Apologies we’re a little late with this weekend’s round-up of agreeably-priced electric videogames: the Hivemind was busy fighting squirrels in the park when bargainmeister LewieP’s article arrived in our inbox. Damned squirrels ruin everything. But there is yet time to indulge in one of these splendid bargains…
Cryostasis – Sleep of Reason – £7.95/€11.99/$11.99
Billed as a proper mash up of survival horror and first person shooting, with ice, Jim’s Eurogamer review makes me think this is certainly the right price for it:
“Cryostasis is a brave, fascinating, often very beautiful game, but I find it impossible to recommend it – and not least because it runs like an exploded dog on most PCs. It’s not quite creative enough – its environments fall into a monotony of samey rooms and bulkheads – and its combat is too clunky to be delicious. I’m certain that this is a game that some gamers will tuck into heartily, and happily. The ugly truth of the meal, however, is that’s it’s still frozen in the middle.”
RPS Coverage here, and demo here.
NecroVision – £4.99/€7.49/$7.49
This is an FPS set during WWI, except it has Vampires, Demons and Zombies. I feel I should turn your attention towards this screenshot. That is some kind of big walking robot, and a biplane in the background. In 1916. Fictitious robotics aside, could be fun. Demo here.
Positech games: Half price
RPS comment-regular Cliffski’s games are all 50% cheaper on Impulse this weekend:
Democracy 2 – £6.98/€8.20/$11.49
Kudos – £3.01/€3.53/$4.95
Kudos 2 – £6.05/€7.11/$9.95
Kudos: Rock Legend – £3.01/€3.53/$4.95
All Positech games are DRM free, and these should all play great on older systems too. RPS Coverage here, and demos of all the games here.
EM EM OH Sale
I’ve never actually played a MMORPG (although I have reviewed one), but Steam have a bunch of them on offer right now. In case any of you are thinking of getting Age of Conan, I just noticed it requires 36GB free hard drive space, so you might have to delete a few Peggles’ worth of stuff to clear space for it.
Deal of the week
Sword of the Stars
Ok, this one is a little complicated, and uses 3 different vendors. Sword of the stars is a Space 4X game, and it recently got a “Ultimate Collection” rerelease, which includes the two expansion packs. It seems to be on offer at 3 of the big digital distribution places:
GamersGate have the Ultimate Edition for a currency proof £7.99/€7.99/$7.99
Impulse have the Ultimate Edition for £6.49/€7.63/$10.68
Direct2Drive have the Ultimate Edition + a preorder for the soon to be released third expansion “Argos Naval Yard” for £10.95/$16.95
So, decide what country you are in, what currency you want to pay in, and whether you want the third expansion pack (at an effective cost of £4.46/$8.96), and pick the best deal for you. RPS Coverage here, and demo here.
Also of note:
1C Company sale at GamersGate
20% off Strategy Games at GOG
If that lot’s not enough for you, do check out SavyGamer.co.uk for constantly-updated bargains across all formats.
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I haven’t used GG yet (but am thinking about the UFO trilogy for $10), but my understanding is they’re all three about the same. D2D and GG provide regular HTTP downloads but wrap the game/installer with an online activation check, Impulse requires a client for download & install, with the activation check built-in to the client. They all three require an internet connection to install, obviously. I think all of them require modified patches, different from the retail patch, though the Impulse client will download and install the patch for you, and D2D is notorious for taking forever to release modified patches. None of them require any sort of client to run the game. All of them allow redownloading, I think, though D2D makes a big deal during the checkout process of how they’re allowing you to do it free even though they should charge you extra for it. Gamersgate promises to help you unlock more activations if you ever run out, Impulse promises they don’t count activations unless you are using too many, and D2D doesn’t have anything about that in their FAQ, and I’ve only ever bought DRM-free games from them (they mark the DRM-free games pretty prominently, which is nice).
I’d probably go with Impulse, since I already have the client installed and have already worked around its quirks (set an extraction directory in settings if you don’t have tons of space on C) and they’re pretty clearly supportive of redownloading whenever you want to install, which I like. And D2D would probably be third on my list, just because of their slowness of releasing patches and the faceless megacorp vibe of their website/FAQ. But that isn’t a really strong suggestion. If you have an account with one of the stores and none of the others, that’s the one you should probably go with.
Crud. Figures the one that I’d be least comfortable with has the expansion pre-order. :P I guess I’ll just wait for the ultimate+naval yard package to be on sale later…
Thanks for your help, Vinraith and Blather Blob. I think I’ve got a better handle on those once-nebulous non-steam steam-things now. :D
@Mad Doc MacRae: All three have the naval yard expansion for pre-order. D2D is bundling it together with the ultimate bundle. But GG and Impulse both charge only $8.99 more for it, so Naval Yard plus the ultimate bundle is approximately the same price from all three stores.
Did that odd trial system that they had planned for Age of Conan ever get sorted out? The general consensus seems to be that it’s not worth getting into, but… I still have a nagging desire to give it a try. Any advice/help?
http://www.robothobo.com/ddd/ is an awesome way to keep track of online digital deals (Steam etc.).
Thanks again Blob. I feel my credit card calling me… :D
If anyone’s interested, Tomorrow War is awful. Passable space combat wrapped in the worst plot, writing and voice-acting I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s infested with graphical bugs, too. A shame: in this condition it’s not even worth the tenner I’ve just paid for it. No wonder 1C delayed the European release so long.
36 Gb? Thirty six? Seriously? Holy hell, I know I’m always late to the PC party, but jesus god, what the hell is in that game that needs 36 Gigabytes? It doesn’t install Arnie himself directly into your hard drive, does it?
Head start on next week:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/29900/
PC Monster: That’s a real shame about The Tomorrow War. I had Tarn Chronicles, and though it was rather shallow gameplay-wise, it was a fun and interesting space opera romp.
Also:
Far Cry 2, PC – £2.93 delivered
@LewieP: Or, to repeat last weekend:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1699/