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[Toma]

I know, I know. I already made a thread for these. The prices in the OP are of course outdated, since they were based on the prices of the Steam sale back then. Looking through my list, I noticed that the number of people owning these games is staggeringly small though.

Citybuilder OT

Some screenshots from games in that thread:

I am utterly baffled by the amount of people owning these games on Steam. CivCity Rome shows 30 people in my friends list (all of which probably bought it because of me, lol), Grand Ages 13, Children of the Nile 11 and Imperium Romanum NONE.

:-o

What the hell. I get that this genre seems to be a bit more popular in Germany due to its simulation roots, but I really suggest you guys should take a look at these games. How can you not want to build a huge and influential/thriving city for your empire to thrive?

Build up a flourishing city and make your citizens happy. These games are neither Sims, nor SimCity. You dont need to take care of every little day routine your citizens are doing. They can mostly handle themselves, but you still need to give them the opportunity to do what they want. They want work? Build them some workplaces. They want certain goods? Build the corresponding shops and, if necessary, supply chains.
Due to the different setting, (Imagine building a military camp in SimCity as New York and defending against Miami or something... hm. We might be onto something.) you also need to take care of certain military aspects. In most of the games these are very tame as your job is to provide the corresponding infrastructure to sustain and supply your military, rather than leading them into battle. I cant speak for that part in Grand Ages yet because I havent seen it up to now but someone in the thread said you could imagine it as "Total War-lite". In CivCity you only build a fort, get them weapons and have them ready when enemies come. It basically functions as any other part of the game without having too much emphasis on it.

And a handy buyers guide:

CivCity if...
...you are new to the genre and really just want to dip your toe into what this could be like or if you cant resist a 1$ game purchase. Nothing wrong to start with this title. Runs on anything. No widescreen, doesnt bother me though.

Imperium Romanum if...
...you want more complex systems in your simulation games and a way more complex military fighting system than in CivCity. This is only a good choice if you think you cannot run Grand Ages: Rome as GA improves the game in every aspect and is, atm, even cheaper.

Grand Ages if...
...you want a pretty game from this genre and if you want to invest a bit more to get the game with more depth and complexity. Also seems to have a stronger focus on combat than the other 2 games. Not really for older hardware. POSSIBLY COMPATIBILITY ISSUES, check out the DEMO before you buy

Children of the Nile if...
...you cant stand the Rome setting, want to appease the egyptian gods, want huge settlers-like supply chains and arent offended by a bit ugly graphics. Also runs on anything. More complex than CivCity.

The best value for your buck seems to be Grand Ages currently, but I cant recommend CivCity enough if you just start to get your feet wet with the genre. No matter how I look at it, those games are great and you really should give at least one game a chance.

 

[Toma]

Okay, pretty much the same deal like last time, only that for these I have only played the beginning of Blackwell Legacy, but here goes!

Was about to make a post about this too, but only about the first game actually. I think the follow up games cant quite hold up to the fresh and original setting you are introduced in game #1. However, they are all fun to play with some interesting and varied puzzles. Definitely a good series for fans of the genre.

 

[Ryu]

Can someone provide some thoughts on Bang Bang Racing? It looks like a modern version of RC Pro Am for the NES.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/207020/

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Was about to make a post about this too, but only about the first game actually. I think the follow up games cant quite hold up to the fresh and original setting you are introduced in game #1. However, they are all fun to play with some interesting and varied puzzles. Definitely a good series for fans of the genre.

How is the production values? The voice acting is very important for me. Bad acting ruins the game for me - Gemini Rue is borderline too bad for my taste.

 

[Toma]

How is the production values? The voice acting is very important for me. Bad acting ruins the game for me - Gemini Rue is borderline too bad for my taste.

If you can live with the 800*600 Pixel window, the animations are well done, the pixel art very enjoyable to look at (Game 1 more so than the later ones, where they changed the art style) and I actually listened to all the conversations in the games instead of reading and skipping them as I usually do. The acting was good and especially the banter between the two main characters very entertaining.

 

[Toma]

Can someone provide some thoughts on Bang Bang Racing? It looks like a modern version of RC Pro Am for the NES.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/207020/

Downloading the demo, will be back for impressions.

 

[Shurayuki]

How is the production values? The voice acting is very important for me. Bad acting ruins the game for me - Gemini Rue is borderline too bad for my taste.

If you can live with the 800*600 Pixel window, the animations are well done, the pixel art very enjoyable to look at (Game 1 more so than the later ones, where they changed the art style) and I actually listened to all the conversations in the games instead of reading and skipping them as I usually do. The acting was good and especially the banter between the two main characters very entertaining.

I guess you can check how you feel about them if you try the demo, the reviews specifically mentioned that the voice acting picks up in quality tremendously, so even if you feel a bit iffy about it in Legacy you might still enjoy the later entries.

Was about to make a post about this too, but only about the first game actually. I think the follow up games cant quite hold up to the fresh and original setting you are introduced in game #1. However, they are all fun to play with some interesting and varied puzzles. Definitely a good series for fans of the genre.

Heh, if you want you could still do it, I only really gave the bare bones info, having a more thorough opportunity on it would still be nice. If it's actually as short as the reviews mention I might have actually played a big part of it, the atmosphere with so many deaths and suicides was really de-/oppresing so I stopped for a while.

 

[SapientWolf]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/207250/

Cubemen is a fast paced, action packed, original 3D Tower Defense game that mixes TD with RTS in single player & online multi-­player awesomeness! Get ready for some crazy Cubemen action! It’s the age old struggle between Good vs Bad, Blue vs Red, Little men vs Little men.

Clones is a friendly, fun, and engaging evolution to the classic Lemmings puzzle genre which includes robust internet-multiplayer with team play, different game modes, powerups, leaderboards, and a built-in level editor that was used to create the singleplayer campaign of over 150 clontastic puzzles spanning 11 CloneMaster bosses over 5 regions of the Clones Planet.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/72400/

I highly recommend these titles to Lemmings fans, and anyone else looking for a fun action strategy game. They are both under $3.00.

 

[Toma]

Heh, if you want you could still do it, I only really gave the bare bones info, having a more thorough opportunity on it would still be nice. If it's actually as short as the reviews mention I might have actually played a big part of it, the atmosphere with so many deaths and suicides was really de-/oppresing so I stopped for a while.

Yeah, its really short. I finished it in 3 hours maybe? Guess that should be mentioned as well when talking about the value of these games. Might be a plus for some though, its a very well done game that you can actually finish in one sitting and wont linger for ages in your backlog.

 

[TheFightingFish]

Commander Keen Collection - $2.99

Five classic side scrolling games from the early age of iD. Like many good 2D platformers I feel that these have aged rather well. Pogo stick jumps, limited ammo, top down overworlds, the Dopefish, it's all good fun. The pixel graphics still look quite charming.

Yosumin! - $5.99

Not the hottest deal, but still a great little puzzle game from SquareEnix. Just looking for patterns of rectangles in a grid of symbols, but it's very fun and relaxing.

Age of Wonders - Shadow Magic - $5.99

The Age of Wonders series were really good turn based tactics games that always seemed to have been a bit ignored for how good they were. Upgrade towns to produce new units and move them around maps to defeat the enemies and capture resources. For those who like stuff like HoMM III and Warlords it's an easy recommend.

Sega Genesis Packs 4 and 5 - 4.50 each

I nabbed these cheaper on Amazon. But $9 still does get you Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star 2-4, Streets of Rage 1-3, Shining games, Wonderboy III, Beyond Oasis, and others. I'm no emulation expert, but it seems solid enough to me. Plenty of good stuff in the earier packs as well, but four and five are the best to me.

Also for a quick bonus, I love to hook up my arcade stick to the PC, but there can be a real shortage of games that work really well with it, so here is my quick list of the best games on Steam to plug in with an arcade stick. Some of these don't fit the criteria for this thread (already on sales and what not, but this seemed the place to put it).

Stick Friendly Steam: Jamestown (best controller configuration ever), Gundemonium Recollection, SSFIV:AE, Commander Keen, Sega Genesis Collections, Rayman Origins (uses digital movement so this works really well)

 

[AlexMeloche]

Stacking, currently 3.74$. Just played 1 hour, it's already amazing.

 

[Toma]

Can someone provide some thoughts on Bang Bang Racing? It looks like a modern version of RC Pro Am for the NES.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/207020/

Alriiiight. I need to admit that the demo doesnt give you access to much, and apparently there is also a career mode and a championship mode to check out. Bullet points:
- 9 tracks with 40 some variations (Alterations of the track layout)
- Split screen MP
- 20 cars split across 4 categories

Hm. I'd love to say that I am sort of lukewarm on this game as I only experienced a demo, but... I dont think this game is appealing at all. The art style is a matter of taste of course:

..but I think my main problem was the core gameplay. Something with the handling, acceleration, speed and camera was just off. Might be the cars I got to use in the demo for some of these concerns, but it was too slow for my taste. Here is a gameplay video of Bang Bang Racing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT3DUOC9yBI and as comparison another one of Motorstorm RC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmbmhfvHvY&feature=related

I am also a bit concerned about longevity since my biggest motivation to play through Motorstorm RC were leaderboards and unlocking 200 cars + different color options. From my initial impressions, this seems like a subpar rendition of a game in the RC racing "subgenre". Unfortunately, there arent many games like that out there, so its not like you have a huge choice. I guess its decent enough if you absolutely crave for an RC game. If you have a PS3/Vita, get Motorstorm instead though :-o

 

[Lexxon]

Stacking, currently 3.74$. Just played 1 hour, it's already amazing.

Very unique game from Double Fine, I have it on XBLA. I stopped playing it half-way through...you've reminded me to get back on it!

 

[Chrysalis]

Age of Wonders - Shadow Magic - $5.99

The Age of Wonders series were really good turn based tactics games that always seemed to have been a bit ignored for how good they were. Upgrade towns to produce new units and move them around maps to defeat the enemies and capture resources. For those who like stuff like HoMM III and Warlords it's an easy recommend.

I've read that this is the best one- but is it better to play the earlier games for the sake of the story? And is the story engaging?

 

[finalboss2]

theres some awesome stuff in here

 

[Rollo Lawson]

Stacking, currently 3.74$. Just played 1 hour, it's already amazing.

Dope game, I love it. Maxed out the trophies then played through it again

 

[PsychoSoldier]

I'm not sure I know if I can explain why exactly, but Faerie Solitaire is pretty great for what it is.

 

[Toma]

Stacking, currently 3.74$. Just played 1 hour, it's already amazing.

Oooh now that is a nice price for stacking! Guess I'll make a post about that too

Gameplay picture:

I sort of find it hard to recommend this game because I dont know how to describe it and I KNOW that there are people out there that wont like this game at all. Its probably best to view this game as a ...3D Reimagining of the adventure game genre with the strengths of 3D gameplay underlining the charme and originality of the game instead of 3D adventure games that hopelessly tried to incorporate classic 2D adventure game puzzle design into a 3D game.

...

Was that clear? >_>

Its original, funny, has nice music and really is worth playing. Its not a "hard" adventure game in as you won't need to brood and think over puzzles for too long, but it has a definitely original approach in the character taking over other "puppets" and then being able to use their abilities to solve a puzzle. I also really like how the game played with several different approaches to solve a "puzzle". One example (loosely based on the actual game since I cant remember the actual puzzles plus solutions anymore) would be trying to enter a room that is secured by a guard and you can do either:
- Find a sexy woman puppet with whom you will lure the guard away
- Find a farting (was it farting? Something smelly) to make him flee

Sometimes there are even 3 options to solve different "puzzles" and I really enjoyed screwing around with the different abilities to see how other puppets react to them.

Enjoyable, not hard, original, definitely worth a look at the current price!

 

[Bonfires Down]

Revenge of the titans

The best tower defense game I've played yet. The best part is the tech tree where you choose which towers or upgrades to research, where every point spent feels like opening a gift on christmas. I hear it's possible to research yourself into a corner when new enemies appear that you haven't prepared for, but there are always several ways to handle them even if some are not optimal. I also love the art in this game, and if you like achievements there are 77 of them here.

 

[sp3000]

Everyone should buy Hard Reset. Has the one of the best FPS single player experiences around

 

[Sober]

Waves is for 3.00$ right now. It's probably better than Geometry Wars that is also on Steam. The emphasis is on building gigantic points with a permanent and temporary multiplier. Bombs are also used when your multiplier gets high enough, rather than as a resource. There also features like temporary slowmo to help you get the edge when things go crazy.

There are a ton of game mods like a simple timed one, or survival with 3 lives, or even ones where you don't do any shooting at all. The only thing is you might have to get past the completely childish menu dialogue, that's about it though.

---

Also Jade Empire is half off, for 7.50$ and I cannot find a copy of that game anywhere.

Anyone have impressions on Pineapple Smash Crew?

 

[Jasper Avenue]

I agree with Wizorb. It's great.

 

[inky]

http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/93200/header_292x136.jpg?t=1325703711[IMG][/URL]

[IMG]http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/93200/ss_21389442570992af4340809264990560ef96df9e.600x338.jpg?t=1325703711[IMG]

[B]Revenge of the titans[/B]

The best tower defense game I've played yet. The best part is the tech tree where you choose which towers or upgrades to research, where every point spent feels like opening a gift on christmas. I hear it's possible to research yourself into a corner when new enemies appear that you haven't prepared for, but there are always several ways to handle them even if some are not optimal. I also love the art in this game, and if you like achievements there are 77 of them here.[/QUOTE]

Playing this game for the Christmas ticket challenge made me appreciate it a lot more. There's a lot of fun to be had for sure, and a lot of strategy and freedom as well.

 

[Toma]

Alright, last recommendation for me before I'll leave this thread.

Everyday Genius: Square Logic
Game is a contender for 2 awards in my book:
- Best boring looking game.
- Game with the most amount of content

Its so insane that I'd love to take a few pictures to demonstrate:
There are 5 overall areas, each introducing new rules to the basic gameplay mechanic:

In those worlds, you'll find 7 levels with challenges:

..each of those have 13 puzzles you need to finish to unlock the next world level in a world:

..upon mastering, you'll unlock up to 800 new challenges for EACH level in EACH world:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thats what I wanted to start my post with about this surprisingly fun number puzzle game, reminiscent of Sudoku, but way, way deeper. Unfortunately, I just noticed that the game is missing from the Steam Store since the publisher changed and the game needs to be recertified for the store.

I do apologize for this "meaningless" post, but keep this game in the back of your mind, as it will re enter the store at some point and is definitely worth its money.

 

[Gamejunky]

Looking for advice on the Civ series. I've only played Civ revolution on 360 and I was a big fan of that, how different is it on PC? I was thinking of just getting Civ III since it's cheap but should I bother considering 4 and 5 are out and cheap as well?

 

[Shurayuki]

Revenge of the titans

The best tower defense game I've played yet. The best part is the tech tree where you choose which towers or upgrades to research, where every point spent feels like opening a gift on christmas. I hear it's possible to research yourself into a corner when new enemies appear that you haven't prepared for, but there are always several ways to handle them even if some are not optimal. I also love the art in this game, and if you like achievements there are 77 of them here.

A really great tower defense game, if anything the enemies were too intelligent for my taste. I design all these amazing traps and they just rearrange their path and walk around it lol.

 

[Toma]

Looking for advice on the Civ series. I've only played Civ revolution on 360 and I was a big fan of that, how different is it on PC? I was thinking of just getting Civ III since it's cheap but should I bother considering 4 and 5 are out and cheap as well?

Get only 4 instead, best game of the series, which makes the other entries before obsolete and shames the one that came after. Now run away before someone tells you differently.

 

[goober]

Do I need to play Avernum 1-3 to understand Avernum 4-6?

Also, I have the following on my wishlist cause some members mentioned them:

The Bard's Tale
Patrician III
Arx Fatalis
Robin Hood
Divine Divinity

What say you?

 

[Double D]

What's the consensus on Hydrophobia? It's $1.24.

 

[Dacvak]

Nice thread, Salsa.

 

[gdt]

Looking for advice on the Civ series. I've only played Civ revolution on 360 and I was a big fan of that, how different is it on PC? I was thinking of just getting Civ III since it's cheap but should I bother considering 4 and 5 are out and cheap as well?

Civ5 is ridiculously easy to get in to. Incredibly welcoming of new players. Get that.

 

[Zimbardo]

Ignite

$2.50

http://store.steampowered.com/app/45410/


anyone know if its anygood? there's a demo there, but its just quicker to ask here rather than download (might download it and try it out tho).

 

[Toma]

Do I need to play Avernum 1-3 to understand Avernum 4-6?

Also, I have the following on my wishlist cause some members mentioned them:

The Bard's Tale
Patrician III
Arx Fatalis
Robin Hood
Divine Divinity

What say you?

The Bard's Tale - I enjoyed it back then for the humor and songs, but I wouldnt be able to recommend it now. The RPG elements are boring (including loot) and graphics hold up very bad
Patrician III - If you like to play trading sims, definitely worth playing
Arx Fatalis - The graphics might be too old for you, if not: OH GOD YES PLAY IT
Robin Hood - Commandos style game with Robin. Definitely worth looking into, I admittedly only read reviews so far and couldnt test myself. I am sure enough about its quality that I purchased it though
Divine Divinity - Huge RPG world, and recommended to play. Graphics dont hold up too well though and I'd recommend Arcanum and Diablo 2 over it, which it sort of is a mix of.

 

[blame space]

damn bro thanks for the thread.. gonna buy a shit load of games.

 

[Double D]

Civ5 is ridiculously easy to get in to. Incredibly welcoming of new players. Get that.

Only Civ I've played was 4. I really couldn't get into it at all but I've been reading comments like this about Civ 5 from several people.

 

[chixdiggit]

Ignite

$2.50

http://store.steampowered.com/app/45410/


anyone know if its anygood? there's a demo there, but its just quicker to ask here rather than download (might download it and try it out tho).

Was wondering about it myself.
Also found this racing game Fireburst That looked interesting. Anyone know about it?

 

[Toma]

Civ5 is ridiculously easy to get in to. Incredibly welcoming of new players. Get that.

See, gamejunky? I told you to run, now its too late
He played CivRev, so he should be fine with the core mechanics of the series. In the end Civ 4 is simply the better game if you want to go a step up and learn a few more intricate aspects of what this genre offers. Civ 5 is sort of the step in between, but if you think you are able to learn a bit to enjoy a game, get 4 instead.

Edit: Also considering the change in price between 4 (including all addons) to 5 (even without addons, but the addon itself will cost an additional 25 bucks)

 

[Ionic]

Hey guys, some friends and I made a game called Defy Gravity that really doesn't get a lot of press or anything since our only way to market it is basically posting on reddit or other forums. Its a puzzle/platformer that is based on a physics mechanic. Its currently $1.50

http://store.steampowered.com/app/96100/

I bought this when it came out and can confirm that it provides a couple hours of good gameplay and levels. Eventually when you get good with the controls and mechanics you start doing some pretty neat stuff to move around. Good stuff.

 

[Card Boy]

You can thank me later.

Trials 2: Second Edition

$2.49 (-75%).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/16600/?snr=1_7_suggest__13

 

[Toma]

You can thank me later.

Trials 2: Second Edition

$2.49 (-75%).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/16600/?snr=1_7_suggest__13

I want the XBLA games Was there any word on whether they might be ported?

 

[Double D]

Trials 2 is fun, but it's hard to go back to after playing the XBLA games. Especially Evolution

 

[Toma]

Trials 2 is fun, but it's hard to go back to after playing the XBLA games. Especially Evolution

Sigh. I really would love to play those games.

 

[Card Boy]

I want the XBLA games Was there any word on whether they might be ported?

Trials 2 and Trials HD are very similar. Don't take this as gospel but i think Triads HD is a port of Trials 2, I could be wrong. Evolution is obviously a completely new game.

 

[DeadFalling]

There's a demo for Hard Reset if you're on the fence. I was and the demo sold me in 5 minutes.

 

[Double D]

I need a Metroidvania game in my life. Anything on Steam?

 

[Card Boy]

I need a Metroidvania game in my life. Anything on Steam?

Dark Void Zero.
Batman AA (im serious)
Cave Story +
Aquaria

 

[PsychoSoldier]

Looking for advice on the Civ series. I've only played Civ revolution on 360 and I was a big fan of that, how different is it on PC? I was thinking of just getting Civ III since it's cheap but should I bother considering 4 and 5 are out and cheap as well?

As someone whose first real experience with Civ was CivRev, I'd say get V. I liked IV but found it pretty frustrating even at low levels. I love V, especially with Gods & Kings.

 

[Toma]

Dark Void Zero.
Batman AA (im serious)
Cave Story +

Aquaria too, which has a tremendous 0% discount!

 

[Double D]

Dark Void Zero.
Batman AA (im serious)
Cave Story +

Dark Void Zero, huh? I own the other 2 and I can see what you mean about Batman, but I want something 2D.

edit: Also own Aquaria and have never played it. Didn't even realize it was this style of game. This is like finding money in your pockets.

 

[shintoki]

TomaAlex Recommends Strategy games, realizes its the 3 that he got me to buy.

+ For CivRome. I suck at it, but it was fun.