Steam Winter holiday sale 2015

[Cyborg]

What's on everyone's shopping list?

For me, fallout, Franchise hockey manager 2, gremlins Incorporated, Final Fantasy V, sorcerer king, and kerbal space program. Depending on the price, of course!

Let the sales begin! 

[x4000]

Just Cause 3 for me.

[Misery]

I'll just buy whatever looks shiny whenever I happen to see it.  Same as I usually do, really...

I'd originally heard though that they werent going to be doing much of a sale this year though?  Something about their policies changing a bunch.

[Wingflier]

I'm looking at Divinity: Original Sin, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharaak, and/or Warhammer: Xermitide.

I may get all or none of those, but they all look promising.

[Mánagarmr]

Unsurprisingly. Nothing. I have all the games I ever need and more. I REALLY don't feel like owning more games, and in addition, modern games always end up being huge disappointments to me. So, for now, absolutely nothing.

I'm probably getting old but all this "lowest common denominator" approach to game development is just not for me. No game is unique anymore. They're all just rehashes of old games, yet made simpler and less interesting.

I'm sure there's exceptions, but I look at new games and just go "YAAAAWN".

[crazyroosterman]

honestly nothing really comes to mind at the moment unless some of the games on my wish list come on sale ill probably take it by ear and like misery just get what takes my interest.

[Misery]

I REALLY don't feel like owning more games

This does not compute.

in addition, modern games always end up being huge disappointments to me. So, for now, absolutely nothing.

I'm probably getting old but all this "lowest common denominator" approach to game development is just not for me. No game is unique anymore. They're all just rehashes of old games, yet made simpler and less interesting.

I'm sure there's exceptions, but I look at new games and just go "YAAAAWN".

...but this does!  This is typically how I view major releases.  Now, there are exceptions every now and then, and oddly for me (very oddly, actually) both were from Nintendo; Splatoon has become a favorite of mine (a shooter that isnt about hiding and sniping, but instead about shooting LITERALLY EVERYTHING?  Yes, thanks, more of that) and Mario Maker is basically something I'd wanted for freaking decades.  Those alone would have sold that console to me, but.... they're a very rare case, since as you say, MOST developers these days tend to just put out crap.

The biggest problem I see is the current trends.  The biggest one being the obsession with advancing technology.  If it doesnt have unfathomably amazing graphics, it's not a real game!  Too bad they've dug themselves into a rut though: The costs for making said games have gone totally overboard, and even if they wanted to, even the biggest developers/publishers just cant fit that much actual CONTENT into their games now because they have to spend so very, very much on the graphics and engine alone.  The more amped up the tech gets, the more prevalent this will become. 

Or the difficulty problem.  Heaven forbid the player EVER get a game over, and not IMMEDIATELY be able to see the rest of the all-important story and cutscenes... they might not buy the next 30 sequels if that happens!  Better give them infinite lives and enemies that attack by dying at them.  Ugh.  Now I'll admit that my idea of a challenge is a little warped, but this is ridiculous really, how many games have become.   A side effect is that I now REALLY hate story-stuff in most games.  Not that I ever cared all that much about that sort of thing to begin with; I dont play games to watch freaking cutscenes, after all!

Anno 2205 was the most recent major game I bought.  And really, I couldnt have been more disappointed.  This travesty after 2070 from just a couple of years ago, which is EXCELLENT and absolutely stuffed with content, while 2205.... they took out all that made Anno what it was.  Combat relegated to an ENTIRELY SEPERATE set of maps (which you can TOTALLY IGNORE with no penalties whatsoever), no more AI rivals or NPCs in general, and they even took out the random map generator.   Anno without random maps!  It's a crime against the universe!  Their lame excuse was "it lets us make the maps pretty now" since ALL maps are pre-set, but we all know the REAL reason is so they can sell maps later.  That the maps actually ARENT that much more good looking than the already-gorgeous 2070 (really?  Telling us that your current game wouldnt look good with random maps when your PREVIOUS game proves you wrong by existing?  Sigh...) just make this dumber.

And this is why I just stick mostly to indie games these days.  Devs that actually GIVE A DAMN tend to produce good stuff (that's why I'm HERE, after all, eh?).  The fact that graphics can no longer impress me anymore (seen everything, really, by this point; I'm ready to go back to the old 2600 now, thanks...) just makes it easier for me to get into indie stuff, even.  I end up buying games extremely frequently.

Recently, They Bleed Pixels and Downwell are a couple of new buys; both are very good, though the first one is the "extreme" type of platformer, though not to the brain-melting level of Super Meat Boy; still hard though.  And some other games like Darius Burst and Mushihime-sama were of course grand purchases, though those arent indie games.... but games from lesser-heard-of publishers are good too, as again, they tend to bother to use effort; idiotically, this is why they're not well known.   I hate this industry, really.

That all being said.... there's still not much to buy right now, because I already buy games so frequently that I seem to have gotten most of what I wanted already!  Though it occurs to me that I havent actually looked through my "wish list", I kinda forgot that was there....

[x4000]

In general I feel the same.  A lot of the AAA games also suffer from "let's make this animation look really awesome on the character, and thus put him on rails for 1.5 seconds every time you make a strike, so you can't cancel the animation or do anything."  I hate that.

The reason I really like GTA5 and think I'll like Just Cause 3 is because they are basically big toys that I get to play with.  I like the graphics, I like the feeling of freedom, I like blowing stuff up and shooting people.  It's a toy.  I get to make my own difficulty in there, by doing whatever the heck I feel like. 

Can I go on a murder spree by the hospital, steal a really terrible car, make it to my air hangar on time, get in a private jet on time and take off without it getting shot, then fly it into the side of a building and bail out at the last second with wreckage falling around my parachute, then kill a motorcyclist and go on a high-speed chase down highways until I ramp up onto a moving train, after which I take out the minigun and rocket launcher and just wreak havok on the poor police whose AI doesn't know how to handle it?  (Hint: yes I can.)  It's like a stress ball for me.

[crazyroosterman]

yea I agree the thing is that those game all juiced up with graphics will end being forgotten when the next game that inevitably obsesses over its graphics even more comes out and typically I don't care about the story that much(pre-set ones any way) since I read a lot and books usually do pre set stories better.

[Aklyon]

I remember They Bleed pixels mostly from the surprised/confused/impressed reactions of the devs during this agdq run

As for the sale, probably not much. Mostly waiting to see how xcom2 is in feb.

[TheVampire100]

I'm so fed up with this "This game has to look more realistic!" trend. A good looking game may amaze you but seriously, what you have on a long term from it? It's a game, not a simulation of the real world, so it does not have to look like the real world.
Also, the better the graphics, the bigger the requiremnts, forcing players always to get betterand more expensive equiment for their pc.
I don't want to upgrade my pc twice a year because developers think that graphic engines have to be more and more complex nowadays to satisfy the player crowd.

I have some games with better graphics (Stranded Deep has really amazing graphics but it's actually an indie game and because of the fact the graphics are so good everything takes forever to develop) but the majority of my games are indie games because I like indie games more.
Developers of those games are more dedicated to make a good game instead of making a good cash cow (except Dungeon Defenders. That game will always be a cash cow). Indie game developers are mostly "new" to the market, they don't have a big name, don't have big financers behind them, they are on their own. If they screw up it's their money they lose not that of a publisher. They take the risk with their games and it's important to make what the gamers want not what the developers think the gamers want. Surprisingly a lot of players prefer gameplay over graphics as it has been shown. As far as I can see, these "graphic fanatics" are mostly little children or mid teenagers that are easy to amaze with good graphics and that don't take further research into a game. They just look hit the game looks like and decide from that point if a game is good or not. If it does not look good it obviously isn't good. It's that lazy way of thinking that dooms the gaming industry.

Another thing I really hate of nowadays games are DLCs. Almost every developer think that his game totally need dlc to be better, better when the dlc is aviable righ at release, so he can sell the game twice to the same person.
Sometimes I can understand why dlc is made. It's an expansion to the game (something what boxed games in stores had in older times) and you get literally "more" of the game without being forced to buy it. It unlocks a new area, side story or anything bigger related to the game. Some dlcs are just cosmetics. Because, we all know that players always wanted this armor in pink for 5$. It's totally worth the money!
I cannot think of any way why people think this kind of dlc is okay. This is just wasted time and potential. If you want me to buy 5$, then don't give me something that you made in 5 minutes.
Then there are dlcs that are literally parts of the game chopped up and sold individually. Now, these are luckily rare but they do exist. Mostly are known as "episodic games".
Oh yeah, we all know Telltale with their "cool" interactive story games. But I won't accept this crap, I won't accept any episodic game. They sell you half of a game and for every bit of the story that you don't have, you have to pay extra. Why do people do this? And then those games are well praised. Okay, maybe the games ARE good but the way the marketing is handled is not okay. Just make it one game and sell it on a higher price instead of selling tiny bits of the game.

[crazyroosterman]

wait I don't think you have to pay for episode in episodic games? I thought you just bought the game and then got the next parts free when they came out? granted that's just an assumption of mine since I've never actually played any of those games.(system requirements and so on bla bla bla)

[Misery]

In general I feel the same.  A lot of the AAA games also suffer from "let's make this animation look really awesome on the character, and thus put him on rails for 1.5 seconds every time you make a strike, so you can't cancel the animation or do anything."  I hate that.

The reason I really like GTA5 and think I'll like Just Cause 3 is because they are basically big toys that I get to play with.  I like the graphics, I like the feeling of freedom, I like blowing stuff up and shooting people.  It's a toy.  I get to make my own difficulty in there, by doing whatever the heck I feel like. 

Can I go on a murder spree by the hospital, steal a really terrible car, make it to my air hangar on time, get in a private jet on time and take off without it getting shot, then fly it into the side of a building and bail out at the last second with wreckage falling around my parachute, then kill a motorcyclist and go on a high-speed chase down highways until I ramp up onto a moving train, after which I take out the minigun and rocket launcher and just wreak havok on the poor police whose AI doesn't know how to handle it?  (Hint: yes I can.)  It's like a stress ball for me.

Ah, yeah, I really enjoyed JC2 as well.   Which is kinda rare for me; I normally dont get into that sort of thing because alot of them tend to focus on the "here's a bunch of total innocents, and here's a chainsaw, just do whatever" aspect.  It's like, I know it's just a game, but I still dont want to do it; and really I never cared for the whole "OMG you're a criminal how cool is that" aspect of GTA that everyone else then copies.   JC2 I liked because it very distinctly gave you an actual enemy group, and made sure that there are LOTS of them.  It never ceases to provide you with jerks that want to shoot you just... because, which I guess fits the title.  For me, it's like, hey, ACTUAL THREATS THIS TIME.  Time to save the day!  ....by tying that bad guy to a passing semi and waving goodbye.  Never said I was the PLEASANT sort...   and in alot of ways, the game did it's own thing rather than JUST copy GTA.  I freaking LOVED that fact.  Yes, you still fight guys with guns (or in my case, beat them over the head with the hook thing as much as possible, because hahaha) and you're still going to randomly steal cars and things, but it just went off on a totally different tangent from there.   The world had ACTUAL FREAKING COLOR (I'm sorry, but the GTA games are UGLY, as are many of their clones; this one was not) and just looked great; heck, I loved just even looking for items in the water, because it was just gorgeous, but gorgeous because of the design, not because of technical whatsits.  I mean, they actually know what the color green is. 

And then there were 10 zillion collectibles to find (that actually did stuff), bases full of military jerks to infiltrate, and of course, the wonderful grappling hook / parachute combo.  It was like being Batman except that Batman never went and hit anyone over the head with the grappling hook after using it.  Probably.

It even had ninjas in it.  Ninjas!   I never was sure just WHY, but they were there.


Only other game of this sort that I ever really got into was the original Crackdown (which despite it's setting was, actually, pretty colorful, and you could jumpkick various jerks offa stuff).   The sequel though was dreary and disappointing.


PREVIOUSLY, I mighta jumped straight into Just Cause 3, because of how good JC2 was, but.... no.   After 2205, I'm NOT just jumping into it.  It's not a matter of cost;  the cost really doesnt matter whatsoever to me.  But I hate the idea of at all supporting lazy (or shady, even) publishers and such.   So tired of that. 

So this time.... I'll probably wait until I hear some stuff about it. 

I'm so fed up with this "This game has to look more realistic!" trend. A good looking game may amaze you but seriously, what you have on a long term from it? It's a game, not a simulation of the real world, so it does not have to look like the real world.
Also, the better the graphics, the bigger the requiremnts, forcing players always to get betterand more expensive equiment for their pc.
I don't want to upgrade my pc twice a year because developers think that graphic engines have to be more and more complex nowadays to satisfy the player crowd.

I have some games with better graphics (Stranded Deep has really amazing graphics but it's actually an indie game and because of the fact the graphics are so good everything takes forever to develop) but the majority of my games are indie games because I like indie games more.
Developers of those games are more dedicated to make a good game instead of making a good cash cow (except Dungeon Defenders. That game will always be a cash cow). Indie game developers are mostly "new" to the market, they don't have a big name, don't have big financers behind them, they are on their own. If they screw up it's their money they lose not that of a publisher. They take the risk with their games and it's important to make what the gamers want not what the developers think the gamers want. Surprisingly a lot of players prefer gameplay over graphics as it has been shown. As far as I can see, these "graphic fanatics" are mostly little children or mid teenagers that are easy to amaze with good graphics and that don't take further research into a game. They just look hit the game looks like and decide from that point if a game is good or not. If it does not look good it obviously isn't good. It's that lazy way of thinking that dooms the gaming industry.

Another thing I really hate of nowadays games are DLCs. Almost every developer think that his game totally need dlc to be better, better when the dlc is aviable righ at release, so he can sell the game twice to the same person.
Sometimes I can understand why dlc is made. It's an expansion to the game (something what boxed games in stores had in older times) and you get literally "more" of the game without being forced to buy it. It unlocks a new area, side story or anything bigger related to the game. Some dlcs are just cosmetics. Because, we all know that players always wanted this armor in pink for 5$. It's totally worth the money!
I cannot think of any way why people think this kind of dlc is okay. This is just wasted time and potential. If you want me to buy 5$, then don't give me something that you made in 5 minutes.
Then there are dlcs that are literally parts of the game chopped up and sold individually. Now, these are luckily rare but they do exist. Mostly are known as "episodic games".
Oh yeah, we all know Telltale with their "cool" interactive story games. But I won't accept this crap, I won't accept any episodic game. They sell you half of a game and for every bit of the story that you don't have, you have to pay extra. Why do people do this? And then those games are well praised. Okay, maybe the games ARE good but the way the marketing is handled is not okay. Just make it one game and sell it on a higher price instead of selling tiny bits of the game.

Ooh, yeah, that episodic crap is NASTY.    That's just.... wrong to me.  It's something that you JUST DONT DO.   So of course, they do it.

Hell, I hear that the new remake of FF7 is episodic?  AND it has the gameplay COMPLETELY gutted (oh good, another button-mashy "RPG", just what the industry needs now)?  But of course people are going to look at it, go "OMG CLOUD SEPHIROTH COOLNESS LASER EXPLOSIONS!!!!11" and buy like 5 copies each.

wait I don't think you have to pay for episode in episodic games? I thought you just bought the game and then got the next parts free when they came out? granted that's just an assumption of mine since I've never actually played any of those games.(system requirements and so on bla bla bla)

Nope.  You buy every part SEPERATELY.  They're typically all the exact same price.

I mean, if you think about it.... that's exactly why it's done at all.

Usually, storylines are the entire hook of episodic games, wether they're adventure games or otherwise.  They wouldnt sell if it wasnt for that in most cases.   Again with the all-important stories, ugh. 

As far as I'm concerned, the best in-game story was "Blast off and fight the evil Bydo empire!!!".   Now THAT was a well-written masterpiece.

[crazyroosterman]

you do?! I always assumed you got the rest for free since I didn't anybody would ever buy a game that's coming in parts and THEN PAY for the rest of the parts that just seems like nonsense especially since you can watch actually TV shows for free(kind of) which will have better story's in general then again people go to the cinema which I don't understand either why pay for the privilege of sitting in a dark cramped room with people who will just annoy you? instead of waiting that pathetic amount  of time to buy the dvd of it which you can do what ever the hell you want with?.....people are so weird aint they?.

[Misery]

you do?! I always assumed you got the rest for free since I didn't anybody would ever buy a game that's coming in parts and THEN PAY for the rest of the parts that just seems like nonsense especially since you can watch actually TV shows for free(kind of) which will have better story's in general then again people go to the cinema which I don't understand either why pay for the privilege of sitting in a dark cramped room with people who will just annoy you? instead of waiting that pathetic amount  of time to buy the dvd of it which you can do what ever the hell you want with?.....people are so weird aint they?.

Yep, sadly, that's how it works.  And they often really do use the story alone to do it.  Because nobody likes an unfinished story.

What gets me is how quickly it became an accepted thing.  It's okay to do now.  This fact is absolutely baffling to me.  No thanks to freaking Telltale.

Also I dont understand going to theaters to watch movies either.  They smell funny, and those floors... often it's like someone spilled liquid evil on them.  You sure dont want to touch those floors, definitely not.  Ick.  Also you cant pause anything.

Though as I dont really watch movies that works out well.  It'd be just as silly to do that to watch Youtube though.  Well, even more ridiculous, actually.  Though it'd probably be less irritating than the actual glitchy site.