• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

STEAM announcements & updates 2012 Thread - Summer sales usually last week of June

Status
Not open for further replies.

Card Boy

Banned
Christ 8 piece of new Magicka DLC.

Magicka: Other side of the coin
Magicka: Worlds End Challenge
Magicka: Robepack megaman
Magicka: Robepack music
Magicka: Pieces Gadget pack
Magicka: Pieces Heirloom pack
Magicka: Mirror Crystal Cavern Hideout
Magicka: Volcano Hideout
 

AlexBasch

Member
As a liker of the FEAR franchise, another wonderful gaffer gifted me this last game and I am loving it.

You will definitely appreciate the story more if you play the first two games, but this game has a decent storyline to get you acquainted with the characters at least. The plot line is basically bullshit anyway.
Let's hope I can get my card sorted out to buy this then. Thanks. :)
 
Since Alice Madness Returns kinda fell flat for me, I wanted to pick up an FPS to play a bit before Diablo III. Since it's been years since I've attempted to play FEAR, I figured I'd give that a shot. Holy DAMN was it poorly optimized. At High/Maximum I'm getting 15 fps or so on my system. And I can run Crysis 2 at a decent setting. :/
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Since Alice Madness Returns kinda fell flat for me, I wanted to pick up an FPS to play a bit before Diablo III. Since it's been years since I've attempted to play FEAR, I figured I'd give that a shot. Holy DAMN was it poorly optimized. At High/Maximum I'm getting 15 fps or so on my system. And I can run Crysis 2 at a decent setting. :/

Try rebooting. Upon reading your post I ran the in-game benchmark and was getting no more than ~50fps (averaging around half that), but after rebooting the game ran as it should:

cm9Qb.jpg


1680x1050 with max settings (4x FSAA/8x AF); E6420 @ 3.2GHz, 4GB DDR2-800, GTX 570.
 

vazel

Banned
Since Alice Madness Returns kinda fell flat for me, I wanted to pick up an FPS to play a bit before Diablo III. Since it's been years since I've attempted to play FEAR, I figured I'd give that a shot. Holy DAMN was it poorly optimized. At High/Maximum I'm getting 15 fps or so on my system. And I can run Crysis 2 at a decent setting. :/
There's an infamous bug in fear where you'll get a performance hit unless you disable HID USB devices in device manager.
 
Try rebooting. Upon reading your post I ran the in-game benchmark and was getting no more than ~50fps (averaging around half that), but after rebooting the game ran as it should:

Thanks for that! The benchmark is running about 60fps now instead of the paltry framerate from before. And it gave me a chance to try the game again.
 
I know I know, "lol@fps game story", but would you recommend me to play the other FEAR games for story sake or are they separate other than a few characters or something?
Characters and projects are referenced throught out the first game (and expansions) as well as the 2nd one as far as i remember.

But leaving the plot aside you should play the first one because is the best in the series. Level design and enemy encounters are in other league. The third game wasn't even developed by the geniuses at Monolith.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
The third game wasn't even developed by the geniuses at Monolith.

I don't know if Monolith is allowed to be considered genius-tier after FEAR 2. I liked the game, but I'm not in denial about the issues it had.

Also, Day 1 really didn't do *that* bad with FEAR 3. The locations stayed fresh and the shooting felt tighter/better than most FPS games. The only level that dragged was the airport one and we all know that FEAR 1 had a 4+ level segment that dragged so I can't really harp on Day 1 for one level.
 
I don't know if Monolith is allowed to be considered genius-tier after FEAR 2. I liked the game, but I'm not in denial about the issues it had.

Also, Day 1 really didn't do *that* bad with FEAR 3. The locations stayed fresh and the shooting felt tighter/better than most FPS games. The only level that dragged was the airport one and we all know that FEAR 1 had a 4+ level segment that dragged so I can't really harp on Day 1 for one level.
Since they made Blood 1 and 2, Shogo, No one Lives For Ever and FEAR i'll give them 1 or 2 more shit games before i take from them the title of geniuses. :)

Which will happen since the envelope of FPS isn't being pushed any more.
 

Kabouter

Member
Yet another game cleared from the backlog, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. I have to admit, I never played the original, but on the recommendation of stump, I picked up the sequel last year somewhere in a sale. In general, I don't really like the 'Wild West' as a setting. I think it's one of the most uninteresting places in the Western world at that point in time. As such, it's something I have little experience with. That said, I really did enjoy what Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood did with the setting, and the story it told. The settings you travel to are quite varied, and apart from the rather poor final levels, all well executed. It is however a shame that the levels, despite often seeming large, consist of really narrow and linear paths, which you can never really deviate from. Most levels look quite nice though, Techland did a solid job on the graphics. As regards the story, I found myself interested in the tale of revenge and greed it told. I did think that outside of the two characters, the characters were a bit weak, and your younger brother just annoying despite the fact that his motivations are the only ones I was sympathetic to in the game.

As far as the gameplay goes, I quite liked the basic shooting mechanics. It's a bit different, firing 19th century weapons as opposed to the assault rifles you use in basically every other first person shooter. Aside from the few times you get on a Gatling gun, no spraying and praying here. A welcome change of pace. Though I could have used a little more variety in what you do, given that 95% of the game is shootouts. What's also nice is that you can change it up by playing a different brother in almost every level if you want (yet strangely, there's no co-op functionality). One being more focused on combat (dual wielding pistols) the other being more focused on ability and stealth (despite there being almost no need for it). The mechanics aren't always a success, the rope-climbing with the lasso is not exactly a brilliant mechanic for instance, but some of them work quite well, like the different bullet time abilities the brothers have. There's also the odd duel in the game, but I didn't really care for them. I should also note that the enemy AI is quite poor, and often seems completely absent from friendlies. Oh, and horse riding is ridiculous.

Overall, I thought Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood was a solid title, but it never really blew me away. It used its setting fairly well, and the gunplay is nice, but in the end I could have used a few more surprises, a bit more variety and a lot more freedom. 6/10
 

Ledsen

Member
Since they made Blood 1 and 2, Shogo, No one Lives For Ever and FEAR i'll give them 1 or 2 more shit games before i take from them the title of geniuses. :)

Which will happen since the envelope of FPS isn't being pushed any more.

I found NOLF1+2 for cheap in a store a couple of weeks ago. I bought them so hard (have only played the second one before).
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Bound in Bloods visuals could have been amazing if there wasn't severe pop-in/lod issues. I loved the use of color-grading or whatever you want to call it to make most areas feel visually distinct.

My favorite segment of the game was when you go to the Indian territory and all that crazy shit goes down.
 

DOA

Member
Oh god, there are 255 Portal 2 test chambers in the Workshop already. Some of these look horrifying and evil.

Some of these look pretty complex -- I wonder how people managed to get them up so quickly. Have they been plotting designs in CAD waiting for the DLC to come out?

more like they've planned it on Minecraft
 

Kabouter

Member
Bound in Bloods visuals could have been amazing if there wasn't severe pop-in/lod issues. I loved the use of color-grading or whatever you want to call it to make most areas feel visually distinct.

My favorite segment of the game was when you go to the Indian territory and all that crazy shit goes down.

Yeah, that was my favourite part as well. Visually absolutely striking in places.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Yet another game cleared from the backlog, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. I have to admit, I never played the original, but on the recommendation of stump, I picked up the sequel last year somewhere in a sale.
I would say that if you liked the story, the original game is worth checking out, but it sounds like you aren't very into wild west games.

The preacher man in the original game was the most memorable part from me, along with me (perhaps easily impressed at DX10 graphics) being blown away by the intro part where you wander through a mountainous area.

Shooting and pressing a button to Bible-quote. "And the smoke from their torment goeth up forever...and ever."

*edit* Oh, and I actually have a good bit of respect for Techland in their support for custom singleplayer and multiplayer levels with the editor. I think they even made an official site for it, possibly with tutorials, and you can find custom maps and whatnot: http://www.cojmodding.com/
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
The original COJ feels quite rough in comparison to the second one. It had really ghetto stealth segments and the visuals don't hold up very well due to some hideous artistic decisions.
 

Kabouter

Member
The original COJ feels quite rough in comparison to the second one. It had really ghetto stealth segments and the visuals don't hold up very well due to some hideous artistic decisions.

I'll probably skip the original then, I have an extremely low tolerance for bad stealth. Might actually try to finish Red Dead Redemption on my 360 at one point though, I gave up
somewhere in Mexico
.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I liked the original better than Bound in Blood, for what it's worth.
However, it is reknowned for (one or two?) really bad stealth sections that are the worst parts of the game, as far as I know. Kabouter beware! And yeah the visuals are great in some places but probably very dated in others.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I liked the original better than Bound in Blood, for what it's worth.

I do think the original had some things going for it such as a sort of wild ambition to some of the level design (one great example is the level where you are playing the kid climbing the mountain on his vision quest) and an eagle that actually attacks you.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
I think the original is worth a look. It's got some great open environments that give more freedom then the corridors of the sequel.

It does however have this level where you need to climb this mountain to get an eagle feather. That level is utter garbage.
 
I found NOLF1+2 for cheap in a store a couple of weeks ago. I bought them so hard (have only played the second one before).
Since we are talking about Monolith Ledsen, i keep forgetting i need to finish Condemned but i haven't found it on Steam. Is it because of my region?

Also i just realized they never ported the second game to the PC. Which is the better Condemned 1 or 2?
 
I'm actually fairly bummed out that Vin Diesel Wheelman was taken down. It's been the running joke of previous Steam sales between my circle of friends, but I never actually grabbed it, thinking I'd wait for the next sale. I actually thought the Xbox demo was silly fun.

And now it's gone. Sorry Vin.
 

Kabouter

Member
Okay, wishlisted the first Call of Juarez. I'm completely mystified as to why it's double the base price of Bound in Blood though (€20 vs. €10). Not that I'd buy it outside a sale, obviously.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
Hi guys, I have a question about Steam cloud. I play games mostly offline (steam that is) and I want to know what happens if I log into steam and start to play the game I've been playing offline. Will my saves get replaced by the one on steam cloud?
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Hi guys, I have a question about Steam cloud. I play games mostly offline (steam that is) and I want to know what happens if I log into steam and start to play the game I've been playing offline. Will my saves get replaced by the one on steam cloud?

In the event of a version discrepancy, you're asked which one you'd like to keep/use.
 

Blizzard

Banned
In the event of a version discrepancy, you're asked which one you'd like to keep/use.
Is it true that sometimes games with Steam cloud saves mess up and delete one or the other? I thought I saw people complaining about the Steam version of Witcher 2 for this reason, and getting the GoG version instead.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
In the event of a version discrepancy, you're asked which one you'd like to keep/use.

Ok, good to know :D Started to play Sonic Generations again and i noticed that my last save on steam cloud is before the first boss and I forgot to go online before I reformatted my PC. UGH!
 
I'm actually fairly bummed out that Vin Diesel Wheelman was taken down. It's been the running joke of previous Steam sales between my circle of friends, but I never actually grabbed it, thinking I'd wait for the next sale. I actually thought the Xbox demo was silly fun.

And now it's gone. Sorry Vin.

Wow, I always wantd to mess with that game if it were ever dirt-cheap on a sale... why's it gone?

I wondewr if there is any strategy or way to tell when a game will be removed from Steam? Are there any known/common sales metrics a game has to have in its statistics to accurately guess whether it will soon be dropped from Steam?

Or is all we have to look for just licensing disagreements at this point?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom