I grabbed Europa Universalis III complete since I liked it ages ago and didn't have the expansions. Still thinking about Monkey Island. I like Sam & Max but was indifferent to the demo I tried.

The early versions of the unofficial patch fixed most of the broken quest and scripting issues. Since then it has been pointlessly moving items around, tinkering with stats, and fixing things that were broken while doing the previous two.

The significant problem the game has had since launch is that the latter levels are devoid of content and choices. The Chinatown hub is rather sparse for quests & characters, and everything afterward is just very linear combat missions in a game that originally offered exploration, stealth, and significant dialogue choices. Presumably the developers ran out of time and money at the end, but it's certainly not going to be fixed by a patch.

XCOM was so wonderful that I try to give all the 'sequels' a shot, and some of the screen shots do look spiffy. There's just no way I'll be able to play it thoroughly since I already have so many unfinished games cluttering up my Steam account.

Jerykk wrote on Jun 27, 2010, 19:43:

What I want to see is: "Vampire: The Masquerade - 75% off at Steam".

Seriously? The game only costs $20 on Steam. Considering the game is one of the best action RPGs in years, I'd say that's a pretty fair price.

I want to gift it to some people who will probably never play it. $20 is too high for that. I don't recall seeing a sale for it on Steam in the last year or so either, which puts it in pretty limited company.

I'll have to grab the Gothic bundle. If I still played EVE, I'd be thrilled to start another character for $1.99.

What I want to see is: "Vampire: The Masquerade - 75% off at Steam".

Creston wrote on Jun 27, 2010, 00:14:
10 bucks for L4D2 is too good to pass up. I have no idea whether my shitty connection will be able to play it though. Is there a single-player option (with bots, I assume?)

Creston

Yes, you can play with bots. I finished the first one like that since "mandatory teamwork" plus "randomly chosen teammates" rarely equals "fun".

I grabbed the L4D2 4 pack. I played the first one for under 10 hours but am foolishly optimistic that I'll get significant playtime from the sequel.

GTA: Episodes is the most appealing game on sale, but I know there's no chance of me actually playing it anytime soon due to backlog of games. Guess I'll wait for it to be 7.49 at Christmas. Strangely tempted by Galcon Fusion - it looks like an entire game based solely on the invasions from MOO.

An utterly amazing batch of sales. I've already got a list of 7 old games I plan to get and hope to see a one day sale on L4D2 and Borderlands eventually. Steam also just added The Guild 2 & expansion to their catalog which I've wanted for awhile.

Regardless of DRM issues, I have no interest in any of their games.

I remember trying to get it to run on a P1 with 16mb TNT card, before realizing an upgrade was mandatory.

I'd disagree about the lack of influence.. Many players still love it; the game is almost universally praised. The problems stem from the game itself: an interesting story with a lot of twists, levels that were small enough to be focused but large enough to give the player room to maneuver and reward exploration, and a skill system so the player could get the best weapons immediately but not be very good with them.

It's much easier for developers to cut all that and make a rail shooter where you play the prophesied chosen one/last hope for mankind.

I never finished the first one, so the price on the second isn't exactly tempting. I'll wait for the 9.99 holiday sale before not finishing the sequel either.

For people who don't know how sports leagues work outside of America: the football leagues are tiered, like American baseball, but the lower league clubs are independent and can get promoted to a higher league if they do well. The bottom clubs also get relegated to a lower league. There's no draft, roster limits, or salary cap so you can buy as many young players as you can afford and develop them for a few years before selling for a nice profit.

Working your way up from the lowest (6th division) league in England with shrewd player deals while slowly expanding your pitiful facilities is very satisfying. It makes for a better RPG experience than anything Bioware has done in about 10 years.

It's bizarre that they got grinding (none) and server capacity numbers (everyone plays together so merges are never an issue) so right with Guild Wars, yet so horribly wrong with all their other games. It has got me worried about Guild Wars 2, since they clearly don't understand why the first one is popular.

The pyro looks to be back to where they were. The same burn duration and slightly reduced damage and ammo consumption. Flare gun on a burning target going from mini crit to full crit at a certain range must be their concession to 'skill making a difference'.

foot wrote on May 19, 2010, 08:30:
If you want to top the scoreboard, the pyro is not for you. If you want to contribute to the team, the pyro is an incredibly valuable class that can change the tide of battle (ie. airblast ubers off a cap point).

You reminded me that I'd like to see them add points for airblasting ubers. A well timed airblast can prevent a defeat that no other class could've done. It should be rewarded.

Episodic content seems to work well for Telltale. That said I'll wait until I can get it all at once; preferably during some ridiculous Steam sale.

Anarchy Online should be experienced by any MMO player. For all the flaws, it does offer an interesting original world in an almost totally empty niche (sci-fi) while Runes is just another generic fantasy MMO.

Since I grew up playing Ultima & Wizardy I'm probably the intended market for this, but I can't find the time for it or Eschalon. It makes me feel surprisingly guilty!