Got a selection of GOOD STEALS on sale, stranger! (Part 1)

jodeaux · September 17, 2019, 12:38am

I’d chill with Rage 2 for like $30. It’s bland but a very studied, deliberate form of bland that feels more satisfying at a budget price.

Mr_Mechanical · September 17, 2019, 12:47am

It has good gunfeel.

Mikey · September 19, 2019, 9:10pm

A whole boatload of recent Batman games are free on Epic Store right now

Mr_Mechanical · September 19, 2019, 9:59pm

No love for Arkham Origins I see.

toups · September 19, 2019, 10:04pm

someone sell me on quantum break

Felix · September 19, 2019, 10:07pm

honestly if you want to play a modern remedy game without spending a lot of money, control is right there with no DRM

toups · September 19, 2019, 10:11pm

you’re really good at answering a different question than what was asked

Felix · September 19, 2019, 10:12pm

Max Payne / Alan Wake / Quantum Break / Control

Oh I bought it and beat it and I didn’t post about it in here. I did a little thing in Games U Played I guess.

This was really extremely good. Remedy is the weirdest developer. In the popular imagination they’re still being powered by Max Payne, their first work, and considered an action developer. While that’s not wrong per se, it’s obvious that their focus is really on formal experiments in videogame plotting and formatting. From Remedy’s perspective, the comic book cutscenes and especially the dream levels were just as important as the bullet time.

For anyone who doesn’t know, because I sure as hell didn’t, here is the structure of Quantum Break:

First you play a third-person shooter section broken up into 3 acts. Your guy has crazy time powers, each on an independent cooldown timer, meaning you can do an intricate and flexible series of powers combined with the shooting to do some really stylish, fun, and effective moves. It’s at least as much of a revelatory development on the Cover Thirps as Vanquish is.

At the end of the 3 acts, you have a Junction, which is an extremely short level where you play as the antagonist and make a binary choice about how the story will proceed that affects the next 3 acts that you play as the protagonist. This opens up a crazy amount of gameplay possibilities. Do you pick the choice that you think will make it easiest on your avatar-hero? Do you roleplay the antagonist based on what you know of his personality (which changes as the game goes on and you learn more of the backstory)? Do you just pick what sounds most interesting?

THEN the game streams (which is dumb, but) a live-action TV episode of approximately TNT quality which responds to both the Junction choice you made AND little easter eggy type things you can find during the action levels that depicts the activities both of the antagonist AND of his cronies who form a bunch of shifting alliances, sometimes with you and sometimes against you, so you can see the other side of this corporate structure that spends the action levels trying to hunt you down.

All this is wrapped into a time travel plot. Yeah.

Each of the pieces of writing isn’t going to earn any awards, but the effect of all this stuff wrapped up together and presented to you serially is a real heady mix. I don’t know that this particular structure could work with any other plot and still be effective. But man! I’d never think that a game with high production values and AAA quality thirpsing could be this boldly weird. It’s real good, people.

toups · September 19, 2019, 10:18pm

thank you lmao

Father.Torque · September 19, 2019, 10:24pm

Note to forum: please refer to my posts as definitive sb takes more often in the future, thank you

idiot · September 19, 2019, 10:47pm

i skimmed a couple of videos and lance reddick is in it

Father.Torque · September 19, 2019, 11:39pm

You bet your ass he is

Him and Carcetti. Wire reunion!

LWJoestar · September 20, 2019, 1:44am

was honestly kinda hoping for the telltale series, but ah well

idiot · September 23, 2019, 10:12pm

uk psn has some good shit

ys 8 for £14, the hokuto yakuza thing for about the same

meauxdal · September 25, 2019, 8:03pm

freespace 2 is free on gog until the 27th
https://www.gog.com/game/freespace_2

Tulpa · September 25, 2019, 9:44pm

The best way to run freespace 2 is to use Knossos to install essential mods and serve as a general launcher

edit: The simplest set up is install knossos, set freespace 2 up properly, and install the MediaVPs.

Then you would just play MediaVPs instead of “Retail FS2”. The MediaVPs are a collection of graphics improvements and patches put together by a long running team of Freespace 2 enthusiasts.

And if you want one obvious choice of campaign to install, You can grab the FreeSpace Port and FreeSpace Port MediaVPs to play a full version of Freespace 1 in the FS2 engine.

Tulpa · September 25, 2019, 10:56pm

here’s what I have installed right now. I haven’t tried most of these but they should prove interesting.

Felix · September 26, 2019, 5:22pm

strongly recommend this, it’s much cheaper than it’s been and it’s a ton of fun if you like semi-sim racers

username · September 27, 2019, 2:50am

Everything and the Redux version of the first Metro game are the Epic freebies for the week, I remember a lot of excitement for the former but am unsure if anyone actually bothered to play it.

Next week the free game is Minit, so that’ll be another one to knock off my Steam wishlist.

Felix · September 27, 2019, 2:52am

everything is actually quite neat, it’s so purely art museum-pretentious that it comes full circle and pretentiousness can’t be held against it.

metro 2033 redux is also probably the best metro experience after mini metro