It appears that the Atlantic is causing some serious fiscal interference with the internet this week. The waves are disrupting EA’s discount rays, and they can only cut prices in the UK. Maybe global warming is to blame. Still, there are some great deals to be had for both those that say tom-ah-toe and those that say tom-ay-toe. If you want more video game cheap niceties, go to SavyGamer.co.uk.
The Hitman Collection – £6.99/€9.99/$9.99
“From the makers of Kane and Lynch, and Mini Ninjas”, this collection (and indeed Steam) seems to omit Contracts, no idea why. You can either get the collection, or you can buy the individual games at similar discount. This is a series of games in which you play a man who makes hits, as in, killing people. Jim makes the fairly compelling argument that they play more like a puzzle game than anything else. I’ve got a funny relationship with the games, first I tried to play the first one on a PC that should have been good enough to run it, but it didn’t run well at all. Then I bought Hitman 2 from a Blockbuster clearance sale, only to later discover the disc was missing. Then I got Blood Money on the 360, only to find out it is one of a very small number of 360 games that don’t output over VGA (what I use). I think someone doesn’t want me to play them.
Empire: Total War – £14.99/€24.99/$24.99
The latest in the total war series enters the 18th century, and you can recreate the battle of the Boston Tea Party, The Discovery of Australia and the invention of the automatic flour mill. This is the first entry in the series to have sea battles too. I’ve not played a Total War game since Rome, I really enjoyed the campaigns, but not the battles so much, which is a shame because they are hugely cinematic and have a very impressive scale. Aside from resenting the DLCization of the game, how should I feel about Empire? If you can find this retail for cheaper, you can (and indeed have to) register the serial on Steam. RPS coverage here, and demo here.
Cellblock Squadrons – £3.13/€3.39/$5
I’ve not heard of Cellblock Squadrons before, but I’ve done a little research and it won a GOTY award from Game Tunnel, so it is probably worth a look. Also, the developer is called “Super Furious Software”, which I have to give kudos for. It appears to be an indie Wing Commander-esque game about flying a space ship and shooting other space ships. The Impulse coupon “SURVEY-2009″ is still active, but you need to buy something else to cross the coupon threshold. There’s a demo right here, if you think it’s worth evangelising about one way or the other, please do so.
Ishar Compilation and Robinson’s Requiem Collection – £3.74/€4.05/$5.98
GOG have got a pair of collections of games on promotion this week. You get: Crystals of Arborea, Ishar: Legends of the Fortress, Ishar 2: Messangers of the Doom, Ishar 3: The Seven Gates to Infinity, Robinson’s Requiem and Deus. That certainly was a mouthful. These are all Dos flavoured RPGs, from a strange and distance time period know as the early nineties. It being from GOG, you should have no trouble running these on modern hardware.
(UK) Deal of the week
Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box – £4.99
It was hard to pick from all the EA games available for this price. Mass Effect, Mirror’s Edge, Red Alert 3 and Dead Space for a fiver are all fantastic deals too. Burnout Paradise won mainly because it is by far the cheapest it’s ever been, whereas those others have been available for around a tenner or less in the past. It’s a driving game where you get to drive fast and smash things. Such things as billboards, barriers, other cars and records. Criterion are an excellent dev, and with Burnout Paradise they have done a fantastic job of pushing forwards online interaction in racing games, created a lovely open world for racing in, and done a great job of post-release support, with lots of lovely new free content added over time. Black 2 please. RPS coverage here, and demo here. Other EA games for a fiver here.
(USA) Deal of the week
World in Conflict: Gold – $4.99
Believe it or not, fact fans, but this is actually an unofficial sequel to the Wes Anderson film “The Royal Tenenbaums”. It’s a fairly large scale realtime tactics game set in an alternate history Russia. There is no base building or tradition resource management. It’s by Massive Entertainment, and is somewhat of a modern spiritual successor to the ground control series. For this next to nothing price, you get the original game and the Soviet Assault expansion pack. Stonking good deal if you ask me. RPS Coverage here, and demo here.
Also of note:
Last week of the rather fantastic D2D games for five currencies sale UK/USA
Perma-price drop for Defense Grid on Steam
10% off Spiderweb software
If that lot’s not enough for you, do check out SavyGamer.co.uk for constantly-updated bargains across all formats.
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Hitman: Blood Money for that price is a steal.
I’m also a long-time Total War player and I fucking love Empire to bits. Especially now that the AI has been given about forty thousand shots in the arm with the latest patches.
I skipped the weekend deals this time around. Hitman Blood Money for 5$ is tempting, but then I realized I’d just add it to my Steam list and not actually get around to playing it anytime soon. So, I can live without it.
I did pre-order L4D2 though, so a bit of money spent there. Can’t wait for the demo, and news of the last 2 campaigns that has just come out got me even more excited.
This has been kind of a disappointing weekend for deals for me. Great price on Empire – but I picked it up at that price last time they had a sale on it. Great price on World in Conflict, but I already own the Gold edition. Great price on Hitman…but I already own Hitman 2 and Blood Money on discs, and while I’d cheerfully pay $10 to get them on Steam if I were also getting Contracts out of it, the first Hitman isn’t really worth my bothering. And then there are killer prices on EA games that I actually want, but I live in the US and can’t get them.
Oh, and while the Ishar games are definitely RPGs – and rather lovely, considering their age, Robinson’s Requiem and Deus are more…survival simulations. Both sets of games are by all accounts bastard hard, especially the latter two, which delight in inflicting diseases and such on you at every turn.
This is another case of “I wish I’d known they were going to do that” for me – I bought all the Tex Murphy games, the Ishar compilation, and some other stuff a couple weeks back with my one-shot ECA coupon, but then they put a greater discount on the Tex Murphy games last week and threw in a couple extra games with Ishar this week. Next week I bet they discount Realms of Arkania, or maybe Earth 2140/2150… :P
The Robinson’s Requiem equivalent of idkfa gives you an undetected 100% haemorrhage rate on all your internal organs.
This is how hardcore a game it is.
I always liked the concept of RR more than the execution, which was just too fiddly to control be fun. Deus I never got the chance to play. I reckon they’d benefit from a remake just from an accessibility angle.
I'm glad to see i'm not the only one who buys games off steam and then never plays them. The amount of games i have bought of steam but not got around to playing could be considered criminal.
Also, i got Sins of a Solar Empire for free from a polish gaming site/magazine though i did hear they have since been revoked due to abuse of the offer from non-polish and non-readers but i haven't checked.
Indeed. It’s more than a little embarrassing how many games I have on my Steam account that are untouched. I need a little more self control to avoid jumping on fabulous weekend deals that I might not touch for the next year.
The Silent Amateur
http://silentamateur.wordpress.com/
Playing Hitman:BM the “wrong” way, it remains excellent.
I´ve played the Total War games since the orgininal Shogun, and even though its developed nicely since then, im gonna give “Empire” a miss.
The real find here, was for me, “Cellblock Squadrons” which is ace- ignore the 3/5 Rating on impulse, its a *lot* of fun. The graphics are a bit basic (it came out in 2005) , but the shitloads of explosions and laser fire from the 100+ ships, makes it look beutifull still. Gameplay is polished, and the music is usually great for a change. Theres zero bad voice acting, only a nicely spoken athmospheric intro with a few still shots, and then a lot of text- but this time Less- is definetly More! No more cheesy ass americans blabbering thank you.
Its quite arcadey, and it only takes you about 10-15 mins to get used to the controls, which are spot on.
Youre basically forced to launch every time from the prison facility, which warps around to various alien fleets, along with up to 100 wingmen, destroy the aliens, and youre then forced to return. Theres a few upgrades, some interesting background story, and what really made me laugh is that they started you off, with the player “owing 500 million” to society, and then as you complete missions they reward you with increasing amounts of debt reduction, in the hope that you might reach 0, and win your freedom.
Quite addictive! thumbs up!