When the aliens abducted LewieP of Savygamer, they were interested in only one thing: probing him for cheap game deals. Fortunately he’d already uploaded them to the RPS mainframe, for your edification and embargainment…
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory – $5
By far my favourite of the Splinter Cell series (so far at least). It’s got all the right ingredients, a decent PC port, fantastic level design, soundtrack by Amon Tobin and long term consequences for decisions you make in missions. It was the first Splinter Cell to really nail how to do open ended levels, going back to the first one feels really primitive to me. I’m cautiously optimistic about the new Splinter Cell, although it does look fairly ‘automatic’ from footage we’ve seen, like it might be playing the game for you, which is something a few Ubisoft games have been guilty of in recent times. Not available outside the USA it seems.
X-Com complete bundle – £5/$5
Too hard. I’m sorry, these games are too hard. I grabbed them in a steam sale for a similar price a while back, upon hearing how fantastic they are, and I believe you, I imagine that there is a fantastic strategy game to be found somewhere in there, but they are far too hard for me. Sorry, I guess I have to relinquish my gamer card or something. In this bundle you get Enforcer, Interceptor, Apocalypse, Terror from the Deep, and UFO Defence, all at one currency each.
Braid – £3.39/€4.49/$4.99
I don’t know if there is anything left to say about braid. The only real major (misplaced) criticism that’s been levelled at it is accusations of pretentiousness. I say forget those, if you really want to you can just ignore everything that’s going on with the narrative, and just play it as a very clever 2D puzzle/platformer, with pretty pictures and music. It would be a shame to do so, because I think there is a lot of value in the narrative of braid. It really is something special, we don’t get games like this very often. The only reason I didn’t pick it for deal of the week was that I bet most of you already have it. It’ll likely never ever be available for less than this. Demo here, RPS coverage here.
Cities XL Limited Edition – $39.99 EDIT: Boo, North America only. Boo!
Heh, Stardock updated the impulse homepage recently, and it seems to have a few kinks in it. This game has been discounted from “£30.69 to $39.99″, I don’t think it is supposed to change currency there. This is pre-order for the online flavoured city building game from Monte Cristo games. You get a bunch of extra bells and whistles in the Limited Edition, extra maps, buildings and megastructures, but you also get A SPECIAL SHIRT FOR YOUR AVATAR! Digital bling! There is a USA flavoured demo here, a Europe flavoured demo here, and RPS coverage here.
Deal of the week
Civilization IV – £5/$5
I’ve been a big fan of Sid Meier’s games since I was old enough to understand them, and Civ4 is no exception. It’s an excellent, modern, update to the classic Civilization formula. It has been on sale a whole bunch of times as a complete bundle with expansions, but this is the first time in a while it has been available in vanilla, and at such a low price of entry. If you have any interest in turn based strategy, check this game out. Whilst the expansions are all worthwhile, a lack of content is not a problem this game has – there is more than enough game in there as is. Demo here and RPS coverage here.
Also of note:
SAY-GAH games for half price
Impulse weekend specials
D2D games for 5 currencies – UK/USA
Postal 1+2, 25% off
Star Assault – £3.97/$4.95
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts – £4.95/$4.95
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They’re not too hard! You just have to save your game a lot!
I think you’re going to have to hand in your gamercard LewieP. XCom isn’t that hard, it just takes a bit of getting used to.
Play it cautiously and use bounding overwatch. Also don’t spend all of your TUs so your guys will take shots during the enemy’s turn.
It’s very, very intimidating at first, though. Basically kicks your legs out from under you every time you think you’re doing okay.
Civ IV: Alpha Centauri was better.
Braid: somehow I have failed to ever be interested in it, no matter how much pretend ink has been expended in its glorification. So I’ll just crawl back to Sacred 2, thanks. :)
Your loss.
Alpha Centauri was brilliant, but I’ve gotten a lot more play out of Civ IV and its expansions. For one thing, the moddability of the game is massive, and several of the mods released (Fall from Heaven comes to mind) approach professional quality and polish.
I could never get into Braid because I’m too simple to figure out the puzzles. I’d get a guide, but…what would be the point of that?
Man. Braid.
Needed a guide for one puzzle, and remembered a couple comments on other ones, but did most of it myself. And the one I sought advice for was the stupid one where the alternate rewind speeds were needed.
A feature never mentioned before or after.
But the game was good. And there is no way in Heaven, Earth, or Hell I’ll bother to go after all the stars.
Ah, so the alternate rewind speed were never mentioned? I know the puzzle you’re talking about, and was a bit baffled I found the solution by accident.
D2D doesn’t want me to buy their Civ IV game (mainland Europe), so piracy it is!
Lol @ the games industry fucking themselves.
ive never played chaos theory, but i can assurte you all that the soundtrack is immense. Amon Tobin is quality. Actually that was the album that got me into him. Supermodified is highly recommended
I’m too late, and probably no one will see this comment, but for cheap UK Chaos Theory (or Deus Ex (or BG&E)) there’s Savapoint. http://www.savapoint.com/store/?so=lh&gid=&cid=3834&st=&sf=&pf=&pageid=1
Is Star Assault as bad as it looks?
I really want to play Chaos Theory. But…
Steam version is down due to messed up cd keys. Heard conflicting reports about it having startforce or not too.
D2D version is UK/US only.
Retail version has starforce.
So, seriously, is a torrent the ONLY way to get hold of it? I don’t really want to, but i’ve already spent more time trying to get hold of a reasonable copy than it’d have taken to download and install it… and more $hours than it’d cost to buy it. Jeez…
bill, there are many online stores that have that game. If you were asking about Prince of Persia 3D, yes, torrent could be the only choice, but Chaos Theory was re-released more than once as a bargain title…
Great link Flappybat. LewieP do you point out boxed bargains too? I’m not really one for grabbing digital copies of games.
Boxed bargain: Resident Evil 5 is only £16.95 at Zavvi.
@ Dave, Vinraith
Unquestionably, Civ 4 is the better game in terms of balance, mechanics etc. Alpha Centauri came from the era where the optimal strategy was to build cities like they were going out of fashion – didn’t matter where, just as many as possible – and as such, the overall strategy was rather lame.
HOWEVER: AC’s world was so so so much cooler than Civ’s anemic canned history. The factions, tech tree, units, encyclopedia were all redolent of chunky, flavoursome hard sci-fi. As a generator of epic planetary opera, AC was peerless. In terms of strategy and mechanics, Civ 4 supersedes it.
@Vandelay
Manhunt did not have multiplayer. It did, however, support headsets. If you wore one (I think only on consoles, but I’m not sure), you’d get the voice of the antagonist through that headset, exactly as the player character was, while getting game sounds through your TV speakers. Anything you said into the microphone would also count as a noise in game and the enemies would investigate. There wasn’t any real reason to do it other than immersion, but you could.
@Mrrobsa
The Bargain bucket is mainly focussed on DD special offers. If you want good deals on boxed games, then perhaps you should try checking out my site SavyGamer.co.uk
As mentioned here,
Free ECA memberships if you use the code GIMAG. ECA member benefits include constantly regenerating 10% off Amazon order codes (these stack with any deals or promotions) and 20% off a GOG game among others.
Cheers LewieP, good stuff on your site too, bookmarked.
The ECA thing appears to be US only?
@Joe
“HOWEVER: AC’s world was so so so much cooler than Civ’s anemic canned history. The factions, tech tree, units, encyclopedia were all redolent of chunky, flavoursome hard sci-fi. As a generator of epic planetary opera, AC was peerless.”
I couldn’t disagree with any of that, AC is really it’s own subgenre and simultaneously one of the best games possible FOR said subgenre. I constantly go back and forth between wanting a new AC game and being terrified they’d screw up the franchise.
I guess it’s time I stopped relying on the infinitely-copied versions of TFTD and UFO I’ve been working from since time began. ’sides, I’d like a crack at interceptor, even if it’s not all that. The main three alone are worth far more than £5, even if I have one on CD, so screw it. Thanks again, Lewie.
Can you guys mark D2D offers as such in the article content, so I don’t click on the link and get all dissapointed-like?
No love, Australian Gaming Ghetto Resident
Too bad your CitiesXL Limited Edition digital bling goes toward dressing an avatar that looks–at best–like a clubbed foot.
Oh, club foot. Pardon to those of you with Giles Smith syndrome, or those who are clubfoot enthusiasts.
This reminds me that I already own Chaos Theory and have yet to play it… Good to see much Civ 4 praise in these threads. Thoroughly deserved. That boxed Complete Edition from Play is about the best gaming bang for your buck I can imagine. Oh and Braid is glorious, anyone who was in any doubt now has no excuse.
In these threads? On this page. Yup.