final Cut -- MB-B338C5A5AC10F8C2 - Taken by Toki767. 2 entrants total.


t1404253378z1.png
 

iosefe

Member
Who wants to be a long living queen?

ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible
- If you won a game from ModBot in the last day, you are not eligible for this giveaway.
- This giveaway is a LIGHTNING raffle. The winners will be selected by random draw 15 minutes after the draw was created. Any games not claimed after that point will be given away first come first serve.
- This giveaway has a manual blocklist. The giver has identified members who abuse giveaways and restricted them from participating.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


Long Live the Queen -- MB-A566D3A7BE1976B7 - Taken by AsylumX. 21 entrants total.


t1404253548z1.png
 

dani_dc

Member
I'm not sure if I'd like this! I love visual novels, but I majorly suck at life sims for some reason. I always put all my points in the wrong category, start switching them around halfway through the game, and end up mediocre at all of the skills by the end of the game.

The important thing in this game is that you should focus on few categories, plus it's a short game that's a lot about making mistakes and then learning with them, chances are you'll lose because of the wrong skills, but that's part of the design.

The keys are out in the wild. Go grab 'em if you bought the Groupees Build A Doujin Bundle 2 last year, you'll find it in your Account page.

No Steam keys for Indie Royale summer Bundle buyers, though, which sucks.
Thanks, turns out I did get that bundle.
No steam keys at all for Indie Royale or just for now? Sometimes it takes a few days for all sites to have keys.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
I just finished Bioshock Infinite.
I really liked the gameplay, it was good, the shooting was decent and the powerup choices gave different ways to fight. I started at medium difficulty but i raised the difficulty to hard because the game was way too easy. I changed it back to normal in a couple of fights.
The thing is that while the story was good and the ending was really good there are lots of things that i did not understand, it looks really complex. Its one of those games that you need a second playthrough, quite rare i would say.
I definitely enjoyed it, its strong point its definitely the story and the narative but i dont get why people say the gameplay wasnt that good. Maybe because it wasnt open enough? Sure it could be better but it was very good imo.
I'm with you in that also enjoyed the gameplay a lot. It's definitely a tad limited, specially in comparison with the previous games, but the focus on action opened up some interesting possibilities and there was a lot of fun to be had in the harder difficulties and the CitC DLC. What I observe is that a lot of people have a problem with the shooting but, while I concede the gunplay isn't as tight as it could be, the weapons are secondary to the Vigors and a way to complement strategies and attacks instead of being the main form of approaching the battle scenarios.

By he way, make sure to check the Spoiler Thread for story details! Lots of good stuff in there.
 

Toki767

Member
nbnt really is GAF's Steam Santa.

Provided M&Ms doesn't fail me, DR3 will be mine as well!

Bought so much that Steam had to stop him.

I'm currently 8/12 on M&Ms. Still over a month to go in that giveaway too unless they run out of money, which they easily could.
 

iosefe

Member
For the New Page.
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible
- If you won a game from ModBot in the last day, you are not eligible for this giveaway.
- This giveaway is a LIGHTNING raffle. The winners will be selected by random draw 15 minutes after the draw was created. Any games not claimed after that point will be given away first come first serve.
- This giveaway has a manual blocklist. The giver has identified members who abuse giveaways and restricted them from participating.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


Long Live the Queen -- MB-A566D3A7BE1976B7 - Taken by AsylumX


t1404253548z1.png
Good luck to all you perspective Queens
 
Yup it should be up and running again. I think it was down for only like half a day and slow for like 2 days. It was working when I last tried it this morning, no wins though :(
Weren't people that were winning yesterday getting cards with no money on them, or were getting declined almost everywhere you'd want to use them?
 

ViviOggi

Member
I'm getting wrecked during the 2nd phase of what I assume is the last boss in Astrebreed.

He's really not that hard once you start to conciously exploit all of the game's systems, particularly bullet deflection and EX attacks. After struggling for a while I checked out the tutorial again and beat him straight on my next try.
 

pahamrick

Member
Is the M&M thing still going? I haven't been able to win at all since it started, figured it was over.

It's still going. Thought it was going to be done when it was exploited but it was brought back. I won earlier today but got a card with no funds on it though, so I guess some folks are still managing to guess / generate working card numbers which is a bummer.

It goes through August 10th. So, I just need 9 wins before then for my goal of DR3. I may not be allowed to have your chocolate anymore Mars, but thanks for the free monies!
 
Whats the port of Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure like? I enjoyed it immensely on PS2 and the nostalgia is tempting me.
 
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