GOG’s getting in on some spooky action with an appropriately titled Halloween Sale which has just gone live. There are over 200 titles in the range, with discounts touted as being ‘up to 90% off’ of the regular costs and a free game thrown in if you’re a moderately big spender. Read the rest of this entry »
Over at GOG, the reduced-price trips down memory lane continue, only this week there’s a whole lot more X-Com. Specifically, this week’s GOG sale range focuses on a lot of 2K’s older franchises, particularly from the strategy genre. The entire original run of X-Com games can be found here for less than £2 / $2 each, which is nigh-impossible to not recommend. Then there is the 2004 version of Sid Meier’s Pirates, a game I’ve poured more hours into than I really want to think about, and much more.
Despite having hosted a range of discounts each and every week of the year so far, GOG clearly feels like it’s never enough. As of yesterday, the site launched the Big Deal Sale, offering over 200 titles with discounts of up to 90%.
Besides the on-the-nose title of the sale itself, there are a number of historically low prices on selected games involved here as well, including Little Nightmares with 40% off, Tacoma with 20% off, Obduction with 40% off, and more. Also, Her Story is 75% off and available for less than the price of a coffee, so you should probably pick that one up because it’s wonderful. The sale is on this week and due to expire at the end of the weekend, fill yer boots.
RPS Feature The joy of Gex
GOG is having itself a Square Enix sale this week, which means a whole lot more than just Hitman and Tomb Raider for once. In fact, if you were to ask me, some of the most interesting things in this sale are the games you may have completely forgotten existed – like Gex, the gecko with attitude, Pandemonium, in which a lady runs to the right alongside a terrifying jester thing, and Omikron: The Nomad Soul which features a virtual David Bowie.
Oh, and you can get Deus Ex for a couple of quid, and it’s the same for any of the original Thief trilogy. The vast majority of the titles are dirt cheap, and you’ll be getting the lovely DRM-free versions of the games as is the GOG way.
Dark Sun. Ravenloft. Krynn. All Dungeons & Dragons worlds, and all names I know so well from roleplaying games I never played. In my earliest years of PC gaming, I was limited to games I could beg, borrow or steal from classmates, but I pored through enough magazines to be aware of what was out there and what I didn’t have. I can see the Dark Sun advertisement in my mind even today – and my eyes haven’t seen it for at least 20 years. Lavish, lurid art suggesting fantastical, impossible adventures; adventures I could not have. I read the news that Dark Sun – plus the equally alluring, gothic-themed Ravenloft and the Dragonlance-set Krynn series – is now available digitally (via GOG) for the first time, and I genuinely started as memories of old hunger surged into my forebrain. “It’s there. Now it’s possible. A missing piece of my own history.”
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The one certainty with news items about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. [official site] is there’s at least a 70 percent chance they’ve been planted by Jim. Thanks Jim!
GOG.com continues to blow the horn in support of DRM-free everything with a new game reclaiming service, which you can check it out for yourself in this generously placed link. The idea is that if you bought a game legitimately but the game no longer works because of unsupported DRM or other causes, then you can enter your original game key in order to get a free copy of the game through GOG’s DRM-free online store.
It bothers me to my core that Toonstruck is not a more widely remembered and adored ’90s adventure. It deserves to be celebrated alongside LucasArts and Sierra, and yet so often goes forgotten. Thankfully, attention is being drawn to it once more as it finally arrives in GOG’s collection. It’s brilliant! You should play it.
If rambunctious crowds have suddenly taken to the streets around your home, chances are it’s because of the GoG.com summer sale. The site has kicked things up a gear by naming the next portion of its event ADRENALINE RUSH. I hate using the word ‘event’ but sales are about more than discounting products, which is why the Steam one seems like a weird competition that doesn’t make any sense at all.
The ADRENALINE RUSH has a suitably eager description – “A TIDE OF 30 FLASH SALES AT ONCE · 4 SECRET FLASH-GIVEAWAYS · 24 HOURS OF EXCITEMENT”. The first of the giveaways is Omerta: City Of Gangsters, which I didn’t entirely dislike. Rather cheekily, the freebie doesn’t take over the top of the page – looks like you’ll have to scan throught he entire list as the 24 HOURS OF EXCITEMENT continue if you want to find the next free games.
That’s right – Ultima 1-9, plus the two Underworld games, for the price of a pint. And not one of those fancy craft ales that you’d sup in a tweedy pop-up bar that charges sixteen quid for a thimble filled with ‘paprika-spiced apple cinnamon wedges’ that taste like rancid Doritos. GOG.com are currently offering the Ultima bundle for $7.14. That’s the price of a pint of Carling round these parts, with a pack of Transform-a-Snacks on the side. Ultima is far better for body and soul.
Just a few years ago, people were begging for the System Shock 2 legal situation to be resolved. It wasn’t a technical problem, but a legal death trap of rights that entangled its feet, keeping it just out of grasp as we all reached out to save it. And then it was suddenly in our hands, and we could all have the game on the digital distribution platform of our choosing. With that resolved, it seemed that the story of System Shock 2 was over. But wait *shocking twist music*, like a hand shooting out of a grave, there’s one final moment for SS2 to surprise us: a new update that lands it on Linux. It is available right now on Steam.
Yesterday, when I glanced at the new releases on Steam and saw “Descent” I thought, “Huh, someone’s used that name again – well, it has been nineteen years since it came out.” And then I dropped down dead of old age and horror because it’s been nineteen years since Descent came out. I’ve only just recovered from this death, and looked again. No, it’s actually Descent. It’s somehow appeared on Steam. Descent!
RPS Feature Perfect, immortal machine
Today, Good Old Games announce that they will finally, and exclusively, be selling a digital download version of System Shock 2. It will be available tomorrow. I envy those who can now play for the first time, but there is no longer an excuse not to indulge in yet another playthrough of one of the finest and most frightening games ever made. I spoke to Stephen Kick of Night Dive, who secured the rights and worked on the release, and Guillaume Rambourg at GOG.com. How did all of this come about and what is System Shock 2’s place in gaming, past, present and future?
With only two days left until the end of the world, you really would be wise to finally get around to playing those games you’ve been putting off. Thankfully GOG.com have recognised this need, and are having an End Of The World sale. For the next 24 hours. But by their clock, they appear to think it’s Tokyo’s 21st December the Mayan’s meant. But surely it should be for Central America, affording us an extra 9 hours on Earth before we’re all consumed in Horace’s infinite belly? This stuff is important! Also, you can get a bunch of the collected editions on GOG at 75% off.
Do you want to play Duke Nukem 3D for free? Well, since it’s increasingly difficult to get hold of it on floppy disc and copy it across, the most practical way to do this would be to just take it from GOG.com. Cos they’re giving it away for free. Sure, it takes some of the thrill away, but at least you won’t be destroying the games industry in 1996. This freebie is intended to lure you in to spend more money at the site, as they’ve just launched their nonspecific Holiday Sale. Which holiday?! Is it Easter already?
I’m probably falling into a marketing trap. The GOG people are watching the Internet for a mention of GOG, and now I’ve just pinged RPS on their global map of suckers. I don’t care. Fill me in on your spreadsheet, if you must. You have my attention. On Thursday, 18:00 GMT they’ll be hosting a live press conference on their website to talk about “an exciting new direction that the digital distributor formerly known as ‘Good Old Games’ will be taking.” How many more directions can one company take?
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Twas only yesterday I was letting everyone down by wishing for more Space Quest instead of more Quest For Glory. But as if the mighty Horace felt the need to restore balance to the universe, GOG.com have just announced they’ve released all five of the classic Sierra adventure/RPGs for ten bucks. Sure, it’s not a new one, but you try getting the original versions working.
It’s been eight years since Thief: Deadly Shadows was released. And if that doesn’t make you want to start slaughtering the young and drinking their blood in a desperate attempt to find some sort of means to stop the passing of time and your constant, constant ageing, then you must already have discovered the secrets of immortality. EIGHT YEARS. Eight years since Kieron and I were let into a nightclub for free because we’d both given the game scores over 90% (Kieron in Gamer, me in PC Format) and the doorman was a big fan. Eight years since I sat in PC Format’s weirdly anonymous office space, trying to do something to the screenshots so they weren’t just big black squares all over the magazine. Eight years since I task-switched out of The Cradle to calm the hell down, while Kieron mocked me via IM. And now you can play it all over again for ten bucks, via the regurgitating pipe of GOG.com.
The decision by Amanita to put out the stunning Botanicula as part of a Humble Bundle on the day of release sounds, at first, like a lovely idea. A brand new game in a pay what you want bundle? Amazing! Except of course for those who pre-ordered it at full price. Personally, I think the $10 it would have cost anyone is a bargain for a game as utterly lovely as this, and people who pre-ordered clearly believed it to be worth that much to them at the time. But I do understand the frustration of learning that others could be getting the game, along with two other Amanita classics, for as little as one cent. That’s galling. I caught up with Amanita’s main man, Jakub Dvorský, to ask him about the reaction, and he informs me that it was their mistake, and to make up for it everybody who pre-ordered the game will be receiving the fantastic soundtrack, an art book, and a copy of Machinarium, for free, tomorrow.
RPS Feature Games Or GAMES
Following on from this story earlier in the week, here’s the full text of our wide-ranging and detailed interview with the people from GoG.com The questions were answered jointly by managing director Guillaume Rambourg and marketing/PR head Trevor Longino. How should we credit them here? Guillevor Rambogino? (We just went for “GoG”.)
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In what may be a first for humanity since the (admittedly fictional) film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Good Old Games de-aged. Out with the “Old,” in with the GOG, as no one’s said until now. Or, if they have, people just looked at them funny and told them to go lie down. Anyway, seeing as change is afoot and GOG’s trying very hard to make us pay attention, I briefly spoke with managing director Guillaume Rambourg about why the site’s taken an abrupt turn toward a new direction, why Steam sales are hurting the industry, and — with even Ubisoft removing its ponderous yolk — whether or not DRM is finally dying.
