After a couple of weeks off whilst Savygamer’s LewieP was away wrestling five-hooved giant elk in Mongolia, our weekly round-up of reduced-price PC game delights returns. Any of these tickle your wickle, missus?
Fallout 3 – £13.49/€22.49/$24.99
As far as I am concerned, pretty much all the praise this game gets is entirely justified. I played it on the 360, so I guess you can all feel superior to me if you like, I’m certainly jealous of all the mods. In case you have been living in a bunker your entire life, Fallout 3 is a massive, open, post apocalyptic RPG. The combat is fun, the levelling system is very well put together, and it’s more often than not gorgeous to look at. My review here, Alec’s review here, and RPS coverage here.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion [Game of the Year Edition] Deluxe, Turbo – £12.50/$17.95
Just in case you hate guns, you could try this. It’s basically Fallout without guns. Ok not quite, but if you really like one of these two games, you’ll probably like the other. Swap post apocalyptic for fantasy, a brilliant levelling system for a fairly flawed one, and Liam Neeson for Patrick Stewart, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from Oblivion. This package comes with both expansions, and all of the DLC, so you’ll everything you need to pimp your horsie. You can get it without the extra fluff for £9.95/$14.95 if you prefer.
Vigil: Blood Bitterness – £1.49/€2.49/$2.49
On the one hand, this has a metascore of only 61. On the other hand, look at it. Again, on the second more positive hand, it is only one pound fifty. I’m gonna grab it methinks. Opinions anyone? Demo here.
Pinball games!
Good old games have four pinball games on promotion, with 20% off. I like the look of the one with the car on the box. I’ve never been a massive fan of pinball games. Short of 3D Pinball: Space Cadet, Pokeymon Pinball, and pinball dreams/fantasies, I’ve not really played many of them at all.
Bargain of the week
2K Huge Games Pack – £35.99/€53.99/$53.99
It’s incredible to think that for as much as EA and Ubisoft like to charge for new releases, you can get an incredible 20 games. You get Bioshock, a bunch of games with “Sid Meier’s” in the title, including Civ4 with all the expansions, Freedom Force 1 + 2, Prey, Shattered Union, and all the Xcom games. Pretty ace deal if you ask me, although I would like to take this opertunity to point out that Steam packages are a little broken. They basically punish you for having bought games previously. If you already own a game in a package, then buy the package, you are effectively paying for the same game twice, but only getting one license. It wouldn’t be too hard to set it up so that you either get a slight discount, or get a spare license to gift, like what Valve did for The Orange Box.
LewieP’s own site SavyGamer.co.uk is home to constantly-updated bargains across all formats.
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I really need to install Oblivion again… and see if I can actually get it running with those 9000 mods I wanted to use…
“I guess you can all feel superior to me if you like…”
Oh, we will. :3
As the following Fallout 3 review claims, I think that most of the game’s problems can be summed as sheer goofiness:
http://blog.internisus.com/?p=194
Ohh, the 2K HUGE pack could dethrone take the title of “best gaming deal ever” from The Orange Box. Shame I already own half the games, otherwise it’s one amazing deal.
Has anyone played Shattered Union? A 3d tactical wargame set in a new civil war seems intriguing, but the Metascore is quite discouraging.
@Skye Nathaniel
Dear god. Whoever wrote that “review” (or as it really is, a string of childish insults showing how much the author utterly fails to grasp the current situation in gaming) really needs to get out more. Maybe meet some actual people who, with any luck, will beat some sense into him.
Fallout Fanboys and Oblivion haters really need to get a bloody grip…
Pinball games? All you need is Future Pinball, which RPS really should do a feature on. The best tables on it beat up all the professional offerings and competition.
@Howard – The funniest thing I found about that article is his ode to how much he loved Daggerfall, BECAUSE it starts you out in a profoundly unfair, overly complex and incredibly frustrating dungeon that can and will scare off the majority of people attempting to play it, if the bugs don’t get them first. And on top of that, having thousands of identical and even more unfair and confusingly designed dungeons is a plus point!
I’ve come the the conclusion that Daggerfall fans are complete masochists – it’s not that they like it hard (I like hard games – I like Ninja Gaiden and Monster Hunter, I like Gradius and DoDonPachi), it’s that they want to be randomly abused and punished with no rhyme nor reason, and no amount of skill is going to save you in such a situation – just a steadfast adherance to the quicksave/load keys.
@Dominic: I don’t know why, but, for me, Daggerfall was great. It had something undefinable that I found missing in the latter Elder Scrolls games (although I liked them). And I played it when it first came out so sans patches. I never even finished it because at about 95% of the way through the main quest, it turns out a dungeon generated very early in the game was missing a critical plot item, making it unfinishable. And getting to 95% was after wrestling with all the horrid, much more obvious bugs. And yet I remember the game quite fondly. It’s fairly inexplicable. :)
Like I said – masochism.
@Lama
Go through a proxy maybe?
The 2K pack is awesome for anyone else (since I already own most of those). Great to gift to casuals to get them hooked on the dying (lawl) PC gaming scene.
@Dominic White
Absolutely. Can we possibly try and keep self-flagellation out of gaming design?
@Tyrone
I disagree with saying that story or dialog has any deeper meaning, for example you could larp that Moira is emotionally scarred person whose mind was damaged with trauma from the past, but I call her bad dialog just bad written dialog.
About the voice acting, yes SOME are good at best, but vast majority is just awful and even if its great having all ghouls sound the same doesnt really add to the immersion. Try playing some older rpg-s like Anachronox or Bloodlines and then youll see what it means to have great voice acting.
The storyline per se is average compared to other rpg-s, but trough bad dialog, voice acting and lack of choice (the essence of Fallout series) it is presented quite poorly. I agree that there are some good side quests like The Replicated Man but its one of the rare good quests while majority is simply bad.
Cars in Fallout world run on fusion not atomic power hence it makes no logic for them to explode with nuclear explosion.
Fallout 2 had many easter egg references to pop culture, and they were nothing more than easter eggs, while Monty Python reference was a special encounter triggered with above average luck.
The world of Fallout 3 doesnt have any consistency, the world looks like it passed 5 years and not 200 years after the war, almost all settlements are a joke, adding supermutants and enclave make no sense except if you see them as proof of Bethesdas laziness to create original opponent or computers that somehow managed to stay operational for 200 years and are part of every building in the world.
As i say you can larp and invent a reason for every inconsistency but i just call it bad design, still if those things dont prevent you from enjoying FO3 then just enjoy it and dont care if some old grumpy fool like me cant share your enthusiasm.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Fallout 3 is Fallout in the same sense Fallout 1 is Fallout, but not Fallout in the sense that Fallout 2 is Fallout.
I find that those who absolutely adored Fallout 2 (over the original) tend to have a poorer opinion of Fallout 3. Personally, I didn’t like Fallout 2 all that much. It was fairly fun, but its oh-so-clever clubbing you over the head with pop-culture references (Monty Python is funny, seeing it recreated line-for-line is funny, too!) and stereotypes (Goddamn, I hate you, Myron and New Reno) kind of grated on me.
Has anyone seen that new USB periphial which attaches a small pointy stick to your screen which randomly pokes you in the eye from time to time. Gotta get myself one of them!
Sorry to bust your bubble, H’T'P’, but I vastly prefer F2…and Fallout 3 was the best game I’ve played since, erm, Bioshock.
It’s a shame that any mention of Fallout 3 on this site immediately leads to apoplectic rage from both sides over whether or not it’s a betrayal of the Fallout legacy (it isn’t), which sort of distracts from more interesting issues, like the other bargain games suggested in ths post.
Surely everyone knows all the arguments about F3 by now and, just for one day, we could let it go?
Anybody who thought that the humor in Fallout 2 was subtle, or thought that either of the first two fallout games had a half-decent UI, hasn’t played Fallout 1 or 2 in a long time, and they are looking through glasses colored BLOOD RED.
People also take Fallout lore entirely too seriously, considering they are playing a post-apoc 50s-cultural-chic mutants-are-attacking-the-world game.
(also, Fallout 3’s soundtrack: I never listen to it, since I am listening to and enjoying the stuff on GNR too much to listen to the default exploration musics)
Tends to, I said. Obviously, no statement covers everyone. My point had to do more with the fact that Fallout 3 borrowed far more from Fallout 1 (a lot) than it did from Fallout 2. Thus, if you were expecting the latter, you’d end up disappointed.
Temptation has set in. That deal on Fallout 3 has me interested.
I’m looking to buy Point Lookout at some point this week, but for any of you considering Fallout3, the Broken Steel DLC is an absolute must (fixing what is likely the single most glaring issue *anyone* who played the game found annoying), followed by The Pitt, which offers amazing ambiance and a superior moral choice debate then most of the decisions you make in the original game.
Don’t fucking buy DLC
It’s a ripoff. Vote with your money
@TCM
The UI in the original games is fine for me now, and was fine when I first played them back when I was 8, and into games like DOOM and Half-Life.
Can people just…stop with the whole “it’s just rose-tinted glasses” argument? I’m sorry if your tastes have “evolved”, but mine are my own, thanks.
@Teo – While I’d agree that the first two DLC packs are too short to be worth the money, the latter two are quite large and have a lot of content to get through. Three packs the size of Broken Steel/Point Lookout would add up to be eqiuvalent to most $30 retail expansions.
Is that a ripoff?
@Dominic White: I think there’s also going to be a Fallout 3 game-of-the-year edition with all the DLC included, which makes buying them all separately look like less of a deal in retrospect. Unless it were really expensive.
There is an interesting point made regarding the Fallout 3 weekend deal on the Steam forum: Around October there is a GoTY edition coming out, the pre-order listing for which is already on Amazon for 49.99 (American), and will presumably have all the DLC included. If you buy the discount Fallout 3 right now, the DLC bought separately will actually be a MORE expensive combination than the GoTY. Once again, patience is a virtue.
In the context of Fallout 3’s size I think it is
That’s the problem with the Steam value packs, i always seem to have at least one (normally the most expensive one) of the titles in said packs, thus making it not really worth it.
I’m not really sure what can be gained from playing Daggerfall that you couldn’t get from delving into a decent roguelike. The dungeon crawling in that game is clearly the draw because there’s absolutely nothing distinguishing anything in the overland from anything else and it’s all randomly generated genericism. But roguelikes do randomized dungeon crawling with far more depth and balance.
I can sort of understand liking Daggerfall. But I certainly can’t understand preferring it to the later entries in the series which are actually designed.
Oh, also, just read that Fallout 3 review, and while it was amusing enough….the robots in the junkyard he mentions really honestly are there. I’ve turned them on and everything. So either he hit a bug, or he’s looking in the wrong place.
GOTY edition is apparently going to be around £30 to £40, which seems like a pretty good deal me, think i’ll hold off
if anyone hasnt bought geometry wars do so now, its so much fun, i bought like 5 copies for friends as well for the hell of it
If you buy anything from Amazon UK you can sign up for Amazon Prime [usually 50 pounds a year] on a monthly trial basis and get free next day shipping for that trial month.
I picked up a SF4 stick and some dvds and got them next day.
Just remember to turn off the auto upgrade lest they take money from you the following month.
NOT pc related but anyone know where to get cheap Live points?
I want to pick up Garou, King of Fighters 98 and Ikaruga off arcade [800 points each].
This is a PC only site radiant, so stupid question, but if you go on savygamer, as linked to at the top, it shows some offers.
But… but I liked ALL the Fallouts! :<
Not PC related, but I loves me some Ikaruga.
Re. F3 mods. I’d consider revisiting fallout 3 if someone would release a mod that removes all the botched writing, character models, animation, rpg elements, fps elements, plotlines and voice acting. I keep checking the fallout 3 mods sites, but so far no sign.
Fallout 3 was pretty good. Certainly on the list of best games ever. There was a lot I hated about Oblivion, but I do feel Bethesda tried hard to improve the errors made in the past.
I just wish they wouldn’t use GFW to sell the DLCs. The idea of converting my money into some other fake currency just bewilders me.
Virgil: Blood Bitterness. I played the very short demo, and my impressions on that are that it’s probably not a very good game, but it’s got a pretty impressive atmosphere. Everything is essentially monochrome, with the odd singular use of colour, and it’s all wrapped in a sinister sort of mysticism, which imakes it very intriguing.
“the levelling system is very well put together”
No. It was unbalanced, the cap was hit halfway through the game, and the perks were turned into instant crappy gratification.
Fallout 3 has plenty of qualities, particularly when compared to previous Elder Scrolls games, but the leveling system (or the combat, for that matter) is not one of them.
The only true pinball PC game iss the original Maxis Full Tilt Pinball.
One of its boards, Space Cadet got turned into the Pinball game we all know and love from Windows (and my copy came bundled with Marble Drop, which was a great puzzle game)
Hours of fun.
No SWAT 4 Stetchkov in that pack. I’d much rather have SWAT 5 than BioShock 2, but there you go; that’s how the market crumbles.
RPS? A PC only website?
Lies.
Alpha Prime was pretty good, I reckon! Probably disappointing if you’re expecting anything special, but the combat was solid and it looks nice without being overly demanding. The story and voice acting were certainly a bit dodgy, but not in a bad way really — it was enough to keep me interested (luckily it’s not all that long, so the end can be reached before the game becomes a chore) in a low-key way. If you’ve played lots of top-notch modern FPSes you’ll probably find this one unimpressive, but for someone like me who’s more of an occasional dabbler in single-player shooters, it was good fun and certainly worth the super-bargain price. (It’s $2.50 USD at the moment, and I think I got it for a similar price a while back, perhaps even slightly less.) There’s a demo available though, and from memory it’s pretty representative of the game as a whole, so you don’t really need my ramblings. Just wanted to put in a good word, because the Metascore of 59 might have a few people disregarding it as broken or simply rubbish, when in my opinion it’s actually solid and enjoyable but a bit uninspired.
I hate you Steam. You and your stupid discounts. I had to buy Fallout 3. :<
I seem to remember this original section to be about good deals you can get…not a rage fest about whether fallout 3 is good or not.
It’s the Fallout curse, Mr. Bejeebus. Thanks to a certain bunch of loud twits (WHO NEED TO SHUT UP), any and all mention of Fallout 3 turns into a grotesque internet flame war between those who like it, those who don’t like it, and those who help create more fire by really hating it for all the wrong reasons, and are lucky to get a third game at all.
Also: Fallout Tactics was a great game.
I see theres still a lot of strong feeling around Fallout 3. Still, if you think saying it once is bad, try saying it 3 times. Beetleguise has nothing on F3 x3.
Thanks 4 all the Fallout 3 pointers in this thread – was looking for a good reason to play it through again.
Also cheap on STEAM at the moment is Shadowgrounds: Survivor for about £4.00 – it’s not exactly a gaming work of art but it is a lot of fun.
http://shadowgroundsgame.com/new/
@l1ddl3monkey
Shadowgrounds Survivor is a lot of fun – it is also a total piece of crap that crashes always just after the boss fight but before the checkpoint has been saved. Also, checkpoints are saved about 15′ worth of gameplay. Grrrrrrr
Of course this could just be me or my PC, but it didn’t help when the devs on the forums suggested I skip the mission that was buggy, only to crash five minutes into the new mission….
YMMV of course.
RE: Fallout 3 levelling system.
I know it is exploitable, and I know it is a bit broken at times, but it is still a lot of fun.
I always really look forwards to levelling up. I know I’ll get to pick a new perk, and some of the perks can completely change how you play the game.
I also felt like it was really flexible. In either Morrowind or Oblivion, I would start my game, play for a few hours, then want to start again with a completely different style of character. In Fallout 3, I never felt like this at all, because it was flexible enough to let you modify your current character a lot.
There is a real strong sense of progression too, throughout the entire game (until I hit level 20) I did feel like I was very gradually getting stronger.
So I liked it.
It amazes me how few people are able to accept other peoples opinions..
‘I liked it!’
‘YOU’RE WRONG!!!!1111′
bah
That 2K pack is seriously good value, though theres only two games that I’d be remotely interested in, and I’ve played them both on my 360.
@Pundabaya
No, I think you are wrong about that.
Also of interest:
Saints Row 2 – £3.99 delivered
Is there no way to swap prices? I’m stuck in a Euro zone and AM WANTing that 2k Games Pack but it’s 45 quid on there!