Steam Summer sale reviews.

[hool10]

Just wondering what you folks bought and what you think of those games. Personally I bought the X-SuperBox set:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/6330/

[video=youtube_share;pi8n6uN091E]http://youtu.be/pi8n6uN091E[/video]

From what I have heard from Eve Online players, many aspects are from Eve Online and in some cases, better than Eve Online. So I figured a $40 box set that is now $10 is a steal and picked it up. Unfortunately the game in my opinion is even more hard than Eve Online. In Eve Online they have a saying that goes like "when in trouble or in doubt, right-click" and sure enough you will get a drop-down menu. In the X3 series it's not like that. It's a very difficult game but I think the biggest fault is that it is a SP game. In Eve Online you have people from all over the world working together for a common goal 24/7. In X3 you can spend hours and hours playing it and there really is no end game. In any case it doesn't really matter because it's just SP and if you lose the save file, you have to start all over again.

Another aspect is that there is a main bad guy or villain in this series and it's the KHA'ACK. Obvious puns here along with Morgan Webb but they could have picked a better name. Also it's just a large group of rogue pirates rather than different types of enemies. I was wondering if I could pirate and I think you can because there was some difficulty modifier at the start I think and it said it was impossibly hard.

The game is also glitchy with an incredibly boring story. The story is mainly told through in-game cinematics that are compressed to the MAX in video and audio.

Overall I must say I'm dissapointed. If you can understand Eve Online then you are far better off but really you still need a friend to help you. Too bad they cannot help you in-game.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Finally finished the New Vegas download, it certainly looks better on this pc than my old. I already knew it was an awesome game, now I get to play it again.

Still dling Just Cause 2 and then will get BC2. 120 kb/s leaves much to be gotten.

 

[Krynn72]

Singularity. 6/10

Barely better than average. Time altering stuff is extremely limited in it's function, guns are pretty much standard fare sci-fi weaponry. Story is pretty crap. Game in super easy. It gets +1 point above absolute average because time shift stuff is a neat idea, even if its executed in a very restrained way.

Non-Steam game that I got for free, but it was during the sale so I'll post it.

Men of War 2. 8/10 so far

****ing second mission is HARD. Still havent gotten past it after 3 45-minute attempts. The guns and tanks are excellent in their realism and balance. When I was able to have some guys hop in to any vehicle (like a tractor or truck) and tow guns around, I was ecstatic. Watching Armored cars and Panzer IIs explode from my 45mm anti tank guns, and then seeing Panzer IIIs not give a **** was cool. The ATGs have a chance to take out a III with enough concentrated fire, but normally the best they can hope to do is wreck a track or the turret. When that happened once, on of the crew men jumped out to try and repair the track so they could move forward, and I was like "WTF AWESOME" and I sent up a machine gunner to kill him. Next time I try the mission I'll have to see if I can capture a tank and fix it up for my own use. The only thing I don't like so far, is that the panzer III can take on my heavy Russian tank pretty easily for some reason, which shouldn't happen.

 

[MJ12]

Hool, were you playing X3 Reunion or X3 Terran Conflict? You should be playing nothing but Terran Conflict.

In Eve Online they have a saying that goes like "when in trouble or in doubt, right-click" and sure enough you will get a drop-down menu. In the X3 series it's not like that.

Lol. What sort of argument is this? You're upset that the game isn't simplified like Eve? This game is not Eve.

It's a very difficult game but I think the biggest fault is that it is a SP game. In Eve Online you have people from all over the world working together for a common goal 24/7. In X3 you can spend hours and hours playing it and there really is no end game. In any case it doesn't really matter because it's just SP and if you lose the save file, you have to start all over again.

Another aspect is that there is a main bad guy or villain in this series and it's the KHA'ACK. Obvious puns here along with Morgan Webb but they could have picked a better name. Also it's just a large group of rogue pirates rather than different types of enemies. I was wondering if I could pirate and I think you can because there was some difficulty modifier at the start I think and it said it was impossibly hard.

The game is also glitchy with an incredibly boring story. The story is mainly told through in-game cinematics that are compressed to the MAX in video and audio.

Overall I must say I'm dissapointed. If you can understand Eve Online then you are far better off but really you still need a friend to help you. Too bad they cannot help you in-game.

Did you do any research on how to play the game? Any at all? Did you install any mods to make the game more comfortable? The game is very boring if you have no set goal or understanding on how to accomplish that goal, and haven't done a good chunk of beginner's research. It really isn't about the story at all, I didn't even play through the story campaign, and if that's what you were after, then you missed out. Where the game shines is choosing one of the alternate professions and figuring out how to go about.

For example, I first became a passive character so I could gain a lot of money. I fitted my ship to have asteroid and cargo scanning, because those are both big money makers. After doing some simple jobs of scanning asteroids, retrieving ships, I used my saved money to buy a combat ship. Then I went out and got a police license, started patrolling sectors for pirates. A few jobs I had to carefully follow a pirate ship at a distance to find out where it was going. It lead me to this one sector where there was some massive battle ship surrounded by a dozen pirates. My job was to scan the large ship for illegal wares. I had to get really close, and as I was scanning, the pirates took notice, and started firing. I was in a tough situation; on one hand, I need to finish scanning the ship, on the other hand, there was no way I could fight these pirates alone. So I got in really tight against the huge ship I was scanning and hid from the pirate's view. Right as they found where I was hiding, I finished scanning and flew right out of that sector at full speed. Very exciting and scary moment. I could go on and on about unique little experiences like that in this game.

Easily some of the best space exploration and combat I have experienced in any game. The game isn't about quests or story, it's very much a game about making your own fun and your own path. You can truly shape the universe as a player, everything you do has a cause and effect.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Batman: Arkham Asylum - 9/10

I can't believe I didnt pick this game up until now. This is by far the best superhero game I have played, and one of my favourite brawlers period. This wasnt just a standard fighting game with Batman characters in it, this game was DESIGNED to make you feel like the Dark Knight, and it totally succeeds on that front. Fighting off a crowd of baddies looks like it does in the movies/cartoons, and is easy to learn but difficult to perfect. You are also given a bunch of gadgets to use, which are all pretty cool, but I ended up not relying on them too much. To shake things up between fights there are many stealth sequences, which are thankfully not too frustrating (except for rooms with tons of armed guards). I had heard a lot of bad things about the boss fights, but I didnt find them terrible at all, just a bit repetitive. You could easily finish the campaign in a couple of days, but the game still has a fair amount of content to sink your teeth into. There are riddles and collectibles scattered around the Metroid-Vania like world, some of which unlock cool bit of lore like character bios, in-game models, patient interviews, and challenge rooms. The challenge rooms are great if you dont want to deal with the campaign and get straight into the fighting. Some of these rooms are simple "fight 4 waves" rooms, others reward you for a stealthy approach and creative takedowns.

Graphically, this game looks fantastic even by todays standards (a bit of pop-in here and there, but not too serious), and the voice acting is superb for the main characters (supporting characters ranged from good to mediocre). Mark Hamill steals the show IMO for his amazing job voicing the Joker, his constant commentary throughout the game never got tiring for me.

In short, buy this game if you havent already. It was a steal for $7.50, and a great deal at $30 or whatever it is now.

P.S. Favourite parts of the game were the Scarecrow sequences, I really hope the make a return in the sequel.

EDIT: Also, what ZT said in regards to X3. I highly recommend joining the community at the official Egosoft forums if you are stuck, they are extremely helpful towards new players and will be happy to answer any of your problems.

 

[hool10]

I first tried Terran Conflict then Reunion. Also I have heard that there are many mods for the game including a ship model skin pack to make the ships look like Eve Online. Yeah I thought the normal thing to do was play SP but I guess not. What are some of the "must have" mods?

 

[Wanted Bob]

I personally don't play with any mods, but the forums I mentioned earlier has an entire section devoted to mods and scripts. Here is the link:

http://forum.egosoft.com/index.php?c=2

 

[Gargantou]

Krynn, err... Men of War 2? As far as I know there isn't any Men of War 2 though there are several stand-alone expansions.

Do you mean Men of War: Assault Squad?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Far Cry 2 is still

Spoiler

as fun as I remember.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Far Cry 2 is still

Spoiler

as fun as I remember.

I've tried to like that game so many times, but I just cant bring myself to finish it. The missions that take 20 minutes to drive to and the EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY WANTS TO KILL YOU just puts me off too much. Which is a shame, as I liked pretty much everything else.

 

[ríomhaire]

SpaceChem is the most awesome nerdfun ever.

 

[MJ12]

Guild Wars, guiltily addicted to this game atm.

I've tried to like that game so many times, but I just cant bring myself to finish it. The missions that take 20 minutes to drive to and the EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY WANTS TO KILL YOU just puts me off too much. Which is a shame, as I liked pretty much everything else.

Exactly. Also the saturation and motion blur makes me nauseous.

 

[Edeslash]

1. Deus Ex

I'm really having difficulties getting into this game. The first level (Statue of Liberty) was really a pain. At one point (going up stairs, finding 2 enemies chatting right at the top) I just couldn't find a non-suicidal solution to proceed. I ended up doing a lucky and unrealistic shadow sneak in front of them and quickly finishing them with a pistol and melee. The aiming system is at the moment quite ridiculous. Now I'm under the house in the castle of the second level. And I think I'll have to check youtube for some advice... Guess I just have to make myself play it. Everyone says the two first levels are much worse than the rest.

I also bought DX: Invisible War. I'll try it after finishing Deus Ex. Some day...

2. Fallout 3 (GOTY)

I liked the intro and the feeling of getting outside the vault. The world seems great, although I find Megaton a bit dull. The friendly ghoul in that bar gave me a heart attack. I'm a coward when it comes to scary games, so I'm really looking forward to those infamous metro tunnels I've heard about. I could not be able to play this with 1st person view. Now I'm kinda stuck in the game, I have no idea where to find bullets. It's quite hard to destroy a source of fire ants without any.

3. Borderlands GOTY

My favorite of my sales purchases. I love the RPG-FPS style. The RPG-style elements (classes, talent points, quests, levels) work great in the game. I'm only level 9 so far. I'm starting to get fed up with killing alien animals, I hope things get more interesting soon. Well, the 2 midgets that I've met so far made me fall in love with them (and almost off my chair).

 

[Bad^Hat]

Milly/dabomb gifted me Poker Night, decent fun for a while. Unlocked all the items in no time flat, but I don't play TF2 so they're about as useful to me as achievements. The chatter gets tiresome after a while, it's sorely missing an option to cut out all the incidental dialog during play, like mocking you for checking/folding (then checking/folding themselves). Still, pretty enjoyable.

Also got Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but I still haven't even downloaded number 2 from when that was on sale last time. Stupid bandwidth limit.

 

[StarBob]

I finally picked up Hammerfight. That's a fun game even though the story is easy to ignore. It will give you carpal tunnel though.

Poker night would be awesome with multiplayer. The chatter is annoying though. Even on minimal it's too much.

 

[Krynn72]

1. Deus Ex

I'm really having difficulties getting into this game. The first level (Statue of Liberty) was really a pain. At one point (going up stairs, finding 2 enemies chatting right at the top) I just couldn't find a non-suicidal solution to proceed. I ended up doing a lucky and unrealistic shadow sneak in front of them and quickly finishing them with a pistol and melee. The aiming system is at the moment quite ridiculous. Now I'm under the house in the castle of the second level. And I think I'll have to check youtube for some advice... Guess I just have to make myself play it. Everyone says the two first levels are much worse than the rest.

At that part, if I'm trying to be stealthy/non-confrontational, I usually put a proximity gas grenade on the stairs, hit one of the guys with a tranquilizer dart, and hurry down the stairs to escape the gas explosion they set off as they pursue. Use those mines to your advantage, and dont just use them as grenades when you don't need to. The aiming system is really annoying at first since your skills are low (dont forget to regularly check your skill sheet, since you never get prompted to upgrade, you just do it whenever). In the beginning you really gotta plan your attacks and escape route before you engage, since you'll usually only be able to pull off one accurate shot before they find you and light you up.

 

[StardogChampion]

I first tried Terran Conflict then Reunion. Also I have heard that there are many mods for the game including a ship model skin pack to make the ships look like Eve Online. Yeah I thought the normal thing to do was play SP but I guess not. What are some of the "must have" mods?

People have said multiple times in this forum that you shouldn't buy anything but Terran Conflict. That's the one that has right-click menus, and obvious missions (the icons next to stations), etc. The previous games are not worth owning.

The SP is what you are supposed to play. The story is only worth doing to get the early free ship and to make some early cash. Look at the icons next to the stations. A red target means there's a combat mission and you'll be rewarded for completing it. Land there then go to Comms. If it's a station defense mission, you can net 200k for 5 minutes work, even in a weak ship. Then you can use that money to buy better components, or buy a cargo ship + trade/nav software + station to make money. You start with nothing and have to build up your empire.

And Eve isn't anything like X3. Eve is mostly automated, but X3 has you inside the ship and you can move anywhere you want for more interesting dogfights. It's not a click-driven game all the time.