Which game should I get? - Steam Halloween Sale

[Rxanadu]

I'll be honest: since I've gotten a better grasp on what games I want to play, I haven't asked about game purchasing advice in years.

 

That aside, I've found a lot of the games listed in this sale met some initial interest I had for games in general.  Most of the games I either already have or I have no interest in whatsoever.  These are the games that caught my eye:

• Sleeping Dogs ($4.99) - Because Giant Bomb's Vinny Caravella made such a strong case for it last year, I need to play it for myself to see what he saw in it
  • None of the DLC is included with this version; however, I didn't see that any of the DLC brought anything interesting to the table
• Alice: Madness Returns ($4.99) - I'm interested in seeing a different perspective on the world of Wonderland
  • I like me some tight 3D platforming, but I may never touch this game again after I beat it
• Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines ($4.99) - Every time I read about this, people say it's an amazing game
  • I honestly have no interest in playing this game outside of using mods and for 'academic value'
• Fallout: Las Vegas: Ultimate Edition ($4.99) - It includes all the DLC for the initial game
  • Much like Fallout 3 before it (and Skyrim after), it looks like the game may be filled to the brim with fetch quests, similar looking dungeons to crawl through, and busted AI that may make the game worth it for the first 3-4 hours 
• I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream ($2.49) - It's somehow become part of some zeitgeist, and since it's cheap I wanted to check it out
  • I honestly hate old point-and-click adventure games, as they require you to pixel hunt for most things to interact with.  The puzzles usually take the acceptance that most PaC game makers don't know how logic works in their own world (i.e. why do I have to combine a ruler and a string to make a fishing rod and use it to make a fan work?)
• Condemned: Criminal Origins ($3.74) - I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with this game.
  • I honestly don't have any idea as to what this game may truly be outside of jump scares and a good FPS combat system
• Overlord: Complete Pack ($4.99) - I heard the games were like Pikmin but playing the "bad guy."  It includes the entire franchise, for what it's worth
  • I honestly don't know if these games are any good outside of making Pikmin-like goblins destroy things for you

As you can see, the main issue I have in front of me is (for the most part) I don't know if these games are as good as they are claimed to be.

Right now, I'm leaning towards Sleeping Dogs for its combat system.  However, I just got finished playing Arkham City, finding that experience, though enjoyable, quite draining.  I look forward to everyone's viewpoints on the games I've presented here, as these viewpoints are what will truly sell the game for me.

[Nappi]

Sleeping Dogs is definitely worth the 5 dollars, and more importantly, I'd say, your time due to its nice compact city, impressive graphics, enjoyable gameplay, and a plot, while often ridiculous and sometimes plain bad, that does not drag out too long. Just to give you some idea of the length, I clocked 22 hours. That includes all of the side-missions and lots of idle cruising around Hong Kong (most of the time on the wrong side of the road).

 

There is a demo available on Steam if you are unsure whether you like the gameplay or whether your PC can run the game or something. I haven't tried any of the DLC.

 

Nor have I played any of the other games you listed.

[Roderick]

Playing I have no mouth now, and it's definitely the obscurest point and click adventure ever. If you have problems with the genre, don't play this.

Overlord is super fun. It's been a while since I played it, so perhaps it's aged a little, but I remember really liking it as a charming (Dutch!) thing.

[Laco]

If price is a factor, the Steam version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is available for $1 (or more) at http://vodo.net/bigbrother right now.

 

Personally, I'd recommend Condemned. It's been a long time since I played it, but it's the only one of these I've managed to finish, and I still have quite fond memories of it. Being a slow-paced FPS where guns are rare, and thus very powerful, makes it quite unique.

 

Sleeping Dogs is good too though, it's definitely worth $5 for a bit of fun.

[Sno]

I haven't played it in a few years, but i have fond memories of going through Condemned. (It was an Xbox 360 launch game! It's so old, but still part of this current console cycle! This hardware cycle has gone on for so long.) I ended up playing through it a few times and i think it's probably one of my favorite horror games. Within it are featured the dirtiest, angriest hobos and a sliiight lovecraftian vibe that manages to be quite effective.

Its biggest jumps are delivered through scripted story sequences, but the game kind of keeps you on edge almost constantly with smart AI that likes to seek out alternate paths in the environment so it can circle around and attack you from behind. The actual combat doesn't have much going on, but it's mechanically elegant while also feeling uncomfortably violent. (The sequel blowing out the melee combat with elaborate combo systems actually made for a much worse game, though that's certainly not the only problem with the sequel. Condemned 2 is a game that completely misunderstood what works about the first game.)

There's some great atmosphere in Condemned though, everything comes across as dirty, filthy, diseased, and especially confused. It's at its best when it's being deliberately ambiguous.

[melmer]

I didn't like Alice: Madness Returns and quit it after a few hours, the platforming really wasn't that tight. It was really fucking hard, i remember now i quit because the kept dying in combat (getting shot from off screen, poor combat design) and just gave up because i really didn't care

 

Sleepy dogs is hella fun

[Rxanadu]

If price is a factor, the Steam version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is available for $1 (or more) at http://vodo.net/bigbrother right now.

 

Personally, I'd recommend Condemned. It's been a long time since I played it, but it's the only one of these I've managed to finish, and I still have quite fond memories of it. Being a slow-paced FPS where guns are rare, and thus very powerful, makes it quite unique.

 

Sleeping Dogs is good too though, it's definitely worth $5 for a bit of fun.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

Just got "I Have No Mouth" for $1 via the link you provided, so I'll cross that one off the list.

 

As for the other games, it seems to be a battle between Condemned and Sleeping Dogs.

 

The major fears I have for both games are listed below:

• Sleeping Dogs - The combat in this game has been compared to the combat featured in Arkham Asylum.  I recently finished Arkham City on Hard and found the combat system to feel more like a rhythm game where each button press acts as a queued-up action you can't cancel out of.  This system led to a much more nuanced experience, resembling a dance rather than typical button-mashing combat found in games like Darksiders or the recent DmC.  After playing the demo of Sleeping Dogs, however, I found the combat to feel very loose and less situation-oriented.  I haven't spent much time with the game yet, so it may feel like a fusion of the earlier Devil May Cry games with the counter system of Arkham Asylum.  I just feel the combat won't carry the game outside of my declaration of the game as "GTA in Hong Kong."
• Condemned - The first thing I think of when someone talks about a first-person game with a focus on melee combat, I think of Chronicles of Riddick.  Unlike most people though, I found that game to be lacking in a good combat system in general: I found myself constantly throwing punches at thin air and the shooting was downright terrible.  I remember liking when I was in the dark in that game.  I'm not speaking of stealth mechanics at all; I merely loved the visual indications showing I was hidden from other characters in the game.  Everything from CoR was poorly executed IMO; I just fear Condemned will be just that but with crazy hobos.

[feelthedarkness]

Fallout NV is one of, if not my favorite game of this generation, and the 4 DLCs are the best integrated. Almost like classic "expansion packs" and taken all together form almost a coherent second game. There are a few narrative threads that run through tying them into a larger story. If you are a fan of the original games, it does a great job tying everything to those games. I think it's significantly better than F3, just more affecting story stuff, and faction building.

 

Vampire the Masquerade is great too. I really want to replay it, especially after reading that it's received the KOTOR treatment, of continual updates fan patches, and significant restoration and finishing of cut content. You can get through most of it nonviolently, which is always neat.

 

The other thing I'd really recommend is Painkiller. Just the first game. I always regard it as the perfect high action FPS. Frequent checkpoints restore health (and I think ammo) and then unleash waves of highly destructible demons. No need for hording, or save scumming, so it forces you to fight with abandon. The weapons feel real solid, particularly the stake launcher, who's stakes are like fenceposts. It pins ragdolling enemies to any surface, including each other. 

[TychoCelchuuu]

Since I made this for another forum, might as well post it here (if it's not clear from my recommendations, I'd probably go for Fallout: New Vegas or Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines):

Featuring a picture of a Portal pumpkin I once carved because I haven't planned ahead and carved a Steam pumpkin this year, sorry

I know what it's like. Staring at all the games on sale, wondering if any or all of them are worth buying. Some of them definitely aren't. So don't buy them all. But check out this guide to some games that might be worth buying! I've only really included games with pretty deep discounts that end up cheap: A Machine for Pigs, Dream, and DmC are neat, for instance, but not really cheap enough if you ask me. Read on!

Atom Zombie Smasher - $2.99

Zombies are taking over Nuevos Aires. You probably can't stop them. You can barely slow them down. All you can do is evacuate as many civilians as you can. From your position in orbit above the city, direct your troops to save as many people as you can until nightfall. Featuring lots of explosions and a great minimalist story. Excellent replayability is enhanced by some fun mods you can download from right in the game. Also features awesome surf rock music.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - $4.99

Deus Ex with vampires. Extremely well done and has a dinosaur, sort of.

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition - $4.99

Potentially the best Fallout. Amazing open world RPG in a postapocalyptic Western setting with great '50s music on the radio and an Elvis impersonating gang.

Space Pirates and Zombies - $2.49

Addicting top down space shooter RPG. Design and fly your own spaceships and explore the galaxy to try to defeat the zombie menace. You are the space pirates.

The Void - $1.99

It's art! One of the winner's of HAWP's "Overlooked Games of 2009" prize:

Shadow Man - $2.49

I've heard this is a pretty classic third person action game.

Condemned: Hobo Beatdown - $3.74

Freaky as fuck and reinforces hurtful societal stereotypes about hobos with its immerisve first person hand to hand combat. What's not to like? Aside from the prejudice I mean. That's not to like.

Clive Barker's Jericho™ - $1.24

Actually kind of a shitty first person shooter, but not a TERRIBLY shitty first person shooter.

The Walking Dead - $6.24

it make u cry guranteed

The Swapper - $5.09

Puzzle swapping metaphysical revelations featuring absolutely gorgeous graphics and a name that sounds like some kind of sexually transmitted disease. That's the reason I haven't bought it yet. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, now I have the clap and the swapper. No way. Not falling for it again.

Monaco - $7.49

Pac Man meets Hitman. Frenetic gorgeous top down heist-em-up. Great in coop and in single player.

Miasmata - $3.74

A game where you wander around an island as a sickly person picking flowers and trying to cure your disease. It's basically amazing.

Cosostume Quest - $3.74

Thematically relevant cute little RPG.

Primordia - $2.49

Pretty postapocalyptic cyberpunky adventure game.

Natural Selection 2 - $6.24

One of the best multiplayer FPS games released in the past few years (and ever). Two asymmetric teams, Marines vs aliens, face off in space. Each team is led by a commander, who basically is playing Starcraft with real people. Great teamwork, great graphics, great price.

Cthulhu Saves the World * Breath of Death VII - $1.01

JRPG parody/homages.

Dracula Origin - $2.49

Fucking Draculas, am I right? This is probably a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins or Batman: Arkham Origins or the jet fighter simulator Strike Commander by Origin Systems which is available now on GOG.com should you wish to play that before jumping into this Dracula thing.

[Rxanadu]

I think I've done something terrible: I just found out Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are on sale for $4.99 on Steam each.

 

Luckily, I've decided to just get Sleeping Dogs and skip Condemned; I already have Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Steam) and The Penumbra Collection (GOG), so I'm good for horror games.  As for Fallout, I honestly fear I'll just get sucked into that world (in the bad way), so I'm skipping on that one indefinitely.  Note that I have not purchased Sleeping Dogs.  However, I'm willing to spend up to $10 for this sale.  

 

For my other game, I'm split between Dead Space 1/2 and Vampire the Masquerade.  This may be the last post before I just go and purchase Sleeping Dogs and one of these games.  For those who've played at least one of these games, I'd like to know your favorite moments of each game and compare them with one another.  The thing that got me to buy Arkham City over Asylumn, for example, was the talk about Catwoman's choice in a previous episode of Idle Thumbs.  It was so interesting, I had to see it for myself.  I want to see if something as interesting occurs in either Dead Space or Vampire the Masquerade. 

[I Saw Dasein]

Dead Space 2 is horrible. Dead Space 1 is ok if you like non-stop jump scares. I'd skip both though. 

 

e: Dead Space 2 is particularly bad on PC. For some reason, the PC version comes with all of the DLC included, which sounds like a good thing but isn't: the DLC includes game-breaking armor and weapons, so the game's whole difficulty curve and crafting system are out the window. And there's no easy way of telling which items are supposed to be unlocked and which items are cheats. 

[Sno]

I think the first Dead Space is a phenomenal action game, it's pretty to look at and has some really solid, interesting game mechanics. So i do love it quite a lot, but i definitely don't think it's a very effective horror game. (Its enemies are very predictable, your weapons are incredibly powerful, but it expects you to be afraid because jump scares and gore.)

I'm not as big a fan of 2, it's much more scripted and linear and does far fewer interesting things with its mechanics. (Also, for the record, 3 is a pile of wretched garbage.)
 

 

• Condemned - The first thing I think of when someone talks about a first-person game with a focus on melee combat, I think of Chronicles of Riddick.  Unlike most people though, I found that game to be lacking in a good combat system in general: I found myself constantly throwing punches at thin air and the shooting was downright terrible.  I remember liking when I was in the dark in that game.  I'm not speaking of stealth mechanics at all; I merely loved the visual indications showing I was hidden from other characters in the game.  Everything from CoR was poorly executed IMO; I just fear Condemned will be just that but with crazy hobos.

 

Well, the thing is, i think it's the Riddick games that i would compare the feel of Condemned's combat to, so you might find that aspect of the game somewhat disappointing. I really love Condemned though, i would still recommend it, even with that noted concern.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Every 15 minutes of Vampire, for the first half of the game, is full of choices more interesting than the Catwoman shit from the Idle Thumbs episode.

[JonCole]

Considering I'm not a big fan of horror (jump scares get me, atmosphere gets me, unexplained noises get me, etc), it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm not a big fan of some of these games but I need to throw my hat into the "Don't buy Dead Space" pile. While I actually did get pretty far in that game given my background with horror, I was still stopped dead in my tracks by an unkillable enemy. It rang very Resident Evil to me in both that momentum killing mechanic as well as the action/shooter controls with a degree of clunkiness. I don't really like tank controls, and I don't buy into the idea that having unwieldy controls adds to tension of horror moments because it really just makes me frustrated with the mechanics more than anything. Also, I don't particularly like that the world is moving while you're navigating your inventory, though I can see the argument for that adding to tension without necessarily being clunky.

[feelthedarkness]

I just want acknowledge that sweet image supported tychoC post. 

[Sno]

Considering I'm not a big fan of horror (jump scares get me, atmosphere gets me, unexplained noises get me, etc), it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm not a big fan of some of these games but I need to throw my hat into the "Don't buy Dead Space" pile. While I actually did get pretty far in that game given my background with horror, I was still stopped dead in my tracks by an unkillable enemy. It rang very Resident Evil to me in both that momentum killing mechanic as well as the action/shooter controls with a degree of clunkiness. I don't really like tank controls, and I don't buy into the idea that having unwieldy controls adds to tension of horror moments because it really just makes me frustrated with the mechanics more than anything. Also, I don't particularly like that the world is moving while you're navigating your inventory, though I can see the argument for that adding to tension without necessarily being clunky.

Dead Space does not have tank controls. You are not a rotating turret with no strafing capability, you have a free range of movement. It practically feels like playing Gears of War, it's more responsive even. (If you were playing the PC version, i suppose you were probably trying to play with mouse and keyboard, which i've heard was very sluggish and badly implemented.)

Also, in my opinion, the bit with the unkillable enemy is completely one of the best parts of the game, it's the only part that's genuinely scary. You're presented with an enemy that you have to slow down by taking advantage of the game's unique mechanics, repeatedly removing its regenerating limbs to slow it down and buy yourself time, trying to manage your ammo against how much time you think you need. You're hunting for exits to flee through, solving problems that stand in your way, and ultimately trying and find a way to kill it, all while it's pursuing you relentlessly. It is a very Resident Evil-esque moment, but it was awesome.

I also feel a non-pausing inventory is a completely valid design choice, and it's something many games do. More than contributing to tension, it enforces the player remaining conscious of their surroundings, and disallows broad and exploitative supply management in the middle of a fight.

[JonCole]

Dead Space does not have tank controls. You are not a rotating turret with no strafing capability, you have a free range of movement. It practically feels like playing Gears of War, it's more responsive even. (If you were playing the PC version, i suppose you were probably trying to play with mouse and keyboard, which i've heard was very sluggish and badly implemented.)

Also, in my opinion, the bit with the unkillable enemy is completely one of the best parts of the game, it's the only part that's genuinely scary. You're presented with an enemy that you have to slow down by taking advantage of the game's unique mechanics, repeatedly removing its regenerating limbs to slow it down and buy yourself time, trying to manage your ammo against how much time you think you need. You're hunting for exits to flee through, solving problems that stand in your way, and ultimately trying and find a way to kill it, all while it's pursuing you relentlessly. It is a very Resident Evil-esque moment, but it was awesome.

I also feel a non-pausing inventory is a completely valid design choice, and it's something many games do. More than contributing to tension, it enforces the player remaining conscious of their surroundings, and disallows broad and exploitative supply management in the middle of a fight.

 

I played the demo on console and the game on PC, but I still think the controls are unwieldy in either case and not even close to Gears of War as you described. Gears of War is a competitive game and thus has a level of polish and precision to its controls that simply isn't comparable to DS.

 

Anyways, I didn't mean to say that Dead Space has tank controls (and I didn't actually say that), I was more alluding to the fact that this game falls somewhere in between a spectrum from tank controls to third-person shooting controls, much like RE4/RE5. I appreciate precision and this game doesn't have it, there are plenty of times where I used a melee attack that I would have guessed hit the enemy by the animation but I actually miss them and they pull off a one-shot kill or extremely damaging blow. I also didn't like the way you run in the game, can't put my finger on what exactly was wrong because it's been long enough since I played it but I thought I should say it.

 

I put out the disclaimer that I'm not a fan of horror games, so again read my comments with that filter. The only RE games I liked were the lightgun games and RE4, but even then I didn't think they were anything to write home about. And I'd like to restate that I simply didn't like the non-pausing inventory and by no means am saying it's an invalid design choice. I will agree that it enforced consciousness of surroundings, and I liked it as a stylistic choice if nothing else because it blended well with the aesthetics and functions of other technology in the game.

 

Nonetheless, I still do find Dead Space fairly compelling in terms of being thrilling, the inventory/upgrade system, and the narrative (can't speak for where it goes in later games). I just can't find it a more compelling choice than some of the other games that were mentioned in this thread. Of course, it's moot considering the sale is over.

 

What choice(s) did you end up making, Rxnadu?

[Rxanadu]

Thanks for all the advice from everyone.  As the sale is now over, I may as well say I purchased Sleeping Dogs and Vampire the Masquerade.  It seems the fears I had for Sleeping Dogs were true: the combat is a bit loose, and it feels exactly like "GTA in Hong Kong."  As of this post, I haven't played VtM.  I hope to fiddle around with it soon with the Unofficial Patch.