PC games on sale

[Atocep]

Steam has some ridiculous deals on PC games right now running through the 2nd of January. Team Fortress 2 $9.99, Bioshock $4.99, along with some bundle deals and a lot more.

[Matthean]

Steam has some ridiculous deals on PC games right now running through the 2nd of January. Team Fortress 2 $9.99, Bioshock $4.99, along with some bundle deals and a lot more.

Civ 4 for $15.

[wishbone]

There are some pretty good deals in there. I got Peggle deluxe for $5 and Left 4 Dead for $38 (not the greatest, but still 25% off retail). Faster and cheaper than going to the store, I'm considering the Valve complete pack at $75 for my wife's PC.

[Radii]

WWSM for $26.99!

[JPhillips]

When did Baseball Mogul become Bill "Spaceman" Lee's Baseball Mogul?

[Oilers9911]

When did Baseball Mogul become Bill "Spaceman" Lee's Baseball Mogul?

And is it worth it for $12?

[jeff061]

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around Bioshock at 4.99. That game still easily plays and looks better than most games released in the past year.

[Critch]

Portal for $4.99 can't be bad.

Guess that's going to ruin my "I'm never buying from Steam again!" one-man boycott.

[jeff061]

Not sure what caused the boycott, but it has come a long way since it's disastrous introduction. In my opinion it's become one of the best aspects of gaming on a PC at this point.

[TLK]

And is it worth it for $12?

I'll let you know. Taking the plunge now.

[TLK]

The download is going painfully slow. Almost dial-up like speed. Is this normal?

[jeff061]

I downloaded Bioshock yesterday at 2.2 meg/s.

[ozias]

How good is Steam?

Any spyware/adware installed, or a protection scheme like StarForce?

[Atocep]

How good is Steam?

Any spyware/adware installed, or a protection scheme like StarForce?

Steam is 100% safe. Download speeds are usually fast. You can launch any games you buy from steam through it and you can add games you didn't buy through it to steam to launch them through it as well. There's a built-in instant messenger, you can see which games people on your friends list are playing, and if its multiplayer you can join them in the game (if their server has an open spot) just by clicking a button.

It may the best thing going for PC gaming right now (at least that's my opinion). I'd prefer to buy all of my games through steam.

[SackAttack]

Steam is 100% safe. Download speeds are usually fast. You can launch any games you buy from steam through it and you can add games you didn't buy through it to steam to launch them through it as well. There's a built-in instant messenger, you can see which games people on your friends list are playing, and if its multiplayer you can join them in the game (if their server has an open spot) just by clicking a button.

It may the best thing going for PC gaming right now (at least that's my opinion). I'd prefer to buy all of my games through steam.

You can also launch a steam-purchased game outside of steam, as long as the computer you're using has been activated for that game.

Got WWSM 09 from Steam, and changed the shortcut pointer so that it loads the executable directly instead of the Steam overlay, so I know that works.

[ozias]

You can also launch a steam-purchased game outside of steam, as long as the computer you're using has been activated for that game.

Got WWSM 09 from Steam, and changed the shortcut pointer so that it loads the executable directly instead of the Steam overlay, so I know that works.

So this would be like buying the game, and installing a cracked executable, so it's not looking for the cd/dvd in the system, except your downloading the game from steam instead.

That's a great feature if you can do it to all games. Is this in XP or Vista? Is it easy to change, so you can bypass Steam?

[jeff061]

I guess you could look at it like that. Running through Steam isn't really that much of an annoyance though. I never notice it.

The prices are right, they have a big library, no media to keep track of and for the last couple years Steam's been streamlined enough so you never notice it.

Really the only negative I see is not getting physical documentation. I just prefer not to read PDF's on my screen and printing them out isn't the same.

Edit: If you care about achievements (I don't) you may need to have Steam running, not sure.

[SackAttack]

So this would be like buying the game, and installing a cracked executable, so it's not looking for the cd/dvd in the system, except your downloading the game from steam instead.

That's a great feature if you can do it to all games. Is this in XP or Vista? Is it easy to change, so you can bypass Steam?

It's very easy to do. I don't even look at it as a cracked executable, because you still have to authorize the game through Steam before you can even play it. What you do by stripping the Steam executable thing from the shortcut is get rid of the Steam overlay that pops up at times.

I still leave Steam active in the background for messages and such, but I don't get those "press alt + tab to whatever" messages when the game is loading or at other times anymore.

Think of it this way - the Steam overlay is intended as a convenience to the user. It isn't like the free GameTap client where your use of the game is dependent upon your acceptance of the annoyances. It's there as a convenience so you can do things within Steam without having to alt-tab off the game screen or whatever.

Me, I don't like it, so I changed the shortcut to only load the game and not the overlay. It doesn't touch the game code itself at all. Does that make any sense?

[Pumpy Tudors]

FTR, Steam runs slow as shit on my computer. Me no likey.

[Ironhead]

Picked up Bioshock tonight for only $4.99. Downloaded at about 750K/sec, took approx 90 minute to download the entire thing. Installed and is running without issue. Awesome deal if you ask me, especially considering that even if you purchase this off the shelf it still has DRM.

[SackAttack]

FTR, Steam runs slow as shit on my computer. Me no likey.

And that is largely why I don't like the overlay. It just slows things down for me.

[ozias]

It's very easy to do. I don't even look at it as a cracked executable, because you still have to authorize the game through Steam before you can even play it. What you do by stripping the Steam executable thing from the shortcut is get rid of the Steam overlay that pops up at times.

I still leave Steam active in the background for messages and such, but I don't get those "press alt + tab to whatever" messages when the game is loading or at other times anymore.

Think of it this way - the Steam overlay is intended as a convenience to the user. It isn't like the free GameTap client where your use of the game is dependent upon your acceptance of the annoyances. It's there as a convenience so you can do things within Steam without having to alt-tab off the game screen or whatever.

Me, I don't like it, so I changed the shortcut to only load the game and not the overlay. It doesn't touch the game code itself at all. Does that make any sense?

Yes it does, sounds like I need to check them out again, as I looked into them a while ago, but wasn't sure how good they were. Sounds like they've got amazing prices, which for downloadable content is good for the consumer, if they let you download the games once more if your HD crashes on you.

Do they allow such a thing? I know we can get support to get FOF re-licensed after a crash by emailing tech support and loading our license into the game. Curious to hear whether or not you can do the same with Steam.

[Atocep]

Yes it does, sounds like I need to check them out again, as I looked into them a while ago, but wasn't sure how good they were. Sounds like they've got amazing prices, which for downloadable content is good for the consumer, if they let you download the games once more if your HD crashes on you.

Do they allow such a thing? I know we can get support to get FOF re-licensed after a crash by emailing tech support and loading our license into the game. Curious to hear whether or not you can do the same with Steam.


You get unlimited downloads as far as I know. I've downloaded Team Fortress 2 at least 4 times because of reformats and building a new computer with no problems or re-activations or anything of that sort.

[tarcone]

Whats the site? Not in the right state of mind

[GoldenEagle]

I hate Steam. Is there anyway to get the games to run without loading Steam. I bought the boxed version of FM and I am still having to use Steam.

[Big Fo]

I don't know if it's possible for games bought through steam, but I activated my store bought copy of FM in steam and don't need to run steam to play it. Just create a separate shortcut to the .exe and run that.

[FrogMan]

I hate Steam. Is there anyway to get the games to run without loading Steam. I bought the boxed version of FM and I am still having to use Steam.

I don't know if it's possible for games bought through steam, but I activated my store bought copy of FM in steam and don't need to run steam to play it. Just create a separate shortcut to the .exe and run that.

Big Fo answered GoldenEagle, I'll answer Big Fo, it is possible. To explain it to GE, the shortcut created by steam for my copy of WSM had this in the target field:
"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 10560
I located the executable for WSM at C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\worldwide soccer manager 2009\wsm.exe and made a shortcut directly to that file and voilà, I'm running the game without having to run steam.

FM

[SackAttack]

I don't know if it's possible for games bought through steam, but I activated my store bought copy of FM in steam and don't need to run steam to play it. Just create a separate shortcut to the .exe and run that.

Big Fo answered GoldenEagle, I'll answer Big Fo, it is possible. To explain it to GE, the shortcut created by steam for my copy of WSM had this in the target field:
"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 10560
I located the executable for WSM at C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\worldwide soccer manager 2009\wsm.exe and made a shortcut directly to that file and voilà, I'm running the game without having to run steam.

FM

Who said anything about a separate shortcut? nuke the -applaunch 10560 string from the shortcut created on installation and it still works fine.

[hoopsguy]

Thanks for posting this. I'm now among the ranks who grabbed Bioshock at $4.99. I've had this on a shortlist of games to pick up; stuff that I missed when it first came out but definitely wanted to play. And that price just cannot be beat.

Now to figure out where I'm going to find spare time for this along with the new Wii games ... sigh, guess I can kiss off January '09 from getting productive work done :)

[FrogMan]

Who said anything about a separate shortcut? nuke the -applaunch 10560 string from the shortcut created on installation and it still works fine.


but then won't it simply launch steam without launching the game? I'm confused as to your comment... :confused:

The shortcut isn't to wsm.exe with some launch for steam, it's for steam with some launch of another application (which I assume is their code for "launch wsm.exe")

FM

[SackAttack]

but then won't it simply launch steam without launching the game? I'm confused as to your comment... :confused:

The shortcut isn't to wsm.exe with some launch for steam, it's for steam with some launch of another application (which I assume is their code for "launch wsm.exe")

FM

Oh, I see. You're talking about Steam in general, I'm talking about the steam overlay on top of WSM.

I run Steam anyway for the buddy list, but I've stripped out the overlay because it's annoying and gets in my way.

[FrogMan]

Oh, I see. You're talking about Steam in general, I'm talking about the steam overlay on top of WSM.

I run Steam anyway for the buddy list, but I've stripped out the overlay because it's annoying and gets in my way.

yeah, what I mentioned was for someone to run the game without having to run steam at all. :)

FM

[Yellow5]

Already had Bioshock or I would have picked it up for 5 bucks.

I bought Trials 2: Second Edition for $2.49 and STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl for $5.

Between those and the Space Rangers 2 reboot on Impulse I am set for the next month.

[Fidatelo]

I picked up Civ 4, but I can't just run the Civilization4.exe executable (as described a few posts up). When I do, it throws an error saying "Failed to find Steam".

[CleBrownsfan]

I've been trying to DL the installation of Team Fortress 2 for two days now - and it's only at 28% - argggg..

[Oilers9911]

Picked up Race 07, Bioshock and Xpand Rally. Grand total $14. Nice.

[Lonnie]

I grabbed Dawn of War Everything Pack, and Titan Quest Gold. $42. I was downloading at over 1 Mbps.

[sabotai]

Bought Mount and Blade last night for $14.90, and so far I am completely hooked on it.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Bought Mount and Blade last night for $14.90, and so far I am completely hooked on it.

It's a great game.

I downloaded "Left 4 Dead" and "World In Conflict" last night. Neither took too long. I have been contemplating the "Dawn Of War" pack as well...

[gstelmack]

Bought Mount and Blade last night for $14.90, and so far I am completely hooked on it.

Me, too. Well, I haven't been able to play it yet, but at that price I had to go ahead and buy it for when I do have time.

The Strategy First complete back for like $48 is calling to me, but I just finished Gears of War 2, still have my MLB Power Pros 2008 MLB Life career going, grabbed Far Cry 2 from the company store, and got Crysis: Warhead and Fallout 3 for Christmas. I've got enough games for now...

[Draft Dodger]

I spent about $50 from my paypal mad money account. picked up

Mass Effect
Company of Heroes Expansion
Railroad Tycoon II
Luxor 2
Audiosurf

they were temporarily out of stock on UT3, but I'll probably spring for the $10 on that as well. I'm a cheapskate, so these will last me a while

[gstelmack]

they were temporarily out of stock on UT3, but I'll probably spring for the $10 on that as well. I'm a cheapskate, so these will last me a while

How on earth was a digitial delivery service "out of stock" on anything?

[Draft Dodger]

How on earth was a digitial delivery service "out of stock" on anything?

funny thing, that. according to what I read, they ran out of CD keys. :confused:

[sabotai]

I've played Mount and Blade all day. At the stroke of midnight to bring in the new year, I was storming a Swadian castle with my Khergit brothers. We were victorious!

[atatange1]

Picked up Mount and Blade, really like it so far.

[FrogMan]

please school me on Mount & Blade. I'm not real big on RPG games, but this is simply you riding around, gathering people to fight with you and then find more people to fight?

I just downloaded and tried the demo and it looks pretty interesting, just trying to get a handle on what the game is.

FM

[Honolulu_Blue]

please school me on Mount & Blade. I'm not real big on RPG games, but this is simply you riding around, gathering people to fight with you and then find more people to fight?

I just downloaded and tried the demo and it looks pretty interesting, just trying to get a handle on what the game is.

FM

Yeah, pretty much.

The combat engine is great. It's great for what it is. I played the hell out of that game. In the last 3 years, I have only played four PC games with any regularity: Half Life 2, Eastside Hockey, Civ IV, and Mount & Blade. So, it's in very, very good company.

[sabotai]

please school me on Mount & Blade. I'm not real big on RPG games, but this is simply you riding around, gathering people to fight with you and then find more people to fight?

I just downloaded and tried the demo and it looks pretty interesting, just trying to get a handle on what the game is.

FM

The game plays similar to Pirates Gold if you ever played that, just in a middle ages setting. You recruit people, fight other groups if you want, or you can go city to city playing as a merchant. When war breaks out, you, with you army of followers, can join one side as a mercenary. When you do that, you can loot and pillage the villages. Eventually, you can become a vassal of one of the rulers if you gain enough favor with them, at which point you'll be given a village to rule over.

Some people give out quests. Village Elders for the villages, Guild Masters in cities, and the Lords in the castles.

Each part is pretty simple. Managing a village is nothing more than building a few improvements (at first, I haven't gotten too far in that part yet). But when you put them all together, it's a pretty unique game. It's a very basic version of what I envision the perfect Open-Ended RPG to be (but the closest thing to it that's out there).

[Daimyo]

Picked up the XCOM pack and WWSM. Thanks for the notice!

[FrogMan]

Yeah, pretty much.

The combat engine is great. It's great for what it is. I played the hell out of that game. In the last 3 years, I have only played four PC games with any regularity: Half Life 2, Eastside Hockey, Civ IV, and Mount & Blade. So, it's in very, very good company.

The game plays similar to Pirates Gold if you ever played that, just in a middle ages setting. You recruit people, fight other groups if you want, or you can go city to city playing as a merchant. When war breaks out, you, with you army of followers, can join one side as a mercenary. When you do that, you can loot and pillage the villages. Eventually, you can become a vassal of one of the rulers if you gain enough favor with them, at which point you'll be given a village to rule over.

Some people give out quests. Village Elders for the villages, Guild Masters in cities, and the Lords in the castles.

Each part is pretty simple. Managing a village is nothing more than building a few improvements (at first, I haven't gotten too far in that part yet). But when you put them all together, it's a pretty unique game. It's a very basic version of what I envision the perfect Open-Ended RPG to be (but the closest thing to it that's out there).

thanks for the info guys, looks mighty interesting. Sabotai's explanations help even a bit more, pretty interesting idea that you actually grow or change in stature in the game.

As I said, I'm not big into RPG, and not particularly interested in the MMORPG aspect of things, but to be able to play this one on my own sounds cool.

I also just downloaded and installed the demo for World of Goo and I am mighty impressed by it, looks like a ton of fun...

FM

[path12]

Downloading Mount & Blade based on what I've seen here and in the past about it. Also picked up Peggle Deluxe, SEIV Gold and Space Traders. Nice prices.

[FrogMan]

Played through the tutorial of the Mount & Blade game and found the whole thing quite fun, even though I had to go through the bit about attacking two or three times before getting it right. Started a character and then mounted my horse and rode around. Got a party of about 14 and encountered a group of 13 brigands who wanted our money. The heck we said and slaughtered them. There was something exhilarating about seeing my group of disparate nomads, all weapons in the air, victorious in such a tiny battle. I was sold right then. :)

After ordering WSM2009 a couple days ago, I added these today:
Mount & Blade
World of Goo (this thing is dang addictive!)
Luxor 2 (for 0.99, come on)
Peggle deluxe (another fun timewaster, for 4.99)

Still got almost a week before I go back to work, will get some playing time in there for sure. :)

FM

[Honolulu_Blue]

Picked up the XCOM pack and WWSM. Thanks for the notice!

You had to let me know they had XCom.

Well, for $3.50, it's more than worth it.

[gstelmack]

From reading though those XCom versions have stability issues on Windows. If anyone finds that they run well on XP or Vista, let me know.

[cschex]

Mount and Blade sounds interesting. Does anyone know what the graphics reqs are? Specifically, will it run on laptop integrated chipsets?

[Honolulu_Blue]

From reading though those XCom versions have stability issues on Windows. If anyone finds that they run well on XP or Vista, let me know.

I will keep you posted. I tried XCom on Game Tap and had issues. XCom is notoriously fickle. For $3.50, it's worth the gamble.

[Lonnie]

Did anyone pick up Hinterland? It sounds interesting, and I might pick it up along with Mount and Blade.

[lighthousekeeper]

well i took the plunge on wwsm09 and bioshock - couldn't pass up the good deals.

[FrogMan]

Mount and Blade sounds interesting. Does anyone know what the graphics reqs are? Specifically, will it run on laptop integrated chipsets?

there's a demo you can download through steam so you could try it...

FM

[cschex]

there's a demo you can download through steam so you could try it...

FM

Sweet, I missed that. I'm dl'ing it now

[Daimyo]

From reading though those XCom versions have stability issues on Windows. If anyone finds that they run well on XP or Vista, let me know.

The first one has run fine for me on Vista 32bit. The sound occasionally gets flaky, but that's about it.

[EagleFan]

WSM 2009
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Silent Hunter 3

Downloading now, should be a fun weekend. ;)

[PilotMan]

I picked up Mount & Blade. It might be a while before I get to it, but it seems to have some good playability, and worth the sale price.

[Draft Dodger]

so, I buy Mass Effect, get it downloaded (finally), start playing, get about 10 minutes in until the first time the game tries to save...and it throws an error. I can't save the game at all. After a bit of digging, it turns out the game can't handle having your My Documents folder being anywhere other than your C drive (awesome job, programming team). I finally got it working (requiring me to sit through the first 10 minutes of the game 3 or 4 times in the process). Seriously, the game's been out for a year and this stupid bug is still around?

Meanwhile, I get all 8 gigs of UT3 downloaded (that took a couple of days). It won't work - it crashes every time I try to run it. I haven't been able to find any solution to this one (even though there are lots of folks running into this problem), so now I've resorted to reinstalling...which means redownloading the whole blooming thing again. Again, this game is a YEAR old - What. The. Fuck. People?

Anyway, Railroad Tycoon II has worked just fine, so I've been sticking with that.

[JPhillips]

Damn. Missed Mount and Blade when I took a nap for my cold, and now the sale's over. Wish they would have mentioned it ended during the day instead of leaving it at Jan. 2.

[PilotMan]

I noticed on the news that for anyone who likes Peggle, that Peggle Extreme is free to download for Steam members. Peggle Extreme is what you get when you cross loveable owls, and unicorns with the Orange Box.

[gstelmack]

So twice now my machine has shut down (just instant power off) while playing Mount & Blade. This could be fun. Mind you, that's probably 10 hours of playing, and it saves a lot for me, but I'm not big on this whole "click something on the map and the whole machine goes dark" bit. Of course, that was 10 hours of playing over like 3 days, which shows how good the game itself is (for those considering it, it's Oblivion + large war parties + dynamic world - unified underlying storyline - system hog - magic).

[lighthousekeeper]

Damn. Missed Mount and Blade when I took a nap.

you snooze you lose :p

[path12]

I've been playing Peggle all night. Really fun.

[mauchow]

I got home at 5:30 last night and was ready to order a bunch of stuff.... and the sale is gone. Bummer.

[SackAttack]

Big Fo answered GoldenEagle, I'll answer Big Fo, it is possible. To explain it to GE, the shortcut created by steam for my copy of WSM had this in the target field:
"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 10560
I located the executable for WSM at C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\worldwide soccer manager 2009\wsm.exe and made a shortcut directly to that file and voilà, I'm running the game without having to run steam.

FM

Damnit. Evidently this doesn't work anymore. I'm trying to figure out how to get Runespell to keep running smoothly instead of bogging down after 15 minutes, and when I used this workaround, it loaded Steam right off.

The shortcuts they've been creating on new installs don't even use the old workaround that stripped out the overlay.