-
Affilliation
Some games to start-off the year 2009
The last game I bought in 2008 was The Orange Box, and I must say that for Team Fortress 2 alone, the price was worth it. I’ll probably love the whole package more after I get my new PC, as The Orange Box proves (even if it was released last 2007!) that my current rig is at the end of it’s rope. Yes, I can play Portal, but barely, and I’d like to relish the short experience it will bring me. As for the various Half-Lives 2’s [sic], aside from the sluggish performance, I also don’t have the HD space. So, I’ll experiment on those when I get my new PC, hopefully before the month ends.
I mentioned that my SO gave me Left 4 Dead for xmas, I was hoping to make it among the last experiences of 2008, but alas that was not to be. It will be my 1st new AAA title experience for 2009 after getting my new PC, I’m reserving it for that.
For my 1st purchase of the year, though, I gave in and got something old, and something new. For something old, I got Psychonauts. I’ve been hearing about it for so long, and I keep hearing it’s one of those great games that few played. I tried the demo on Steam, and I liked it enough. For US$10 (with a US$1 year end sale discount), I thought it was worth it, even for the quirky humor and the amazing imagery alone (I loved how it plays on the imagination). It reminded me of American McGee’s Alice, and for US$10, I’m willing to go through a quirky and visually engaging one time experience (I rearely play a story based game over again).
For something new, I gave in and got Defense Grid: The Awakening. I’m not a hardcore tower defense player, but I do enjoy them occasionally. Two of the tower defenses I enjoy the most are the Bloons Tower Defense series and GemCraft, both playable for free at Kongregate. Still, the sci-fi setting drew me in, and I was interested on what the doll-up treatment can do to a familiar game concept that’s commonly available.
What annoyed me was the lack of a demo. Slick graphics or not, it feels a bit steep to shell out US$20 for a game concept with a lot of free implementations. The 25% holiday discount at Steam made the prospect a tad more compelling, as I argued that I probably could get at least 15 hours of gameplay out of it (US$1/1hr of gameplay is one of my criteria for games I’m not sure about). So, I decided to buy it and give it a try. Let’s see if my “act of faith” (as Paul Eres from Indie Games Blog put it) pays off.
Two games to start off the year, one old, one new. Both non-mainstream and non-blockbuster. Let’s see what 2009 has to offer on those lines.
Tags: SteamSteam’s on a Holiday Sale until 2009.01/02!
Steam is having a holiday sale! From now until 2009.01/02, there are discounts on everything! The discounts range from 10%-75%, so there be bargains here and there. Portal and Team Fortress 2 are definitely steals at 5 and 10 bucks (though why not just get both and more for 27 bucks?).
I wasn’t planning on getting any more games this year, but now I’m thinking of getting Defense Grid. Tower defense is a distraction occasionally, so I wonder if it’s worth the US$15…?
Tags: SteamLate in the game for Team Fortress 2
The Orange Box was released on 2007, so getting it just now (as mentioned in my previous post) makes me a bit late in the game. My system can barely run Portal, and I’ve even run out of virtual memory (a problem I rarely encounter).
Still, in my bone-headed desire to fill the time until I can get a rig that can handle Left 4 Dead, I toughed out the arduous wait times and hard disk crunching on my bare minimum rig to play Team Fortress 2. Even when the game starts I have to bear with embarrassingly slow caching until everything is loaded into RAM.
Once all this had come to pass, I looked for server’s on Steam with acceptable latency, then I slogged through an even worse wait time! After going through all that crap, all the dumb staring at the screen waiting for the progress bar to move a tick, all the the hard-disk caching I have to go through every single time I start a map, after all that, I was finally able to play the freakin’ game. And I learned something…
… Team Fortress 2 is WICKED AWESOME!!!
Everything was just to… tight! The art, the vocals, the humor, and most importantly, the variety, playability, and balance of the various “classes”, they just all gelled together to produce this wonderful wonderful team based PvP experience!
It’s just danged fun to play! I intended to play just a game or two, and ended-up losing 3 hours from the wee morning. It’s been a while since I played something that made me lose track of time like that.
I’m probably awfully lat in saying this, but I still want to give kudos to Valve for such a polished and focused multiplayer experience!
Now, I’ll have to force myself to sleep to I can properly relish the rounds I’ll play later in the day. (^^)
Tags: SteamGet Half-Life 1 for US$0.98! Today only!
I’ve been wanting to try Steam out (and ImpulseDriven too, actually) for quite a while now, mainly to see for myself what the concept is like. I’ve been hearing about it being much better than when it first started out, and quite a few seem to prefer it than purchasing video games from retail. I almost got Portal, but I keep stopping short of going for it somehow.
Now, I got my excuse.
Getting wind from GamerDad, I learned that until Friday, 2008.11/21 12:00 PST, the original Half-Life will be avaliable in Steam for a measely US$0.98! This is apparently in celebration of the game’s 10th year (it was released for the PC in 1998.11/19).
An old game considered by many as one of the best for a buck? Now there’s the excuse I was looking for! I signed-up and got the game.
Depending on when and what time you read this post, you might still be able to get this deal! So hurry up!
Tags: Steam-
Flavor of the Month
-
Other Profiles
-
