The beginning and middle levels were balanced, but the difficulty towards the end was insanely hard. It just seemed to me that the QA process for that game was broken.

Really? I thought the difficulty was just right. The final level was pretty tough until you figured out the right tactic to deal with Marduk's huge initial rush. Once you survive that, the rest of the fight was cakewalk.

Ahhhhh Carmageddon!!! I still have that and C2 but they are in storage with most of my collection...darn now I want to play them both again...

What?!? No Carmageddon?!?!?

I still have my Sacrifice CD around here somewhere. I remember it was one of the first games to show off the then new GeForce 256.

I'm also glad to see Kingpin. It's also on GoG. I loved that game and I still play it. I liked the art style, the setting, the F word every other word..LOL! It's a damn hard game though. I so wish they would have followed through with the sequel.

but you still need to log in to steam at least once, vs. gog's standard installer which is fully offline.

And internet is never an issue for me and hasnt been for about 10 years now. I can understand some situations where this would be difficult for some people, but if you live in any decent sized city, its a non-issue.

Whoops, misread something. Delete me.

This comment was edited on Aug 19, 2009, 20:52.

You can back up the folders (already installed) and drop them into another Steam install

Yeah, I'm actually using the same Steam install from 3 OS wipes ago (it must automatically reinstall the services when you run Steam.exe the first time), but you still need to log in to steam at least once, vs. gog's standard installer which is fully offline. It's not a big deal most times, but with older games I can see it being handy not having to get networking working on whatever you want to install them on. Though most older games on steam don't actually seem to have been modified to do an authentication check when you run the .exe directly, so it's a bit of a moot point. And you and others point out a lot of good things about sticking with Steam, though one other potential advantage of the DRM-freeness of GOG might turn out to be the ability to make 3rd party downloader/installer clients that meet your demands.

Still, at least you can backup your download and look after it, which is more than can be said for Steam if it were to go down.

Meh, it's easier to just grab it from TPB if my hard-drive crashes, which is the same recovery plan for if Steam ever goes down. Only difference is one is already necessary in case of hard disk crash, the other won't be necessary unless there's a steam bankruptcy followed by a hard disk crash. I imagine it's not technically a legal backup system, but I doubt that it's technically legal to transfer backup copies of the TOCA installer from a mozy backup account, otherwise gog would be providing a backup copy in the first place.

Just to set the record straight here, GOG only pulled TOCA 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2005 because of licensing agreements in those games that were expiring

Yeah, but it makes me doubt gog's commitment to their promise that you can redownload the other games forever, if they didn't bother negotiating for it this time.

In every other instance where GOG have removed a game from their catalog

Yeah, but they haven't removed many other games. It's hard to guess how many more are going to be pulled from being able to be redownloaded. I imagine they say there aren't going to be others, but they also said you would be able to redownload TOCA 3 and CM2005 forever during the final sales on each.

I have no interest in reinstalling 200 games after a format

You'd be surprised at how few games actually need registry entries. I still have games I last installed under Win98

Sacrifice was excellent. Amazing story and interesting new gameplay in a genre that was very saturated at the time. I really need to play it again.

but the difficulty towards the end was insanely hard.

Eh? Summon two of the biggest critters you can buy. Tether them to your manalith. Wait for idiot AI to attack you. Focus all efforts on killing wizard. When wizard dead, kill remaining enemy critters, harvest souls. Build bigger army, move to next manalith, tether a few creatures, repeat from step one.

Now, I guess it's possible that if you made unfortunate choices during the game and wound up with shitty critters and shitty powers, the latter levels are very tough, but a bit of planning takes care of all that.

The biggest problem, in my mind, with the latter levels of Sacrifice is that they are just boring. There is such a soul discrepancy between the enemy and you that you basically HAVE to turtle and slowly whittle down his soul count before you can do anything.

Creston

I prefer gog.com over Steam for the oldies like Fallout. I prefer not using GoG's installer as I am not a fan of Adobe Air, or much of anything else Adobe for that matter.

You can do repeated downloads of purchased games from gog.com. They also have a downloader program that can download and install your game for you if you want a slightly more steamlined experience than downloading a setup.exe and then having to double-click it to start the install.

Their downloader is horribly crude and unintuitive. I'd love to buy lots of games on GoG as then I could back them up safely and install them offline but without a usable client to mass setup games after a format I'm not interested. The reason I use Steam is that after a format I can have all my games running immediately after installing the Steam client, as I have my Steam folder on a secondary drive. I won't buy retail any more because I have no interest in reinstalling 200 games after a format and I like the convenience of being able to play whatever I want whenever I want without waiting.

But on the other hand, you can't really be sure that you'll always be able to download any given game from gog. When they stop selling a game, they seem to also remove it from your downloadables list too. At least that's what's going to happen with my copy of TOCA 3.

That's due to a specific licensing agreement relating to vehicle manufacturers, though I agree that it is very shitty - you've already bought the game, so being able to redownload it shouldn't count as something separate (even though it's DRM free). Still, at least you can backup your download and look after it, which is more than can be said for Steam if it were to go down. Ideally I'd want GoG style DRM content but with the Steam style client (no reinstalling after a format and auto-updating, etc) but there's nothing like that on the market currently.

Did they ever patch Sacrifice? The beginning and middle levels were balanced, but the difficulty towards the end was insanely hard. It just seemed to me that the QA process for that game was broken.

When they stop selling a game, they seem to also remove it from your downloadables list too. At least that's what's going to happen with my copy of TOCA 3.

Just to set the record straight here, GOG only pulled TOCA 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2005 because of licensing agreements in those games that were expiring. There was no way GOG or Codemasters could avoid blocking downloads of those games. In every other instance where GOG have removed a game from their catalog, the games have still been available for download by those who purchased the game earlier.

LOL, Im fully aware of what GoG can and cant do. Girlfriend doesn't play games, at least not these kinds, so sharing isn't a problem.

Steam is a personal preference. Right-clicking and selecting Install is easier than anything you've mentioned and negates any transport issues.

And unlike steam games, you can also copy the installer to a flash drive and transfer it that way

Incorrect. You can back up the folders (already installed) and drop them into another Steam install elsewhere and have it work (on that account). I have only backed up the entire SteamApps folder for the last 5 years or so, and never had a single problem.

@Dagok: I sort of want to recommend GOG over Steam, and not just because it's cheaper. You can do repeated downloads of purchased games from gog.com. They also have a downloader program that can download and install your game for you if you want a slightly more steamlined experience than downloading a setup.exe and then having to double-click it to start the install.

And unlike steam games, you can also copy the installer to a flash drive and transfer it that way, without having to worry about having an internet connection. Also you can play your copy of Kingpin while your girlfriend plays your copy of Fallout without having to fight over the one steam login (though in this case, I doubt the .exes actually implement steam checks, so you can probably route around the steam client).

But on the other hand, you can't really be sure that you'll always be able to download any given game from gog. When they stop selling a game, they seem to also remove it from your downloadables list too. At least that's what's going to happen with my copy of TOCA 3. Steam at least allows you to redownload your game as long as Steam exists, even if they've stopped selling it.

Sacrifice is arguably one of the most creative and strange RTS game on the market.

Excellent game. Sacrifice and Dungeon Keeper are my two favorite RTS, followed closely by Homeworld.

Excellent. Will wait for the Xmas sale though and get them for $5 or less.

I havent bought anything from GoG as of yet, because I like being able to download via Steam onto my girlfriends laptop, or wherever, without having to worry about having the files with me.

Sacrifice is arguably one of the most creative and strange RTS game on the market. Giants was funny as hell too when it didn't crash!

This comment was edited on Aug 19, 2009, 18:17.

I like Valve, and I'm more fond of Steam than not.

That said, do yourself a favor and buy any or all of these games for 2/3 of the price at GOG.com (Good Old Games). They're $8.99 on Steam, and $5.99 on GOG.