I really shouldn’t spend money on games I don’t need. Steam is my biggest sinkhole when it comes to my money. When you go “Ahh this game is only $6.80, that’s not bad” multiple times a week you really start to feel your wallet get lighter.
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December 2023 General Discussion Thread
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Turns out the Epic freebie is an Idle game that's different than I'm used to. Mobile idle games usually let you do a bunch of stuff at the start and eventually expect you to log in maybe a couple of times a day. This seems more like it expects you to keep it running on a second monitor while you do something else, occasionally checking in.
So instead I've decided to download Frostpunk. Maybe not really an easy game, but I'm hoping the narrative makes it at least easy to learn and get into.
Every time I see the Civ VI expansions on sale I get the urge to buy them, but I'd really rather play it together with my wife and hotseat is not a realistic option. So I really shouldn't buy it until I have a second PC, which will take a while.
So instead I've decided to download Frostpunk. Maybe not really an easy game, but I'm hoping the narrative makes it at least easy to learn and get into.
Every time I see the Civ VI expansions on sale I get the urge to buy them, but I'd really rather play it together with my wife and hotseat is not a realistic option. So I really shouldn't buy it until I have a second PC, which will take a while.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Theres a lot on my wishlist on sale for 5-10 right now, realistically I'll probably never play them with everything I want to get through already. But theyre so cheeep. Holding off for now, just bought an Xmas Nintendo game for the family and you know that was €60 and 8 years old.
Interested to hear what you think of it. Its not a cozy game by any stretch but I liked it quite a bit.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Gaming funk... I don't think I've had that happen for longer than a day. I don't know if I would really notice if I did. If I don't feel like playing a game, I'll pull out a book, or maybe try to find something on TV.
Oh, I've got it! Hey guys, wouldn't this be a good time to get that basement cleaned out? I bet those toilets could use a real good scrubbing. It's unseasonably warm - maybe you could get some window washing in! (And suddenly, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago sounds like a must-play.)
Oh, I've got it! Hey guys, wouldn't this be a good time to get that basement cleaned out? I bet those toilets could use a real good scrubbing. It's unseasonably warm - maybe you could get some window washing in! (And suddenly, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago sounds like a must-play.)
I have whittled down my want/cart list down to 3:
Beyond a Steel Sky
Warplanes: WW1 Fighters
Dwarf Fortress
I've been lusting after Beyond for some time now after playing Beneath sometime around 2021 for the first time and absolutely loving it. $6 is the right price for me finally, so that one is probably going to be purchased.
Warplanes just looks fun to me; my wife and I have gifted ourselves an Oculus 2 for Christmas (Which I haven't been able to use yet) and Warplanes is a game I've been looking for for awhile. Not it, in particular, but the classic Arcade-Sim style flight game. I feel like aside from Ace Combat this genre has completely disappeared to be replaced by Sim only style flying games, which are just too much for me. I want to play a game, not actually read the manual for an A-10 and figure out how to fly it.
Dwarf Fortress well, we all know this one. I love Rimworld and this has been one I've tried and tried to get into over the years with the free version, but maybe an actual mouse interface will work for me?
Now all that said, I do not need to spend this $40. I have so much in my library already and with now owing money to Paypal Credit for my new laptop, I really ought not to spend anything, but....
Ever tried Sins of a Solar Empire? I remember playing the hell out of it around 2006 or 7, whenever I first released and have always meant to go back to it. Might be ambrosia to Stellaris, since it's a pretty tight and focused game.
This reminded me of Dunkey’s Mario Wonder review on YouTube where he compared how great Wonder is to Mario Bros U, which is 11 years old and still $60. Nintendo cracks me up sometimes, there’s no way anyone in their right mind is spending $60 on an 11 year old mediocre game lol.
Ah yeah, stuck in Bored of Gaming, aka the BOG—we Irish are so used to that 😀
My Replay list gets me thru those interludes, nothing like a nice time with an old friend to rekindle the will to play the field 😉
No idea, but my guess is places would let them import their rating for a fee—eg MetaCritic, OpenCritic,
Patience asshopper, you still have much to learn. Everything on Steam will eventually be given away free on Epic.
Yep, I bet that's it. Reviews would be pointless there, the Steamers would ruin it.
Better than nothing, but is of course open to censorship accusations. Can't win.
Gah, I was hoping they might curate them—but same as Steam by the sounds of it 🙁
I feel like I might have the same problem with Frostpunk as I did with This War Of Mine, where I get discouraged because no matter what I do everything just (not so) slowly gets worse.
I'm on day 6 and I've run out of food, had my first death and my two med posts have waiting lists.
I think research costs way too many resources. Why are they wasting enough wood to build an entire second workshop just to make slightly better hunting equipment?
I also think it should be free to relocate tents. How are they wasting 20% of a tent moving it 20 feet over? It's not like wood just grows on trees...
I'm not sure how much patience I'll have have with this game, I don't see myself restarting it over and over just to get a little further with each try.
I've only played Sins of a Solar Empire with friends and I never got a grasp on what I should be focusing on. I think it was much more of a RTS than a real-time 4X game though. As far as I remember there was fairly little diplomacy and the only victory condition was to destroy the enemy.
Oh… Strikes thru a previously potential future play 🙁
I love the exploration in 4X, I'll send a guy 20 tiles to reveal just one—YOU NEVER KNOW!! 😀
I'm replaying Civ4 at the moment and it's great—with one exception where Civ6 rules. The early Raging Barbs are way too easy. Hmm, wonder is there a mod… 'scuse me…
Well dang that: "You can only load one mod at a time so you either play with modpacks or single mods"—that kills that cos I won't play Civ4 without the BUG mod.
Won't work, my Patient Gamer would tip his hat to you and prep induction course. You need to wait until it's full price again if you want to Stick it to the Brian 😀
Tip: make sure you also get the Maori civ DLC—leader Kupe really is unique, in that he starts in the middle of the ocean with relevant sailing techs and other compensations. I had some great fun with him, especially on Terra maps 🙂
I was all over that when times were flush. Nowadays I practice Zloth's dictum—if I won't definitely play it in the next 6 months, leave it for the next big sale.
I used to even buy games I knew I'd never play, just to give a vote to good devs. Eg bought the Witcher games as a thank you for GOG service.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
Looks like I was too late to make a Winter Sale thread. You've already discussed it.
The three main points we can always agree on:
1) The sales aren't as good anymore.
2) You can find games cheaper on other stores.
3) There's nothing we want.
As for me, I bought Guido and me that overpriced TWW3 DLC for $19.99. I'm such a patient gamer. Heck, I don't even get up and wander off if Ubisoft takes 30 seconds to launch.
I want to try to out an RTS so I'm deciding between Company of Heroes 3 and Aliens Dark Descent. Long time CoH fans are furious about that game's launch, and instead of just addressing the complaints with updates, the developer released a $16 DLC that adds what everyone thought should have been in the game at launch for no extra charge. I'm really interested in the game, but am having ethical concerns about supporting this behavior.
Aliens might be more my speed, anyway. Instead of a whole army I just have to worry about one squad, and I like the description of it being real time Xcom2. The top review has me a little concerned, though.
Last Train Home has amazing atmosphere. I might look closer at that.
But I'll probably chuck all the RTS games and get Jagged Alliance 3 instead.
On the other hand, Limbus Company is free, but it appears to be pretty ugly. Still worth checking ut for free.
Seems like most of the tactical games I would like are Warhammer 40K, and I'm sick to death of space marines.
Oh crap! A few months ago I bought one of those. I have no idea what it was called. Forgot all about that.
The three main points we can always agree on:
1) The sales aren't as good anymore.
2) You can find games cheaper on other stores.
3) There's nothing we want.
As for me, I bought Guido and me that overpriced TWW3 DLC for $19.99. I'm such a patient gamer. Heck, I don't even get up and wander off if Ubisoft takes 30 seconds to launch.
I want to try to out an RTS so I'm deciding between Company of Heroes 3 and Aliens Dark Descent. Long time CoH fans are furious about that game's launch, and instead of just addressing the complaints with updates, the developer released a $16 DLC that adds what everyone thought should have been in the game at launch for no extra charge. I'm really interested in the game, but am having ethical concerns about supporting this behavior.
Aliens might be more my speed, anyway. Instead of a whole army I just have to worry about one squad, and I like the description of it being real time Xcom2. The top review has me a little concerned, though.
Last Train Home has amazing atmosphere. I might look closer at that.
But I'll probably chuck all the RTS games and get Jagged Alliance 3 instead.
On the other hand, Limbus Company is free, but it appears to be pretty ugly. Still worth checking ut for free.
Seems like most of the tactical games I would like are Warhammer 40K, and I'm sick to death of space marines.
Oh crap! A few months ago I bought one of those. I have no idea what it was called. Forgot all about that.
Tried the Men of War series?
I played the MoW series before I ever dipped my toes into CoH and I gotta say, CoH just can't hold a candle to Men of War for me. The best of the series is Assault Squad 2, but there's a new one called Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront.
Really neat series, very granular. Every vehicle has armor facings, which affect how the vehicle can be penetrated. It's entirely possible to take a tank, put it in a hull down position and have it be effectively invulnerable. Each vehicle has the ability to fire multiple types of ammunition, so switch to HE if there's a heavy tank you can't pen and you may stun the crew or break a track. If you're lucky, you'll disable a tank enough that the crew will bail out. Kill them and you can send your own crew in to repair the tank and use it against your enemy.
This is less important, but each soldier has their own inventory. You can walk over to a dead soldier and take all his gear, including his hat, if you're so inclined. Can't afford an anti-tank team? See if you can scrounge up some AT grenades or an RPG off a dead guy and use it against the enemy.
It's probably more complicated than CoH, but it feels much less like a WW2 themed RTS Game and more like a WW2 game that's an RTS, if that makes sense.
Oh, I forgot to mention: You can take direct control over any soldier or vehicle. Hold down the Ctrl key and you now have WASD and mouse aim with whatever you're currently using.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I've had a Switch since close to launch, and I didnt own MarioKart 8. Its a 9 year old game apparently as it came out on the Wii U, at least hopefully not mediocre!
You always hate everything I love. jkjk
I think the first scenario I tried I restarted because fore knowledge of events would have helped, but after that knowing the game was enough to not be frustrating for me in the other scenarios. Theyre all a bit different, but I really like Grimdark vibes in general so that helps.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
From what I can tell they ask several questions and the player can agree 1-5 stars, pick a key word that best suits the games from 4 options or make a yes or no statement. So one question would have been 'How fun is this game out of five'?
Dead Island 2 is relaxing. Not sure if that's what the studio were going for.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
Those are just marketing keywords from Epic's own minds. There's no equivalent on Steam. On Steam, the game categories might be wrong, but at least they are honestly chosen by players and don't have terrible marketing involved. "A lot of fun", or whatever it was, isn't a game category. That probably came straight from Tim Sweeney. Furthermore, the scores are outright lies. I don't know what they are asking on that survey, if there really is one, but it's not capturing honest opinions.
Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 76 percent positive on metacritic (the actual score would be something like a 6 out of 10, but metacritic doesn't count things that way), but the same users apparently gave it a 4.8 out of 5 on Epic. Yeah, right.
From reading those reviews, the game sounds extremely boring and not at all a survival horror game like the first one.
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Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
More gamey BS. In Ranch Simulator, you can raise chickens, pigs, cattle and goats. But if you buy a male and a female, they give birth to one or more females. No males. And no matter how many roosters and hens you have, they will only produce three fertilized eggs per day, which are, of course, all female. So yeah, not exactly a "simulator", and it removes all strategy from the animal husbandry part of the game.
Steam sale now on and i had a quick look at deals that entice. The good news is that divinity: original sins 2 is now at its lowest price (normally its like 60-50%). there are a few cheaper offers around as well. But that said... do i really need to buy it? i mean i have so many games to play i'm in no rush to buy them.
i did see the outer worlds at a dirt cheap price but i'm not sure if i want it tbh.
i did see the outer worlds at a dirt cheap price but i'm not sure if i want it tbh.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Alan Wake II user reviews
Metacritic aggregates music, game, tv, and movie reviews from the leading critics. Only Metacritic.com uses METASCORES, which let you know at a glance how each item was reviewed.
www.metacritic.com
Dont know about Epic but users give an 8.8 with 85% positive on Metacritic PC, did I miss something?
Its way more of a survival horror game than the first, which was mostly just a corridor shooter with some horror themes tbh. Its more atmospheric than straight up scary, maybe not as tense as some other horror games. Must be because I could handle it and I dont do all that well with most horror games playing alone.
I said in another thread IMO the action is the weakest part. Its pretty fun, the same burn them with flashlight and shoot business as the first game but youre much slower and more deliberate like a Resident Evil game. Theres not too much enemy variety and some boss fights can be a bit confusing and frustrating even if there arent too many. A lot of the tension comes from not knowing when youre going to get jumped as its used fairly sparingly. The telling of the story is where it really shines, its a real work of art, the music and lyrics, writing in the manuscripts, the live video blended into the gameplay.. Just threw that in to really sell it to you 😉
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Running into something really annoying in Starfield. The game autosaves a lot, and it saves to the cloud. Yet they give you limited storage space in the cloud. After like 130 saves or so, you run out of space and can't save any more without deleting old saves. But the only way to delete them is one at a time in the game menu. The only workaround is to change the settings to never autosave and manually manage your own saves. As far as I can tell, you can't even choose to only save your game locally to not have to deal with that limitation. It's very frustrating.
Colif
On a Journey
Reminds me of 2 games
Grim Dawn - I have run out of cloud saves, but in my case I have to delete characters to get more... Probably good I haven't played in a year, deleting some won't be so hard as I forget where anyone was up to. Wonder if I can get the game files and just put them elsewhere before deleting them. Will have to look into that. Less painful than deleting...
The deleting thing - Final Fantasy 13. Every battle seems to have a save screen after it. You can run out real fast.
It does seem like a game I would have enjoyed when I had more time to game, but my gaming preferences have changed a lot since life got more busy.
You should be able to go to My Docs > My Games > Starfield > Saves and delete as many as you want there; I'm not entirely sure if this will remove them from the cloud saves, but it may end up being easier? Maybe.
I could resist. I bought the 3 games I was eyeballing all day yesterday. I shouldn't have, my library is already buckling under the weight of unplayed games, but here we are. I'm hoping this will finally be the time when I get into Dwarf Fortress proper, as it should now be significantly easier that I don't have to tab between multiple windows to get basic functionality; at least, I hope.
At any rate, my goals for this break (assuming the kids let me): Finish painting 10 of about 15 models for a tournament in February and learn to play Dwarf Fortress. Seems achievable.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Different strokes. I dont mind repeating some things, depends how enjoyable the process is to me.
Played DUSK for about 45 minutes last night. I tried the original graphics and I much prefer them over the HD update. The HD update gives it a more “early 2000s console FPS” vibe, the original is more in line with 90s PC classics. Your save does not transfer between the two, or maybe I just forgot to save the night before, but that means I was able to find more secrets in the first 3 levels than my first go at it. Great game, can’t wait to play more over my long holiday weekend.
Sarafan
Community Contributor
To buy or not to buy? Two games are on my mind: Alan Wake 2 and Immortals of Aveum. The gameplay of Immortals of Aveum seems more in my type, but Alan Wake 2 is a much better game. Don't know which one I'm going to buy. Damn, I don't even know if I will buy it at all. 😛 The price of other games on my wishlist is too high or they're further on the priority list. There's also a nice GOG package available on Humble Bundle. I own some of the games, but it's dirt cheap, so I'm also considering this. Just please don't say "Buy both games! And the package!"... 😉
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