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[timferius]

Any thoughts on Tomb Raider (recent release)? It's at a pretty decent price right now (10 bucks, 12 for Survival Edition), but is it worth it?

As for AOE2-HD, I suggest you get it for the second expansion pack (in eons; The Forgotten) that comes with the combo pack (AOE2, AOC, TF), and the mere fact that it's Age of Empires. I mean 5 bucks for the game isn't half-bad (optimized for modern machines), and the combo is just 2.50 more to it. The modding community also seems rather strong as well from what I thumbed through on a whim.

I'll see you guys on the battlefield.

* Itnetlolor buys his copy of AOEII+TF.

I actually enjoyed the new Tomb Raider, but mileage may vary.

[RedKing]

Grabbed Brütal Legend (plus original soundtrack for 50 cents) just because I've generally loved everything Double Fine has touched and am an ardent cultist fan of Tim Schafer. And a fan of classic metal. And you have to love a game that has Lemmy Kilmister and Ozzy Osbourne playing themselves.

[Nighthawk]

@ Mephisto

Dust was very good, though a bit short for my taste. Story was not bad by any means, but it wasn't exactly spectacular. Gameplay was the best part of it. Chaining huge aerial combos and countering enemy attacks with perfect timing makes you feel like such a boss.

3.74 isn't a bad price for it, but you might consider getting something else if want replayability, because Dust is really only fun for a single run-through (at least in my opinion).

[RedKing]

Grabbed Brütal Legend (plus original soundtrack for 50 cents) just because I've generally loved everything Double Fine has touched and am an ardent cultist fan of Tim Schafer. And a fan of classic metal. And you have to love a game that has Lemmy Kilmister and Ozzy Osbourne playing themselves.

Oh dear merciless Lord....why did I wait so long to get this? Loving every minute of it.

[Darkmere]

Just dropped in to say I picked up Bionic Dues for $5 and do not regret one cent. If you have any interest in turn-based tactical combat, check it out.

[Sappho]

Spoiler: I got a response from the Stanley Parable guys regarding pricing and obtaining their game without Steam. (click to show/hide)

Hi, we set the prices for US dollars, british pounds and euros. Steam's default price conversion charges more outside the US, but we ignored those and did our own based on google's currency conversion rates, it should have been a nearly identical cost across all of them. I'm not sure where the conversion to crowns is coming from, I wonder if steam automatically picks a conversion rate that ups the price a bit, but whether it's being converted from dollars or pounds or euros I have no idea. That's something operating in steam that even I don't have access to, so I'm not sure I'll be any use in getting an answer.

Due to our contract and licensing issues the game is steam exclusive, so it's the only way to play. To ease the pain of using steam's DRM, let me just give you a code: (removed for obvious reasons)
Don't worry about paying me back, I'm sure you're already getting hosed on other conversion rates! Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,
Davey

---

I wrote back explaining that Steam doesn't convert to crowns, it's done automatically by my bank and I pay euro prices. I pointed out that the euro and dollar prices for their game are actually pretty close, so maybe they were identical when they set the price, and the values of the currencies have just changed since then so it's a little off now.

I thanked him for his generosity and quick response and told him I will buy the game for myself at the current sale price, and pass along the free code he gave me to someone who wants the game but can't afford it. (I'll add it to one of the giveaways in the forums here.)

From this email, it seems to me that developers do have the option to set their own prices, but if they don't bother to do it, Steam just sets the price with $1 = EUR1, which is ridiculous. So when the prices are similar, it's probably because the developers wanted them to be fair. If the "conversion" just replaces the dollar sign with a euro sign, that's Steam being a bunch of jerks.

Also, the developers of the Stanley Parable seem like really great people, and I encourage everyone who wasn't sure about buying the game to give it a shot. I like supporting these types of developers.

[scrdest]

Spoiler: I got a response from the Stanley Parable guys regarding pricing and obtaining their game without Steam. (click to show/hide)

Hi, we set the prices for US dollars, british pounds and euros. Steam's default price conversion charges more outside the US, but we ignored those and did our own based on google's currency conversion rates, it should have been a nearly identical cost across all of them. I'm not sure where the conversion to crowns is coming from, I wonder if steam automatically picks a conversion rate that ups the price a bit, but whether it's being converted from dollars or pounds or euros I have no idea. That's something operating in steam that even I don't have access to, so I'm not sure I'll be any use in getting an answer.

Due to our contract and licensing issues the game is steam exclusive, so it's the only way to play. To ease the pain of using steam's DRM, let me just give you a code: (removed for obvious reasons)
Don't worry about paying me back, I'm sure you're already getting hosed on other conversion rates! Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,
Davey

---

I wrote back explaining that Steam doesn't convert to crowns, it's done automatically by my bank and I pay euro prices. I pointed out that the euro and dollar prices for their game are actually pretty close, so maybe they were identical when they set the price, and the values of the currencies have just changed since then so it's a little off now.

I thanked him for his generosity and quick response and told him I will buy the game for myself at the current sale price, and pass along the free code he gave me to someone who wants the game but can't afford it. (I'll add it to one of the giveaways in the forums here.)

From this email, it seems to me that developers do have the option to set their own prices, but if they don't bother to do it, Steam just sets the price with $1 = EUR1, which is ridiculous. So when the prices are similar, it's probably because the developers wanted them to be fair. If the "conversion" just replaces the dollar sign with a euro sign, that's Steam being a bunch of jerks.

Also, the developers of the Stanley Parable seem like really great people, and I encourage everyone who wasn't sure about buying the game to give it a shot. I like supporting these types of developers.

Wow, that's really nice of them!

On the other hand, I wouldn't really get pissed off at Steam, because thanks to their sales I saved waaaaaaay more than I lost at conversion rates

[Itnetlolor]

While the sale lasts (9 hours left, as of this post), last minute just noticed, You Don't Know Jack (classic collection) is on sale. If you want a fun party game to play with some of your friends (Local machine only) with some trivia in a game show format, I suggest you get it. I've had Vol. 2 and Movies in my collection long ago, and had some fun with it (also getting trounced by my siblings playing them too (screwed over one too many times (Yes, it's an actual feature that forces a player to answer a question, and it's so annoying to get hit by, or to have your target answer correctly; because when your 'target to screw' answers correctly, they win the cash prize, and you lose that same amount in the same round, and your screw for the set (10 questions if playing a 21 question game)))))). I got the complete classic collection (10 bucks for 9 volumes) since it'll be a nostalgia rush, and also because we've played the hell out of Movies and Vol. 2 (and lost our old solid copies), and could use some new trivia.

Oh yeah, in case that didn't interest you in the game enough, there's more curveballs they toss into it here and there. My suggestion, just because you're in the lead doesn't mean you can just lie back and guarantee your win by not answering anymore; the game will call you out on it, and force you to answer a difficult question; just as well, don't buzz in too early, unless you know the EXACT ANSWER, because you'll have to type it in, instead of waiting for the multiple choices to appear (and if before the question appears, no question will appear either, leaving you completely in the dark. I hope you got it memorized, or are TAS running the game.). The game knows how to screw with the players, especially those who think they've found a loophole and intend to abuse it. Trust me, I've tried, and the developers have thought of everything. A worthy purchase if I say so myself; and that's just based on the earlier games in the series. Oh yeah, and later editions, from what little I played, sometimes call back to other YDKJ games too, so I suggest you get familiar with some of them as well.

For some more information, the Trope page is actually well-informed: You Don't Know Jack

Just as well, Cortex Command is 5 bucks. Get it before it's too late.

[Siquo]

Steam allows me to buy shit without a credit card. The Netherlands uses its own online system called "iDeal", and Steam is one of the few international providers that actually uses it.

Stanley Parable is... I had a real good time with it, but that time wasn't very long. So going purely by euro-per-hour-of-entertainment metric it scores quite low, but on the total-entertainment-quality-per-euro it scores very high.

[Dutchling]

Not Steam but Steam games: Does Indiegala give you individual Steam Keys or does it link all games to your account? Some indie thing recently did that and I want to gift some of these games away...

[JoshuaFH]

As a person who has literally just squeezed every ounce of enjoyment from the Stanley Parable, it's very very enjoyable. It really is just interactive storytelling, but it's brilliant in more ways than I'm willing to describe without going into spoilers.

[Mephisto]

As long as you're not expecting anything too great, I could probably get that much entertainment out of Jericho. There are... one or two bad QTEs (one of which I had to download an "automatically succeed all QTEs" fix for because it was so bad, so there may or may not be more seeing as I bypassed them), IIRC, but I think the possession mechanic as well as some of the powers are interesting.

[Sappho]

The sale is over, but I just want to leave one last note in here...

The Stanley Parable. BRILLIANT. So very worth the money, and I'm glad I paid for it. I just dropped a couple of hours trying to mess with the narrator and having a grand ol' time. The attention to detail is fabulous. The writers of the game seem to have thought of just about everything.

OH MY GOD THE BROOM CLOSET. I was literally in tears. I was laughing so hard that salt water was leaking out of my face.

I hope everyone got what they wanted out of the sale. Anger at Steam's "conversion rates" aside, this sale got me at least one game that is worth all the overpaying I've ever done. Happy December, everyone!

[TripJack]

Is this one worth the six bucks?

don't know about the other crap but i can tell you that those operation flashpoint games are absolute garbage that you should avoid at all costs

[umiman]

Is this one worth the six bucks?

don't know about the other crap but i can tell you that those operation flashpoint games are absolute garbage that you should avoid at all costs

Seconded. They're really bad. Imagine the singleplayer of the ARMA games. That's basically what it is.