Clefairy

I look at it like this. Buying a product digitally cuts out a significant number of middlemen. In the case of games, you get down to the publisher, developer(if it's in their contract), and the seller. Given the exorbitant cost of game development(which I don't care for, but that's another can of worms entirely), you'd better believe I want every dollar possible going to the people inside the industry. If I have to give up the trappings of physical media to do that, then so be it.

This was too good not to share. Talk about going the extra mile for your fans.

For anyone else on the fence due to this, it's worth noting that all the games in the pack support re-gifting, ie, if you already own them you get a voucher to pass along to a friend. Share the games, people.

Hrm.... Well, Super Meat Boy is a viciously hard platformer that minimizes the penalty for dying. Seriously, respawn takes less than a second. The really tight controls and retro-absurd premise are what sold it for me. AaAaAaA is built around base jumping. The gameplay didn't click for me, but I can see what they were trying to do with it. Amnesia is the latest game from a company that understands fear. Not the cheap suddenly-zombies-jump-through-windows stuff, this is the real deal. Playing in the dark with headphones is a must. Bit Trip is a rhythm game with a pretty solid learning curve. Think Pong meets DDR/Guitar Hero. There's only three levels, but what's there is worth the price of admission IMO. The Ball is a first-person puzzler built on the Unreal Engine. You're an archeologist in the 1930s, IIRC, and you get trapped in an ancient Mayan ruin. You find a huge metallic ball while you're down there, and it becomes your primary method of interacting with the game world. Pretty solid game. More combat than Portal, but nothing you can't handle. The Wonderful End of the World is a Katamari clone that uses a puppet instead of a little sticky ball. I remember wanting it when I was dirt poor a couple years ago, but Steam didn't have wishlists then so I forgot about it. Hope that helps.

Half-Life is in first-person, though, whereas Zelda is third-person. For me, because I could see Link running around, I never really felt like I was Link. He was just a puppet I could use to interact with the world. Technically that's also true of Gordon, but I saw that world through Gordon's eyes. That's what made the difference. Also, voice acting has another problem; In every Zelda game I can remember off the top of my head, you can name your save file, which becomes Link's name. Yeah, a lot of us stick to the default, but the option has always been there. So you either need a text-to-speech script that parses the character's name, or leave it out of the dialog entirely. They did that in Baten Kaitos, where a character would speak a line of dialog and just skip the player's name where it appeared in the accompanying text. It was awkward, and broke the immersion for me every time it happened.

I've personally come to believe that the only thing AAA games bring to the table these days are their production values. Every studio worth talking about in this regard is at least a hundred people. More likely a hundred people in every department. I can't find it right now, but there was a chart floating around a few months back about how much you're liable to make in the industry. Once you get up to asset creation (concept art, modelling, soundtrack, etc.), the company shells out a nice chunk of change in salary to these people every year. Multiplied by the sheer number of artists needed to make a AAA game into reality, and you're well into the multi-millions right there. Not to mention, as stated in the video, these people take a pay cut, sometimes a severe one, so they can do what they love. Add in marketing costs, new software/hardware kits, any bonuses they decide to hand out, pressing the discs, getting them shipped, the cut that GameStop takes for stocking the damn thing... The amount of money that goes into making just one AAA game happen is ridiculous. Everyone wants to at least break even, any way they can. You see that philosophy in everything from shovelware to derivative game concepts to Project Ten Dollar. And because of market saturation, many games don't hit that mark. Which can and does sink studios, all the time. Only way that's going to happen is if devs and publishers everywhere cut costs. The $60 model has been in place for a while now, it's worked out okay for most parties involved. Corporations are naturally averse to change, because there's no guarantee doing anything other than what you did before won't kill your profit margin. Add in the dizzyingly high stakes that come from the overinflated budget, and you get... Well, pretty much what we've got now. The only way out, as far as I can see, is for the entire indie scene to explode with popularity. I'm generalizing here, but we're stuck in an arms race of sorts right now, where everybody's trying to add more glitz and more flash on top of the same (or less) gameplay. Somebody, somewhere, is going to have to back off and dial it down. But since small games with big ideas very rarely become smash hits, or even profitable at all, there's no incentive to do so.

It's time for everyone's favorite elephant in the room, Piracy. Always nice to see endorsements of abandonware, despite the legal implications. As for writing to the developer... Hm. I'll try that next time it comes up; can't hurt any.

As I recall, you established several pages ago that in your mind 'skill' is synonymous with 'aim'. This is demonstrably incorrect anywhere and everywhere else, but anyway. -- Someone needs to get this man a server. He's running this thing off his home machine, for God's sake! I've been checking back almost constantly since last night and have yet to see a slot open up. Want it so bad.

You can grab the files right out of your game folder with GCFScape. http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26 You're looking for 'team fortress 2 content.gcf'. Should be right there in the default directory.

I've come to think of that as an unintentional Brawl tie-in. "Actually, Ike was invited to a large-scale tournament from another dimension. He went for it, and is now smacking noobs around until the end of time." Hardly ideal, but it's a step up from what they gave us. I think it works, in a minimalist sort of way. 4NG3L throws a lot of melodramatic crap at you, which makes the ending itself jarring. But really, you were never supposed to be the hero who saves humanity or whatever. You were a merc, looking for a cache of valuable alien technology. Turns out that doesn't really exist, so you take what Tannis will give you and move on to the next job. Then there's the caricatures in the intro, and the opening sequence to Zombie Island. It's strongly implied that the events of the game are just a bedtime story for his kids. Also that he's a bad storyteller(first Dr. Ned is actually Zed, then he isn't, it's a huge incoherent mess), but they don't seem to mind. While I'm thinking about it, Zombie Island handled it much better, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek. "And then Dr. Ned was defeated, roll credOH GOD WHAT IS THAT." EDIT: I'm suprised no one's mentioned the Obsidian games yet. NWN 2 was so they could whore out expansion packs more easily; that's a dick move, but it's logical at least. KOTOR 2, though...

Rise from your grave, o thread. NS2 was released on Steam in May; well, the engine test and level editor, at any rate. You needed a pre-order code to get access. Today is your last chance to pre-order the Special Edition, because alpha's coming down the pipe as I write this. Read the full release here.

Technically your character is just aesthetic. It's more traditional FPS style, weapons are scattered around the map. Anyway, I had a crack at multiplayer just now. Finding a server is tricky since the demo was designed for LAN play; you have to route it through another program to make it listable, and hardly anybody's doing that right now. Despite my 300-500 ping, it was a good time. Direct IP connections work; I'll keep my eyes peeled for a list, or if this thread drums up enough interest then maybe we can work something out.

SGC DEMO RELEASED! Default keybinds are.. odd. It isn't all that clear what some of them do, either; plays fine with just your basic run/shoot/switch/jump, so I didn't muck with it too much. 8-bit in 3D is a little jarring at first, but I got used to it. Got some running around to do, so I can't try out multiplayer just yet.

I would assume this is still a work in progress. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SourceTV

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time As you can see, Valve has a complicated relationship with time in general. Attempting to pin an ETA on their projects is a lot like playing darts with a blind man.

I agree. I used to be one of those people until a week or so ago. It took the third blowup on my group of friends in as many months for me to realize that something was wrong. Next day I had a doctor's appointment; turns out I'm on my way to an ulcer, likely stress-induced. Needless to say, I'm not that guy anymore. I can't afford to be. I'd love to read that paper. And you're right; Valve has used their position in the industry to do a ton of crazy stuff with this product. I respect them for that. Even with all the fumbles and foibles, it's been a wild ride thus far.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Not just in the context of this game, moreso in general. I don't think it's possible to reconcile overtly competitive gaming with casual fun. There's way too much ideological friction. TF2 manages that friction pretty well; serious elements like the Announcer berating you and dominations are balanced against things like hats and absurd blog posts. But it still comes off a little schizophrenic. -- Sitting on 2 refined metal now. It's making my brain itch.

Yeah, I know what you mean =P I haven't checked in with the project in a while. By the state of the forums I would assume not, though they're up to version 3.6.10. That's a huge amount of progress compared to what I remember. I might pick it up again, just for the sheer amount of extra content. They've got mods in here for days; everything from Starfox to Wing Commander to Babylon 5, and a bunch of original campaigns. EDIT: As to your mixed feelings, here. Read through the whole thing (more links at the bottom), it should go a long way to help decide one way or the other. Of course that might be a bad thing, depending on your self-control.

Elite-style games are basically a dead genre at this point. For something new-ish, I'm pretty sure you're out of luck. It would take some finangling, but Freespace 2 has gotten some fan-made graphical updates since it went open source. Leans hard on the combat end of things, though, which you may not appreciate. For economics, the X series is about as good as it gets in the last decade. So far as I'm aware, anyway. Don't know how you feel about MMOs, but Eve Online has a lot of these mechanics, and receives constant dev support to this day. It's a wild and wooly universe, though; non-consensual pvp, lots of political backstabbery, wide swaths of lawless space. There's a good game in there, but it's very niche.

Good thing 3 stickies take so long to plunk down. Also, groupthink; when you see that many death notices in common, the odds of all of you deciding to murder the demo at once are very high. Also also, on the off-chance anyone doesn't check their tf2 feed on steam, the soldier exists. Be afraid.

More like go heavy > spin up and sit on the cabinet > success. For my part, it depends. If the gates will open I like to go spy and sneak out into the map for some peace and quiet. If they don't, I pick a random low-health class and try to avoid dying as long as possible. Tangentially, I wish friendly fire was a native option like in TFC. Griefing potential aside, it would change the game in a lot of interesting ways, not the least of which would be working properly with all weapons. Oh well.

badump bump. Work continues apace, it looks like, and there's even enough fnished content for the game to be playable. Incidentally, there's going to be a demo at SGC; one of you sexy SGC attendees should wander over to the LAN room and check it out for us. Speaking of us non-attendees, for said demo. God I want this thing so bad.

Civ is a good pick. For the Sim-types, it depends how hard he leans on those numbers and manipulation you mention. Anything turn-based would probably do the job. HOMM, Fallout 1 or 2, X-Com... Of course you could do away with turns entirely, go with the old LucasArts adventure catalog. Being new to the hobby, I assume dated graphics won't bother him. That opens up your options a lot. The Orange Box is a good buy six months down the line, when he's acclimated somewhat and looking for something new. Even if he never touches the other stuff in it, Portal is a must-play. Might need a new box for that, though; it depends on the exact specs of the laptop. On that note, the Steam client can be a memory hog at times, so I would recommend something like D2D or GOG instead.

Two days in a row now, I've popped on for a minute and gotten a hat. Well, if the game wants me to come back, who am I to argue.

My emphasis.