Now, I'm not recommending the core game, I recommending the expansion. Because that's where this game really fucking shines. You see, most strategy games' single player campaigns start you out with 10% of your units and you slowly but surely get introduced to more and more of your arsenal as you reach the end of the game. Forged Alliance does not. Forged Alliance starts you out with EVERYTHING and lets you run through 1 campaign with EVERYTHING! You can take any of the three factions and get a few additional sub-objective along the way, but its a little different each time.
Why is this so great? Because in Starcraft and Dawn of War, you had to work your way up to unlock weapons of mass destruction. In forged alliance, the enemy expects you to start with weapons of mass destruction. Fuck your surgical strikes, this is war, total war. You are break your enemies across your knee and spread their irradiated ashes across the galaxy. Haroo! Haroo! Haroo!
If you haven't played them yet, I highly recommend Max Payne 1 and 2. Really, all three are great games, but certain sequences in the first two were the coolest things I've seen in a game in a while.
Oh, I see how this is going to be. We've decided to escalate gift wars around here from "bury people in backlogs" to "make sure they have no free time ever again."
First Isy gifts me Defiance a week or so ago. Then today he drops another MMO on me with The Secret World. And now... ? Now out of nowhere @heenato throws this at me:
Because, hey, why not? Let's pile a perfectly innocent "just one more turn" timesink on there, too, shall we?
Thanks!
But goshdarnit, heenato! I still haven't sufficiently got you back for your last volley!
Actually I think Max Payne is one of my favorite video gaming experiences ever. I remember I was given it as a gift or maybe birthday present I can't quite recall why. I was 13 at the time and stayed up all night with the volume on 1 as close to the TV as possible so as to not wake up my parents.
I ended up getting maybe 45 minutes of sleep and waking up just in time to catch the school bus and
SNOW DAY
Max Payne and I snowed in together. It was a glorious day.
Just a heads up. Because Final Fantasy got released for Steam, the FF7 mod community I'm with has been absolutely inundated with newbies. As an FYI, here's some things to know about the Seam version of FF7.
The Seam Version is the 2012 re-release of the 1998 US version of Final Fantasy 7 for PC. This makes the version a re-re-release of the program. This means there are three "versions' of FF7 for PC.
1) The 1998 version. This is the moddable one
2) The "Square Online Store" version that was released in 2012
3) This version, which I will call the "Steam version"
Ok, now. Here is the kicker about all three versions. They are all the same thing!
In 2008, the FF7 mod community noticed that the game used a modular graphics driver. The original driver was OpenGL and was with the PC demo released in 1998. It was changed to DirectX for the 1998 commercial release. A new OpenGL driver was written by the modding community and fixed many problems with the PC port allowing it to run on current machines.
In 2012 Square released the game with their own driver and hacked in cloud saves, achievements and such and such. THE ORIGINAL 1998 GAME EXECUTIBLE IS STILL BEING USED. It's just "wrapped" by the new driver and leads us to believe that Square has lost the original PC source code to the game.
The Steam version is just the 2012 version with a few Steam hooks. That's it
So, if you want to make FF7 moddable, you need to remove Square's graphic driver and replace it with the moddable fan-made one. You will lose cloud saves and achievements, but the original game didn't have them and if you look at the list of achievements, they are things you do in the game as a matter of winning it anyway. You honestly lose nothing.
A little more info about the cheevo system:
In the 2012 version (and by extension the Seam version) is actually the 1998 executable is "wrapped" by another program that adds the cloud saves and the achievements. The wrapper program runs the original FF7 executable and watches it. FF7 stores all of it's variables in one spot, called the "savemap" that is saved when you save the game. The achievement system monitors the savemap for changes and then flags them when they hit a particular value. That's all it's doing.
It's a really dirty hack
To use mods, you must downgrade, The "downgrade" removes the wrapper and replaces the driver with the fan-made one. That's why you lose the cloud saves and achievements, but gain mods
Take that, backlog! Orcs Must Die! complete. Not well or anything, but I made it through the campaign on normal. I would have perfected the last level if not for those dickbag sappers. Next up is some Sonic Racing before I dive back into OMD!2.
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Just a heads up. Because Final Fantasy got released for Steam, the FF7 mod community I'm with has been absolutely inundated with newbies. As an FYI, here's some things to know about the Seam version of FF7.
The Seam Version is the 2012 re-release of the 1998 US version of Final Fantasy 7 for PC. This makes the version a re-re-release of the program. This means there are three "versions' of FF7 for PC.
1) The 1998 version. This is the moddable one
2) The "Square Online Store" version that was released in 2012
3) This version, which I will call the "Steam version"
Ok, now. Here is the kicker about all three versions. They are all the same thing!
In 2008, the FF7 mod community noticed that the game used a modular graphics driver. The original driver was OpenGL and was with the PC demo released in 1998. It was changed to DirectX for the 1998 commercial release. A new OpenGL driver was written by the modding community and fixed many problems with the PC port allowing it to run on current machines.
In 2012 Square released the game with their own driver and hacked in cloud saves, achievements and such and such. THE ORIGINAL 1998 GAME EXECUTIBLE IS STILL BEING USED. It's just "wrapped" by the new driver and leads us to believe that Square has lost the original PC source code to the game.
The Steam version is just the 2012 version with a few Steam hooks. That's it
So, if you want to make FF7 moddable, you need to remove Square's graphic driver and replace it with the moddable fan-made one. You will lose cloud saves and achievements, but the original game didn't have them and if you look at the list of achievements, they are things you do in the game as a matter of winning it anyway. You honestly lose nothing.
A little more info about the cheevo system:
In the 2012 version (and by extension the Seam version) is actually the 1998 executable is "wrapped" by another program that adds the cloud saves and the achievements. The wrapper program runs the original FF7 executable and watches it. FF7 stores all of it's variables in one spot, called the "savemap" that is saved when you save the game. The achievement system monitors the savemap for changes and then flags them when they hit a particular value. That's all it's doing.
It's a really dirty hack
To use mods, you must downgrade, The "downgrade" removes the wrapper and replaces the driver with the fan-made one. That's why you lose the cloud saves and achievements, but gain mods
Can you give us a link to your mods? I might have to dig out my discs.
Amazing games that I think everyone should pick up in a sale:
Rising Storm: The stand alone expansion for Red Orchestra 2 contains both the RO2 content and the new, Pacific theatre added in Rising Storm. Billed as a hardcore, realism focused take on World War II FPS's it's actually exceptionally easy to get into due to aping it's controls from modern shooters along with featuring smaller maps than most realism focused games have, creating a tighter paced gameplay experience that flows really well.
Combine it with immersive sound design and a great teamplay dynamic and Rising Storm is a shooter that I can't promise you'll have fun with but can promise would be worth a sales entry price just to experience it.
Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger: Imagine if you took Bastion's narration style and flare then transposed it onto a tightly controlling, action focused arcade shooter. Gunslinger is a complete surprise after the previous game in the series 'The Cartel' bombed everywhere, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it's challenge level very engaging. While it struggles mechanically with how to deal with boss fights and an awkward dueling mini-game I think anyone whose a fan of shooters owes it to themselves to give Gunslinger a whirl and not find themselves thinking how cool they are.
Magical Diary: A visual novel with an anime style may not really seem like the kind of thing that screams brilliance to most people but Magical Diary was another surprise I didn't expect I'd enjoy and only brought on Luchaire's recomendation. The game is quirky, charming and up-beat every step of the way and you'll soon find yourself planning your week carefully to prepare for your Magic exams while juggling weekend dates and desperately trying to get the Rabbit toy from the crane machine over at the arcade.
The game even has hidden depths on replays where you start to realise every event is carefully mapped out and certain things that seemed impossible on your first run are perfectly do-able (albeit with a guide infront of you).
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare: This just went on sale so you should have already brought it. It's simply put an objective focused shooter that replaces machineguns with swords and shotguns with the most goddamn satisfying maul I have ever used in a video game. Similar to Red Orchestra the sound design and frantic gameplay make it a highly immersive experience I'd recommend anyone to at least try if they're even mildly curious.
Dungeonland: Simply put Dungeonland is some of the most fun I've had with friends in a long time. The game is either an average to unfairly difficult 3 player co-op experience or a 3 vs 1 mode in which one player controls the dungeon by summoning and possessing monsters and traps. It's exceptionally funny and creates some great moments. While buggy and only really good for the adversarial mode I'd still recomend picking it up if it goes on sale.
I have others that I'd recomend (Wargame: Airlandbattle in particular) but I'm not sure they'd be great as generic 'everyone should try this' style pick ups.
I need to know who owns Sonic All Stars, but not the dlc.
Thread's almost as fast as Sonic these days... I just caught up.
I have All-Stars Racing, but not the DLC. (Yet.)
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
0
CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
You gift war veterans must have some insane deep cuts by now on your wish list. And I imagine @luchaire is scraping the bottom of steam games by now haha.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
I just hope that Monaco and the Skyrim DLC get a decent pricecut during the Summer Dale, I wanted those games for a very long time now.
We are brothers in hope. I really need them to do a Skyrim Gold Edition Upgrade like that nice Civ 5 thing, but I get the feeling they're not interested in that.
@HiT BiT decided to be a jerk and make the avatar pink because one of my previous posts and thus I have changed my avatar for the first time, ever because HiT BiT is a classhole of highest repute
@HiT BiT decided to be a jerk and make the avatar pink because one of my previous posts and thus I have changed my avatar for the first time, ever because HiT BiT is a classhole of highest repute
that is fantastic.
0
Wooden SpoonGreat for SaucesRegistered Userregular
@HiT BiT decided to be a jerk and make the avatar pink because one of my previous posts and thus I have changed my avatar for the first time, ever because HiT BiT is a classhole of highest repute
Okay guys, the steam thread seems to be veering into a chat thread and not a Steam-Related chat thread. What can we do to fix this? Easy, lets discuss what we're looking forward to gifting during the Dale. Games you want to see on sale, not because you want them, but because you know they're great and others should try them out. Give 3 suggestions on amazing games that if they go on sale, other people should buy them.
1. Tomb Raider - Other people are saying it, but it was one of the biggest surprises of this year, if not the whole generation. Solid game where everything just works. Movement especially is really fluid and fun, even during obvious QTEs.
2. Just Cause 2 - In the off chance everyone doesn't already have this. Its a bigger, better GTA style game set on a massive island. If you can see it, you can go there. You can grapple shot onto stuff, do stunts and tricks, and just generally have a good time. There's also a multiplayer mod in the works (maybe even out now?).
3. Divinity 2 - An older game, and easily overlooked, but it's great fun if you're into western RPGs. Larian likes to put some humor in their games alongside great visuals and satisfying combat, looting and leveling. Some parts of the game do drag-on (pun very much intended), but all in all it's a great experience.
Apparently I spent enough time looking at and download mods for L4D2 for inevitable card farming, that I got a card.
0
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
edited July 2013
I'm convinced Valve is in bed with the power companies and the Steam trading cards are just a way to get people to waste more electricity by idling in video games 24 hours a day.
minor incident on
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
0
Wooden SpoonGreat for SaucesRegistered Userregular
I think it's pretty much inarguable at this point.
I'm convinced Valve is in bed with the power companies and the Steam trading cards are just a way to get people to waste more electricity by idling in video games 24 hours a day.
Its the first step in the Illuminati's Dragon Millennia Plan.
1. Kerbal Space Program - Build rockets (or rocket planes). Launch them. Watch them climb to orbit, dock with space stations, travel to the Mün or other planets ... or crash and/or explode in a giant fireball, throwing pieces and little green men everywhere. It's all as much fun as you'd expect a giant bin of LEGO Space parts filled with hypergolic fuel and liquid oxygen to be.
2. Monaco - IT'S CRIME TIME
3. (as in) Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon - This neon-soaked cyborg manshooter is so 80s it hurts. Hurts so good.
Commander Zoom on
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
0
KrummithDJ LogicDeath can't take me until I finish my backlogRegistered Userregular
2. Zen Pinball tables so I have more people to play against.
3. Triple Town because it's stupidly fun.
The top three that I want to buy myself are Skyrim, Fez and Don't Starve.
0
CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
2 buying suggestions.
Tomb Raider - it's just really really fun and well made. There's been technically better games this year, and better stories...but honestly, not a better overall gaming experience.
Kentucky Route Zero - A really interesting adventure game with lovely aesthetics. Also weird as shit. Absolutely bonkers.
Posts
Only reason I'm not using mine is because I rely on the pinkness to find my posts when scrolling fast.
Steamworks
Ridiculously cheap but no DLC.
My top 3:
1. Don't Starve Robinson Crusoe Rouge-like done in a Tim Burton style. Poop is life.
2. Everyday Shooter Honestly, the music might be better than the game, and the game is really solid.
3. Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Ah, gas powered games' magnum opus.
Why is this so great? Because in Starcraft and Dawn of War, you had to work your way up to unlock weapons of mass destruction. In forged alliance, the enemy expects you to start with weapons of mass destruction. Fuck your surgical strikes, this is war, total war. You are break your enemies across your knee and spread their irradiated ashes across the galaxy. Haroo! Haroo! Haroo!
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
if you play max payne 1 you'll need this
First Isy gifts me Defiance a week or so ago. Then today he drops another MMO on me with The Secret World. And now... ? Now out of nowhere @heenato throws this at me:
Because, hey, why not? Let's pile a perfectly innocent "just one more turn" timesink on there, too, shall we?
But goshdarnit, heenato! I still haven't sufficiently got you back for your last volley!
I ended up getting maybe 45 minutes of sleep and waking up just in time to catch the school bus and
SNOW DAY
Max Payne and I snowed in together. It was a glorious day.
HATED
BLOOD
MAZE!
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
The Seam Version is the 2012 re-release of the 1998 US version of Final Fantasy 7 for PC. This makes the version a re-re-release of the program. This means there are three "versions' of FF7 for PC.
1) The 1998 version. This is the moddable one
2) The "Square Online Store" version that was released in 2012
3) This version, which I will call the "Steam version"
Ok, now. Here is the kicker about all three versions. They are all the same thing!
In 2008, the FF7 mod community noticed that the game used a modular graphics driver. The original driver was OpenGL and was with the PC demo released in 1998. It was changed to DirectX for the 1998 commercial release. A new OpenGL driver was written by the modding community and fixed many problems with the PC port allowing it to run on current machines.
In 2012 Square released the game with their own driver and hacked in cloud saves, achievements and such and such. THE ORIGINAL 1998 GAME EXECUTIBLE IS STILL BEING USED. It's just "wrapped" by the new driver and leads us to believe that Square has lost the original PC source code to the game.
The Steam version is just the 2012 version with a few Steam hooks. That's it
So, if you want to make FF7 moddable, you need to remove Square's graphic driver and replace it with the moddable fan-made one. You will lose cloud saves and achievements, but the original game didn't have them and if you look at the list of achievements, they are things you do in the game as a matter of winning it anyway. You honestly lose nothing.
A little more info about the cheevo system:
In the 2012 version (and by extension the Seam version) is actually the 1998 executable is "wrapped" by another program that adds the cloud saves and the achievements. The wrapper program runs the original FF7 executable and watches it. FF7 stores all of it's variables in one spot, called the "savemap" that is saved when you save the game. The achievement system monitors the savemap for changes and then flags them when they hit a particular value. That's all it's doing.
It's a really dirty hack
To use mods, you must downgrade, The "downgrade" removes the wrapper and replaces the driver with the fan-made one. That's why you lose the cloud saves and achievements, but gain mods
This reminds me.
I should get around to playing Ys Origin that I think I bought during the last Winter Dale.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
BTW @Big Classy tried to gift me a copy of Defiance a week ago. What a classy bastard he is.
Can you give us a link to your mods? I might have to dig out my discs.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Rising Storm: The stand alone expansion for Red Orchestra 2 contains both the RO2 content and the new, Pacific theatre added in Rising Storm. Billed as a hardcore, realism focused take on World War II FPS's it's actually exceptionally easy to get into due to aping it's controls from modern shooters along with featuring smaller maps than most realism focused games have, creating a tighter paced gameplay experience that flows really well.
Combine it with immersive sound design and a great teamplay dynamic and Rising Storm is a shooter that I can't promise you'll have fun with but can promise would be worth a sales entry price just to experience it.
Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger: Imagine if you took Bastion's narration style and flare then transposed it onto a tightly controlling, action focused arcade shooter. Gunslinger is a complete surprise after the previous game in the series 'The Cartel' bombed everywhere, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it's challenge level very engaging. While it struggles mechanically with how to deal with boss fights and an awkward dueling mini-game I think anyone whose a fan of shooters owes it to themselves to give Gunslinger a whirl and not find themselves thinking how cool they are.
Magical Diary: A visual novel with an anime style may not really seem like the kind of thing that screams brilliance to most people but Magical Diary was another surprise I didn't expect I'd enjoy and only brought on Luchaire's recomendation. The game is quirky, charming and up-beat every step of the way and you'll soon find yourself planning your week carefully to prepare for your Magic exams while juggling weekend dates and desperately trying to get the Rabbit toy from the crane machine over at the arcade.
The game even has hidden depths on replays where you start to realise every event is carefully mapped out and certain things that seemed impossible on your first run are perfectly do-able (albeit with a guide infront of you).
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare: This just went on sale so you should have already brought it. It's simply put an objective focused shooter that replaces machineguns with swords and shotguns with the most goddamn satisfying maul I have ever used in a video game. Similar to Red Orchestra the sound design and frantic gameplay make it a highly immersive experience I'd recommend anyone to at least try if they're even mildly curious.
Dungeonland: Simply put Dungeonland is some of the most fun I've had with friends in a long time. The game is either an average to unfairly difficult 3 player co-op experience or a 3 vs 1 mode in which one player controls the dungeon by summoning and possessing monsters and traps. It's exceptionally funny and creates some great moments. While buggy and only really good for the adversarial mode I'd still recomend picking it up if it goes on sale.
I have others that I'd recomend (Wargame: Airlandbattle in particular) but I'm not sure they'd be great as generic 'everyone should try this' style pick ups.
I'm also looking forward to tomorrow because that's when I'll buy the Walking Dead DLC and play through it with the lady. We'll have all the feels.
I know one change they made was using the battle models in place of the blocky ones.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Thread's almost as fast as Sonic these days... I just caught up.
I have All-Stars Racing, but not the DLC. (Yet.)
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
I got it too.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
We are brothers in hope. I really need them to do a Skyrim Gold Edition Upgrade like that nice Civ 5 thing, but I get the feeling they're not interested in that.
that is fantastic.
Bolded for absolute truth.
Wooden Spoon on Steam
3DS: 1005-8709-0277
1. Tomb Raider - Other people are saying it, but it was one of the biggest surprises of this year, if not the whole generation. Solid game where everything just works. Movement especially is really fluid and fun, even during obvious QTEs.
2. Just Cause 2 - In the off chance everyone doesn't already have this. Its a bigger, better GTA style game set on a massive island. If you can see it, you can go there. You can grapple shot onto stuff, do stunts and tricks, and just generally have a good time. There's also a multiplayer mod in the works (maybe even out now?).
3. Divinity 2 - An older game, and easily overlooked, but it's great fun if you're into western RPGs. Larian likes to put some humor in their games alongside great visuals and satisfying combat, looting and leveling. Some parts of the game do drag-on (pun very much intended), but all in all it's a great experience.
Valve is the world's shadow government.
Wooden Spoon on Steam
3DS: 1005-8709-0277
Only until my eventual (and inevitable) takeover.
There will be mushroom umbrellas for everyone.
Also - @Blendtec - good call on Div 2. That was a great game and I'd love to see more people play it.
Its the first step in the Illuminati's Dragon Millennia Plan.
2. Monaco - IT'S CRIME TIME
3. (as in) Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon - This neon-soaked cyborg manshooter is so 80s it hurts. Hurts so good.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
The Darkness II $7.49
R.A.W: Realms of Ancient WaR $3.74
Edna and Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes $9.99
Chaos on Deponia $9.99
Deponia $9.99
Velvet Assassin $1.99
Use code GMG20-XLQ7U-EMMBY for 20% off
2. Zen Pinball tables so I have more people to play against.
3. Triple Town because it's stupidly fun.
The top three that I want to buy myself are Skyrim, Fez and Don't Starve.
Tomb Raider - it's just really really fun and well made. There's been technically better games this year, and better stories...but honestly, not a better overall gaming experience.
Kentucky Route Zero - A really interesting adventure game with lovely aesthetics. Also weird as shit. Absolutely bonkers.