Niten_Ryu

PC game sales are notoriously hard to track, but news from last sebtember suggest that direct downloads are at least half of all games sold. But like Steam holiday sales demostrate, average price for downloaded games are lower.

Played a bit of Red Faction Guerilla. Definate improved over previous games and like Purk said, wrecking buildings is great fun. I also found out that my current 3,5 year old rig ain't good enough for the flying debrii so it's time to upgrade in near future. I have to put game on hold untill that. I installed Evil Genious from 2004 - I like the idea but execution could use improvement. Still too early to say if game get better as you get more room options to build and more varied minions.

Damn, those neogaffers are busy bees. That's a good board btw, too bad they don't accept any free email addresses when you try to register account. I did check the data from that same thread on new years eve, but didn't bookmark it for updates. Anyway, from that thread. So yeah, my info was outdated. RDR won most GotY awards that were published in 2010, but Mass Effect 2 has since got way past it. No wonder, as Mass Effect 2 is available on PC too

From industry perpective, it has won the most GotY awards in 2010. Personally I love GTA games, Rockstars writing, characters. Then there's let's plays and similar videos. Design is great, I prefer sandbox over linear games and it's in rarely used setting, the wild west (for me, setting is 9 times out of 10 more important then story). It's certainly more impressive then my own GotY - Fallout New Vegas from game mechanics point of view, less buggy, much more beautiful (even on less then impressive consoles) graphically. Kind of like GTA San Andreas was my GotY in 2004 (it was only released for ps2 first) and I only got the chance to play it 2005 (when it was released for PC).

Red Dead Redemption is the game of the year by far, despite the fact that I'll never get to chance to play it (why Rockstar, why must you hate PC gamers ). I'll break my monitor if LA Noire is this years GotY, as it's also only for consoles. Anyway, personal GotY would be Fallout New Vegas, followed by Mass Effect 2. Rest of the games I bought this year are not the same quality.

And Red Faction 2 is done. It was even worse then Red Faction At least it was over quickly, because this game might be the worst FPS I've ever played. Ugh... Red Faction Guerrilla is next on the list. Hopefully it's better then previous games. I wonder how Red Faction brad even managed to survive after horrible 2nd game.

There ain't defination of hardcore gamer but I'd say he buy few games each month on average (don't have to be full priced) and plays most of 'em (note, based on recent study on archivements, not even the hardcore gamers finish their games all the time.. or at least they buy way more games then they actually finish 'em). Personally I consider myself as a hardcore gamer, who finish at least 95% of the games I own. Before Steam holiday sales I used to do several runs on each game, but my unplayed games catalogue started to bloat like dough, so I try to finish at least few new games each month. Obviously good (or great) games still deserve multiple runs, like most recently Fallout New Vegas. Based on tracking data, I'd say I average about 3,5 hours gaming per day. Don't have time anymore on more fancy stuff like speed running, pistol only, ghosting or ironman runs.

Finished Red Faction. Now there's a game that defines the dark ages of FPS. Red Faction was released few years after Half-Life but developers didn't learn anything from it. Storyline, level design, magnetic "avoid the players crosshair" enemy AI, weapons... all worse then in similar games of that era (Alien vs. Predator 2, Max Payne, Operation Flashpoint, Return to Castle Wolfenstein). I'm really happy that I didn't buy this game back in the day. It's barely worth as historial curiousity from Steam holiday sales Oh and that geomod gimmick? I think I used it about 3 times. Talk about wasted potential.

I don't understand Sony's handheld strategy at all. They have joint venture with Ericsson in mobile phone biz. Now thay haven't had great success lately in phone biz but why separate phone and handheld devices in the age of iPhones and numerous Android devices. PSP2 should be phone with 4G.

I wonder what, if anything, would be going too far in terms of cross-promotion. American football gear with Madden 2011 logo armor? Maybe Need for Speed drivers suit for the rogues? The Sims diamond

Maybe not in that shot but... No shoulder guards but big and heavy... metal... uhhh...

I still use 21" CRT. I think it's from 1999 or 2000. Latest LCDs, LEDs and other techiques are already way past it's quality but I'm certainly not going to throw away working monitor

Stupid cross-promotion garbage. EA should have killed Dead Space brand.

Finally I got a chance to play Rockstar's Bully. Other then obvious control issues (everything is designed to be played with console controller, so keyboard and mouse are definately not optimal), I think the game is great. I love writing in Rockstar games and Bully is no different. I also have to give 'em credit for creating game in such an unused environment. Characters are great and main villain is one of the best ever in computer games.

Sweden still have krona, own monitary policy and nearly balanced budged while virually every other nation in the world have to take huge amounts of debt. You can afford luxury goods. In Finland luxury goods haven't risen much (or gone down in case of games, TVs or computer parts), but basic energy, food and housing prices have risen fast.

I have still price tags in some of my game boxes. In 1995 game cost 300 mk, inflation adjusted price in 2011 would be 63,28

I agree. All DLCs (with the exception of the Episodes from Liberty City, that were bigger then the most expansions) have been complitely useless for me. Sometimes they are not even worth the time it takes to download 'em (and install 'em). Something happend to my Bioware/EA account near the end of my 2nd run. Stone Prisoner just stopped working. But the thing is, I didn't even care enough to bother fixing it. Actually I like the character and quests involved with it, but DA is lenghty enough even without that character. Main pros or cons (both o'plenty) don't change one bit with one (or more) extra character or items. Why DA2 is not on my instant buy list is because at this moment I don't belive it's worth full price. DLCs have nothing to do with it. I might buy the game when it drops to half price (or maybe even sooner if it for some bizarre reason turn up to be great game). Half priced "game of the year" version might be worth it, even if the most extra content is garbage. For example in recent Steam holiday sales, there was only minimal price difference between normal DA and Ultimate edition (contents all the DLC and "expansion").

Supposedly there's at least 2 companions of each class, + Hawke, so you can have 3 of any class I think. They might add more in DLCs of course, like they did with Sebastion. Yeah, I read that incorrectly as of course PC can be mage

Ah, clever. If I understood that correctly, you can't get 3 mage party anymore? It seriously help the balance as it's unlikely that basic root / AoE routine + tank / nuke / heal haven't gone away.

I laughed so hard when I saw that add series. Took ball of steel from EA to go traditional "AXE deodorant" add style or maybe add agency just wanted few cheap (or expensive) laughs. Tired of being Play Dragon Age

Same. I watched the video and saw the picture and didn't see anything except usual DA circa 2003 model. Anyway, talking bout the age of some low quality computer model character is about as useful as bashing your head thru stone wall. After long and pointless discussions about various points for and against, there's ALWAYS "rule 34" that'll make everything null and void.

Quarry shortcut in Fallout New Vegas was great. Game SERIOUSLY suggest that you need to take different route but if you want to risk it, you can take the quicker path. Felt great to see enemies way above your level.

I'm playing Spore. What a waste of potential. I think this game is one of these where everything point to the "magnetic wrong". I'm pessimistic about a lot of things but still Spore managed to suprise me how they manage to fail in every stage of the game. Early game is nothing more then shovelware minigame. Then you skip the whole evolution that happend in water. Extremely boring land based hunting / gathering is up next. Then you move to even more boring tribal era and civilization stage after that ain't no picnic either. Ok, so the game finally begin at galactic stage but... It's SO boring. Something like Starcontrol 2 did this much better nearly 20 years ago. I wonder did anyone even test these various game mechanics, or did Will Wright just bark orders. Stay away from this game.

re: calculations masked as incomparables I'm not sure that even in games it's that simple. Because for example in WoW, there's probably worlds best game and combat mechanic designers and worlds most active theorycrafters breaking down the systems and still you often get incomplite answer for the simple question - What's the best build. Reminds me of scientific community before it accepted the quantium mechanics and advanced mathematics like attractors. They all belived that it was a clockwork universe and everything could be calculated if we'd just get enough info. We'd know the future and the past. But that's not how real world works. Obvious difference is that developers, if they have enough time and resources, do know everything that happen in their game. But since time and resources are limited and teams are huge, they might miss even the most visible bugs or design flaws. So there are cookie cutter builds. But ultimately those were build for the hardcore player and newbie might miss great deal of potetial. Rogue / Warrior skills rotation, gear selection, mob type, encounter type, solo, 5 man group or 10-25 man raid ect ect. There are many variables to say - Yes, that's a best build for you.