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Since the Steam sale is so ludicrous, I thought it'd be worth having a thread regarding older or less popular games which are now dead cheap, but which people might not know much about. In the other thread I noticed a few.

UaW is nowhere near as interesting (or even modern) as it appears, even for $5. Try to skip the SP and play multi or skirmish.

Dead Space is a lot of things, but the loot balancing means it's much easier if you never buy a gun and stick with the first one, so all the ammo drops are for the best gun in the game. For god's sake don't buy the 'assault rifle' with 'helicopter mode of useless'.

Eufloria is actually a freeware game called Dyson. Free is cheaper than cheap.

Gratuitious Space Battles is only fun if you like management and design, it's not an RTS.

Cities XL is a SimCity game that cripples itself if you don't pay the monthly fee; the 'normal' version is broken.

Chiming in once again for Company of Heroes. Don't think you need the expansion packs - you can play with anybody no-matter which version you have. Every expansion is stand-alone. You don't get access to British / Panzer Elite if you don't have the first expansion, but the second expansion only adds some alternate units for each faction (which aren't very good most of the time).

DEFCON is surprisingly awesome, too.

Torchlight turns out to be a really fun hack and slash game for people who don't like fantasy.

Also, Beyond Good & Evil for three bucks. Nobody bought it on release; don't make the same mistake. It's a quirky but fun action-adventure Zelda clone-ish game.

Whoa, I didn't see BG&E in there. That's awesome.

Torchlight looks like an older q Diabl... Fate or something? A Wildtangent game from years ago.

It's by the same guys. You pick one of three stock fantasy characters and then wander through randomly generated dungeons picking up loot. It's nothing exceptional but it is simplified enough to be a great time waster.

AVOID:

Universe at War - I hated it, it felt bad - the controls were sloppy, graphics were ugly, the game was not good.

Frontlines: Fuel of War - it might just be me, but even with everything on minimum it's still a slideshow on a PC that can eat Crysis for breakfast.


Recommended:
Torchlight is awesome. It's Diablo but with the boring/tedious shit cut out. No inventory juggling to fit in items (everything is one tile), you can send your pet back to town to sell off loot without having to go back yourself and it looks and sounds great. Plus there's a goddamn robot bard who demands you kill things for him to sing about.

Gratuitous Space Battles - a space fleet design and high level strategy game. Interesting, but also can be very annoying.

Zombie Driver - silly little driving/shooting GTA (1&2) kind-of-clone. Well worth the current asking price.

Jedi Knight Collection - worth it.

Blood Bowl - it's steep still, but for the price if you like the table top game it's a near perfect adapation of it.

Chronicles of Riddick - if you haven't played Butcher's Bay before then this is another I'll recommend.

Act of War: Direct Action - get this RTS. It's not the best RTS you'll play, but it features some great FMV cutscenes and interesting dynamics like holding prisoners for intelligence or cash gathering and the like.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - the best stealth game out there. We'll wait and see what Thief 4 does, but in the meantime this outing of Sam Fisher's is what to play if you enjoy sneak-em-ups.

Trials 2 - bang your head against this wall, but love doing it.

Altitude - a side scrolling flight shooter with a system of perks and the like. Very cool.

Osmos - strange little physics based Flow-type/Cellular life game that is possibly still overpriced, but I'm enjoying it.

Penumbra Collector's Pack - get them. Turn lights off. Put head phones on. Enjoy.

Zeno Clash - crazy art, decent enough game to back it up, but worth it for Chilean modder fever dream designs alone.

Sniper Elite - WW2 stealth/sniper game. Has some cool mechanics and is very challenging without it being unfair.

Rogue Trooper - a squad shooter where you are the only member of your squad. It's OK. It'll make sense when you play it. But probably only a real recommendation here for those into 2000AD (or those who once were).

Safecracker - a Myst-like puzzler. Some really fucking hard puzzles.

Ben There, Dan That/Time Gentlemen, Please! - two awesome indie adventure games.

The Naval Combat pack - Janes' Fleet Command is a long time favourite of mine and the rest of this pack is just gravy.

Ghost Recon pack - again a personal favourite and if you don't already own most of these it's a great value proposition.



Not on sale, but should you feel inclined to spend a bit more:
Blueberry Garden - a platformer that's about 30-45 minutes in total. Lovely art and music.

Sacrifice - Crazy RTS/third person RPG/shooter with Earthworm Jim as a god who you can serve. Shiny's finest hour.

The Graveyard - play the demo if you don't want to give out any of your hard-earned, but at least give it a try.

Rogue Trooper? I wanted this to be a serious thread to help people with unfamiliar games.

The Void:
One of the most legitimate artistic video games. No, really. Both visually and in storyline. It may not be the most attempt at a game that is also art, but it is an attempt sure as hell.

Aquaria:
Beautiful, fun, immersive and even emotionally touching. Don't believe me? Try the demo then.

Now, how's Tank Universal and Space Trader: Merchent Marine?

Eufloria is actually a freeware game called Dyson. Free is cheaper than cheap.

Yeah, I actually got into a bit of an argument over this at tigsource. Between playing ye-oldie-Dyson and Eufloria, there are little to minute differences.

So definitely avoid.

Stark wrote:Rogue Trooper? I wanted this to be a serious thread to help people with unfamiliar games.

Like I said, it's for people who are fans. OR are you thinking of Rogue Warrior?

Rogue Trooper wasn't too bad; certainly an above average third-person shooter. You'll certainly enjoy it more if you liked the comic but the gameplay holds up on it's own, I think.

Stark wrote: Torchlight looks like an older q Diabl... Fate or something? A Wildtangent game from years ago.

Torchlight is made by the folks who made Diablo 1/2 and then left Blizzard. It's basically new Diablo. It's got a lot of little improvements over the previous games, and at $10 I can guarantee if you liked Diablo you'll get your money's worth.

Oddworld Pack for platform/puzzle fix.

weemadando wrote:Sacrifice - Crazy RTS/third person RPG/shooter with Earthworm Jim as a god who you can serve. Shiny's finest hour.

This was indeed one hell of a game. But get it at gog.com for four bucks.

Space Trader is horrible. I'm not even sure it's worth $5. If you want that sort of thing, get Space Rangers 2 sometime when it's on sale.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - the best stealth game out there. We'll wait and see what Thief 4 does, but in the meantime this outing of Sam Fisher's is what to play if you enjoy sneak-em-ups.

Oh fuck yes.

Shame they screwed it up awfully for 4.

Double Agent had some great ideas and a few interesting levels, but it just failed to deliver.

Conviction looks great though. But it might be time to play through some Chaos Theory again - hey, you're in Aus... Co-op?

Ghost Master. A fun older game where you control a bunch of ghosts and scare away puny humans from their homes. Totally worth the one buck it goes for.

I don't know if it's worth it, but Shattered Horizon has been keeping me occupied for a while now -- and it's $14.99 USD at the holiday sale.

What is it? An FPS in space -- with no gravity. Quite fun.

Downsides: No single player, only 4 maps (but 4 more are promised soon for free download.), only one gun (w/ bayonet -- stabbity stab stab!) and 3 grenade types, and requires DirectX 11 (so Vista or Win7 users only) and a pretty good rig. That just means the graphics are beautiful.

I run it okay on an 8600 GTS and AMD Dual Core 5000+. Of course I also had to turn the shadows down, no AA (Something I never use anyway), etc, and at 1024x768 or whatever. Doesn't look half bad like that either.

weemadando wrote:Double Agent had some great ideas and a few interesting levels, but it just failed to deliver.

Conviction looks great though. But it might be time to play through some Chaos Theory again - hey, you're in Aus... Co-op?

I'd love to, but I'm shaped and on a shared connection. At the best of times, I get 200+ ms, most of the time it's worse.

adam_grif wrote:I'd love to, but I'm shaped and on a shared connection. At the best of times, I get 200+ ms, most of the time it's worse.

What do you mean by shaped? And unfortunately, same here re: latency due to shared connection. Even when I'm the only person online on the connection... it's Verizon Online DSL, and probably still overpriced.

Edward Yee wrote:

adam_grif wrote:I'd love to, but I'm shaped and on a shared connection. At the best of times, I get 200+ ms, most of the time it's worse.

What do you mean by shaped? And unfortunately, same here re: latency due to shared connection. Even when I'm the only person online on the connection... it's Verizon Online DSL, and probably still overpriced.

Traffic shaping

...and today's specials are a pile of shit.

Though I suppose if you don't have Medieval Total War 2 already it might be worth a look.

Shattered Horizon is now $4.99 during today's special, so I'm glad I waited. Also, If I didn't already own both, I would totally buy Crysis Maximum Edition (Crysis and Warhead) for $13.59.

Executor32 wrote:Shattered Horizon is now $4.99 during today's special, so I'm glad I waited. Also, If I didn't already own both, I would totally buy Crysis Maximum Edition (Crysis and Warhead) for $13.59.

I declare both games well worth 14$. If you don't have them already pick them up for 7$ each.