Great Steam Sales

[DDL]

Bought (and tried) brink this weekend. It's...odd.

Like, mirror's edge, only instead of having really intuitive, kinaesthesic* control and an emphasis on flow, it has utterly random buttonspam WTF wallbouncing and terrible ping. Oh, and fucktons of shooting.

It was..fun, though. I mostly tried medic (which essentially involves stabbing people with magic syringes), and managed to get an achievement I'm not entirely sure I should be able to get at my level ("resurrected yourself!") by flinging a rez syringe to a downed ally just in time to be shotgunned from behind, fly forward, catch my own syringe (sorry ally!) and rez myself.

Also, it has escort missions. The escortees are possibly the stupidest beings alive. Like, worse than "stand in fire" stupid. Mission structure is supposed to be dynamic and interactive, but really is just a mindfuck of conflicting instructions and bewildered running in circles before you win/lose possibly maybe. And then shrug. Maybe this is because the interface is poorly explained, and it'll improve? Or at least make more sense. Maybe.

There's a separate storyline for each 'faction' (either the stupid chav homeless peeps who are trying to escape their shitty shanty-town that's inexplicably tied to the side of a giant floating luxury 'apocalypse survival island', or the fascist security guards who run the giant floating island who inexplicably want to stop the chavs leaving, I guess?), but they seem pretty short and largely irrelevant. There are also challenges, which can win you weapon upgrade unlocks, which are quite useful (the parkour training one makes the clusterfuck of buttonmash walljump confusa-spam into something more comprehensible, albeit still awful), and the weapon customisation I guess does...something.

Character customisation is quite fun, if you like looking like either an east-end thug or an east-end yardie thug, and the exaggerated physical proportions (big heads, hands and feet -like high def Fable characters) they've used are actually quite endearing. It's not a third person shooter though, so it's not like you see yourself very often.

I'll probably play it again, but it's not something I'd devote hours to. Tis also much better with friends.


*Totally not been reading Jonas's thesis. Nope.

[Jonas]

kinaesthesic*

*A single proud tear rolls down Jonas's cheek*

[Jaedar]

Is The Force unleashed 2 worth a buy at 7 euros if I kinda liked the first one?

I heard that it was worse, which is why I'm asking. Somehow it only has a 60 metascore.... which is really horrible since the scale goes from 6-11.

[shadowblade34]

I don't know whether you should get it Jaedar, but I heard from my friends that it was really really bad. A lot worse than the first. Or they may have been exaggarating.

[Hassat Hunter]

I haven't played the first, so can't compare. It was a pretty avarage action game. Could be better, could be a lot worse. I suppose if you like the first it's worth 7 euro's...

[AEmer]

I couldn't even make myself play the first one. I wanted to, because I'm a massive star wars nerd...but like the witcher, I couldn't abide it's combat system.

[Hassat Hunter]

The original got 65 apparently. So it's just 0.5 worse.
And I got it for 5 euro, didn't notice they discounted it too before. 24 Gig. Damn. Definitely uninstall after I'm done with that...

[Jaedar]

I see they haven't done anything about the whole "Let's make installing every language mandatory and not use any compression" issue that the first game had. Is the interface still shit with all the loading screens everywhere`?

[Jaedar]

Wound up buying it cause I am weak of will.

[Hassat Hunter]

It's "only" 10 gig though... so less than half of the original.

Interface shit though, check.
Loading went really fast... but maybe that's just my PC.

[Jaedar]

Interface may be poor, but compared to the original it's fucking fantastic. I mean, you can change lightsaber crystals without going through 3 loading screens.

[Jetsetlemming]

"Oh hey! A christmas sale/event! Let's see what's available!"

apparently a million 503 errors, server unavailable errors, and unknown loading errors making doing anything at all on Steam completely impossible! Yay!

[Jaedar]

Yup, that's basically my experience as well.

[bobby 55]

Yeah, Store, News, and forums kay-o'd. I guess I didn't win my wishlist either. Also I have to go see an unemployment "assessor". Today is beginning to suck.

[gamer0004]

Steam is not working, er, optimally here either. Patience is a virtue, my friends.