STEAM!

[TSBasilisk]

You could always argue Walking Dead is more a Western-style visual novel than a video game. It has a greater emphasis on story-telling and character interaction than gameplay, which puts it more towards the visual novel end.

[Humanoid]

 

I'm tempted to jump on the new Divinity, but paying more or less full price for a beta would set a bad precedent for me.

I'm pretty sure I tossed a little money towards it during their KS, but not enough to get into the alpha/beta tiers. I can wait.

 

Unless I'm mixing up my projects, I think they might have opened up alpha access to all KS backers.

[melkathi]

 

Unless I'm mixing up my projects, I think they might have opened up alpha access to all KS backers.

 

 

Indeed.

[alanschu]

 

 

I'm tempted to jump on the new Divinity, but paying more or less full price for a beta would set a bad precedent for me.

I'm pretty sure I tossed a little money towards it during their KS, but not enough to get into the alpha/beta tiers. I can wait.

 

Unless I'm mixing up my projects, I think they might have opened up alpha access to all KS backers.

 

Isn't that kind of a risky thing? I didn't contribute and have limited personal stake, but what if people contributed at a particular amount specifically because they wanted early access?

[Humanoid]

I vaguely recall that credit/refunds were made available for people who took up the pre-release access as addons. Not sure what the impact on people who just had tiers with that access by default though.

[Gorgon]

It's being sold as early access on STEAM actually.

[alanschu]

Yeah, I just remember the one space themed game who had $90 early access because they didn't want (or were unable) to go below that value or they'd be at risk of shafting earlier purchasers that paid that much for the early access.

 

If they refunded money that'd really help for sure.

[Spider]

Larian is refunding money yeah, either as credit in their store or cash refund if you prefer it (although then you have to contact them).

 

Wasteland 2 is selling their Early Access on steam for $60 and there's apparently been a fair bit of backlash for that price. People generally don't expect a beta to cost more than the finished game.

 

WL2 of course had to price it that high so they wouldn't conflict with their KS tiers, and those buying the EA version are getting the digital deluxe package, but not a lot of people know that.

 

Larian is clearly taking a better approach here, and I think anyone planning on starting a new Kickstarter should think long and hard before including beta access as a KS reward.

[Hassat Hunter]

Those CSI games were the epitome of videogames?

I forgot about those.

But I meant their Sam & Max games and such. They kept dropping qualitywise per game after S&M Season 2. Usually the funny could cope up with that (like Monkey Island), but... lacking funny. Or a good story. Yeah. 

Wait, The Walking Dead games are laden with QTEs?

The walking dead IS QTE. That's all there is to it.

I could excuse it with a good story (Think Fahrenheit before the obvious missing content block), but... The Walking Dead's one is pretty avarage.

Which was shocking to conclude after all those raving reviews.

Maybe no reviewers ever play RPG's that "a or b" is seen as interactivity, even if the very next episode it's either unified for the players, or just completely discarded you ever made a choice...

[Oerwinde]

 

Those CSI games were the epitome of videogames?

I forgot about those.

But I meant their Sam & Max games and such. They kept dropping qualitywise per game after S&M Season 2. Usually the funny could cope up with that (like Monkey Island), but... lacking funny. Or a good story. Yeah.

Wait, The Walking Dead games are laden with QTEs?

The walking dead IS QTE. That's all there is to it.

I could excuse it with a good story (Think Fahrenheit before the obvious missing content block), but... The Walking Dead's one is pretty avarage.

Which was shocking to conclude after all those raving reviews.

Maybe no reviewers ever play RPG's that "a or b" is seen as interactivity, even if the very next episode it's either unified for the players, or just completely discarded you ever made a choice...

The next episode is never unified in TWD. Your choices carry over to each episode and are often referenced several times.

[Blarghagh]

I thought The Walking Dead's story was far superior to the dreck that Fahrenheit was. Pretentious nonsense.

[Majek]

Larian is refunding money yeah, either as credit in their store or cash refund if you prefer it (although then you have to contact them).

 

Wasteland 2 is selling their Early Access on steam for $60 and there's apparently been a fair bit of backlash for that price. People generally don't expect a beta to cost more than the finished game.

 

WL2 of course had to price it that high so they wouldn't conflict with their KS tiers, and those buying the EA version are getting the digital deluxe package, but not a lot of people know that.

Didn't they lower that to 45$ quite fast? ( Yes, it's  45€ ≈ 60$ in Europe, but that is Steam's fault.)

[AwesomeOcelot]

I thought The Walking Dead was meh, there's way better TV shows, it's mediocre with stupid moments that were probably because of the nature of "interactive" novels, the reason it's one of the worst games is the gameplay. Where as Fahrenheit was offensively bad, cliche characters, stilted and stupid dialogue, and a ridiculous plot, the gameplay was even worse than The Walking Dead, Fahrenheit is definitely the worst game I've ever played. Of course gamers are notorious for loving **** stories, the amount of beloved Japanese games for instance. Then again The Da Vinci Code happened, and that's terribly written and the plot is nonsense, so clearly humanity loves the worst stories.

Edited January 22, 2014 by AwesomeOcelot

[Blarghagh]

I remember in Fahrenheit when somewhere in the start of the game, you had to pick up a guitar and do a QTE mini-game to wait for the next story bit - that's when I realized it was a bad movie with bits of procrastination in it masquerading as gameplay. At least The Walking Dead's QTE's were happening inside the story instead of outside of it.

[Hassat Hunter]

There was never a requirements to do the guitar OR boxing mini-game to advance the story... they were just... there.

 

I know I've completed playthroughs doing neither...

 

EDIT:

As for TWD choices matter, to me it felt that was usually kept to the first 5 min (remember what happened?) and then it moved on to the on-rails plot. Saved X or Y in 1? They have like 2 min facetime in ep2, then get promptly killed in their 2 min of ep3. Same way with either char.

That's... really bad C&C.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Hassat Hunter

[TSBasilisk]

La-Mulana is on sale today for 90% off, probably to get more people interested in their Kickstarter for the sequel.

[Malcador]

Steam apparently was acting up, removing some people's games, giving them ones they never bought and re-downloading updates. I guess it's resolved now?

[AwesomeOcelot]

Steam apparently was acting up, removing some people's games, giving them ones they never bought and re-downloading updates. I guess it's resolved now?

Only Valve games from the comments on Steam, only Dota 2 and Portal as far as I could see. It swapped Portal for Counter-Strike: Source for me, broke it, had to redownload it later.

[kgambit]

Anyone having problems logging in to steam tonight? 

 

nvm - steam was having brain farts .....  lol

Edited January 30, 2014 by kgambit

[HoonDing]

 

Steam apparently was acting up, removing some people's games, giving them ones they never bought and re-downloading updates. I guess it's resolved now?

Only Valve games from the comments on Steam, only Dota 2 and Portal as far as I could see. It swapped Portal for Counter-Strike: Source for me, broke it, had to redownload it later.

 

I wish they had removed my Valve games.

[Monte Carlo]

Kingdoms of Amalur is on special offer, UK£5.99 or 7.99 for the CE with all the game DLC.

 

I've never played it, apart from tinkering with the demo so it's a steal at that price. It can join all the other games I haven't really got time to play.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Monte Carlo: It's definitely worth one playthrough. All I can say is that God of War-like combat comes with a QTE button masher and it is usually far too easy. I even played it at the hardest difficulty. Crafting is way too overpowered, and there are weird messages when you try to click on caves and trails sometimes saying that your not high enough level for this content. Grr! There are plenty of plain fetch quests spread out like miles and miles from one another. You also have that small inventory to boost up. Google online where those NPCs are that can enlarge it for you, coz the lewt in this game is aplenty. If you also pick up the dlcs, I'd say the one with the stone giants is far more entertaining than the one with the island, where you get a pirate stronghold.

[melkathi]

I prefered the pirate one. The titan one seemed a bit tedious to me at times.

 

Also, the disenchant mini-game is worse than hacking in Alpha Protocol.

[BruceVC]

Kingdoms of Amalur is on special offer, UK£5.99 or 7.99 for the CE with all the game DLC.

 

I've never played it, apart from tinkering with the demo so it's a steal at that price. It can join all the other games I haven't really got time to play.

 

What I'm confused about is if 38 Studio's has gone bankrupt who does the support for this game? Where are the developers....

[IndiraLightfoot]

BruceVC: There was never o.n.e...s.i.n.g.l.e...p.a.t.c.h for the game. Just a hotfix early on IIRC. The whole thing was a scandal. Still it's more or less bug free.