Thanks for the heads up. Been wanting to buy that for a while.

L4D2 is $35 for 360 and $28 for PC version as Amazon's deal of the day.

73 hours was my clear time for the game of the year addition which includes the dlc content Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. I finished all the quests in the game but didn't clear out all the little dungeons so your mileage may vary from mine.

I spent over 300 hours (no, I'm not exaggerating) on Fallout and the DLC, but then I'm also borderline OCD when it comes to picking up and selling everything that isn't nailed down.

Wow. Between the encumberance penalties and the shere amount of stuff that isn't nailed down, I can see why it'd take you over 300 hours.

Weekend deal on Steam, 75% off the whole Company of Heroes franchise:
Company of Heroes Complete Pack - Age Verification

FM

I have the original CoH - are the expansions worth getting?

I got stuck on something like mission 6 of the base US campaign for CoH and haven't gone back since.

Opposing Fronts added two new armies (British and Panzer Elite). Well worth it. Not sure about Tales of Valor, but for $7.50, I probably will pick it up

i'm debating it. i have opposing fronts but never finished it - although it was enjoyable. but 14.50 for the whole thing in digital format...i dunno...maybe

the complete pack actually comes up a couple bucks cheaper, at $12.49... :)

FM

that's right...12.49. hehe

Any good prices on Civ 4? I finally got a solid HP laptop the other day with a decent graphics card.

GamersGate - All products - Buy and download games for PC now

Civ 4 complete for $19.95 right now on Gamer's Gate Sid Meier's week. Goes for $39.99 over on Steam. No clue if you can find better, but it looks like a pretty decent price for the game and all the expansions...

FM

Discounts on several PS3 downloadable games.........

Game Download Codes (PS3): Tank Battles $3.50, Uno $4, Braid $7.50, Critter Crunch $3.49, Burn Zombie Burn $5, (PSP) Kurulin Fusion $2.50 - Slickdeals.net

Never heard of Tank Battles but I just watched a little clip of gameplay - looks like a fun little game

Steam has Psychonauts for $2 today.

Psychonauts on Steam

Big Xbox 360 game sale. Most between $7-10.

Xbox 360 Game Sale: The Club $8, F.E.A.R Files $9, Condemned 2 $9, Pure $10, Bionic Commando $10, Karaoke Revolution American Idol 1 or 2 Bundle $10 - Slickdeals.net

Mass Effect 2 for $46 shipped.

Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) $46 - Slickdeals.net

$159 for an Xbox Arcade consoles.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade Edition $159 - Slickdeals.net

I'm so happy I picked up Sid Meier's Pirates for $5 dollars last week. I forgot how wicked fun this game is. Granted I'm not playing on anything but the most basic difficulty. I may amp it up soon.
Question: how do I attack a city on land. I don't see the option anywhere. it is greyed out. I can sneak in.

You have to piss off the country really badly. Raid their ships, kill their governors, and generally be a badass. Then try and land in port, and instead of offering to dock, you get the option to attack. Then it opens the turn strategy mini-game, which I love, and tend to do often. You can eventually install a new governor.

Season 1 of Sam and Max is only $5 through the end of the month:

Telltale Games - Sam & Max 2010

can't access Steam from work anymore but their RSS feed announces some weekend deals: $2 Freedom Force Pack, $2 X-COM Complete, and Tropico 3 66% off!

links that were in the feed:
Package: Freedom Force: Freedom Pack
Package: X-COM: Complete Pack
Tropico 3 - Steam Special Edition on Steam

FM

$2 for X-Com Complete means I need to bite the bullet.

Done!

It says XCom runs on XP/Vista. Does this mean you download, install, and it works (correctly), or do you have to fiddle around with it? I ask because I own all three on CD and they are not playable without some fiddling IIRC.

I bought X-Com off Steam and it worked just fine. No fiddling around with anything. Just launch and go. It was as good as I've seen X-Com run since it first came out.

Ditto. The steam version uses Dosbox (which comes with it) automatically and is idiot proof. Works great.

Am I reading them wrong or are the minimum requirements to run those X-Com games as low as I think they are? Have I actually found some games my 3-4 year old PC can actually run?

You know the game (at least the original) is about 17 years old, right? :D

Yeah, that kind of gave me hope in the first place. But aren't these (or some of these at least) re-issues or reworked editions or something like that?

You'll have to forgive me, all I know of the X-Com series is what I've seen in the FOFC dynasty forum.

No. These are the original games with their old dated graphics but still fun gameplay. They are just being re-released with Dosbox integrated into the ones that need it to make them work without issue on Win XP, Vista, 7, etc.

hrm, 3-4 year old you say? What kind of build is it? I'm asking cause my own PC is bit over 3 years old and I thought it would not play any kind of games but I found many, many games through steam and GOG.com. And that's with a crappy integrated video card...

FM

Just about anything that will run Dosbox will run the X-COM games. Steam simply installs a game specific instance of dosbox that only loads the X-COM games. So, if you can run Dosbox, then you can run these.

Oh and if you don't know, Dosbox is a nice little Dos emulator. You can find it here.

Just your standard low-mid range off the retail rack model, complete with crappy integrated video card.

Good news is that at least the first X-Com game seems to run fine (I haven't tried the others yet, heck the first one covers the $2 cost afaic).

Bad news is that
-- I have only the foggiest clue wtf I'm doing
-- My Hannspree monitor hates old school graphics even with all the auto-adjusting it does. The top of the menu is clipped but playable, but I can't figure out how to exit from a character screen when I'm in Battlescape mode (i.e. I'm looking at a guy's stats, I'm stuck there) I suspect there's at least one button on the screen that I simply can't see at all.
-- If there's a manual included with the Steam download I'm apparently too dim to find it, so anything I do is trial & error since I don't know what the buttons on things like aerial combat screens actually do until I click them & then have to hope I remember. Interceptor shot down a UFO on the first encounter but I had to catch them 3 times since I disengaged by accident once & let them slip away without attacking on the second engagement. Aggressive was highly successful on the 3rd try however :)

Impulse has a couple of deals right now:
Gratuitous Space Battles: $11.49
Trine: $9.99

manual is usually located on the game's page on Steam. Take this one X-COM: UFO Defense on Steam it's the second of the four light blue links on the right of the page. Will link to a PDF.

I'm pretty sure that whatever your computer is, you would be able to run the Freedom Force game that's also running at $2 for a pack of two games. It was released in 2002. :)

FM

There's no manual included in the download, but you can go to Steam's website to view the manual. Just google Steam, Xcom, manual..

Actually, I just did that. Here is the link:

http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/...f?t=1264789436

and to compare, mine is an HP Pavilion with an Athlon dual core X2 4200+ with 2Gb and a 6150LE for video card. I will quite possibly pull the trigger for a new video card very soon. Been shopping and reading reviews like crazy and I think I now what would be just all right without breaking the bank... King's Bounty is my new guilty pleasure and dang if I'd like to see that simple game in all its beauty... :)

FM

Duh me, Mister Googlemeister, not even thinking for a second about searching that particular combination. Thanks to you & Froggie both.

And separately, sorry to have sidetracked the specials/discounts thread with more game specific discussion that probably belonged more in the video game thread.

Damn you, FM! Got all 3. :D

Actually I'm thrilled about Freedom Force because I have the original on CD but lost my manual so I kept getting tripped up by the registration key thing.

If I remember correctly, you can hit alt-enter and run dosbox in windowed mode. You should be able to do this during the game. I know for certain you can edit the config file to boot the game in windowed mode. It should be in your steam directory where ever the game files are.

Okay can someone give me an overview of Xcom? I have never played and have no clue what kind of game it is.

Xcom is a combination of a tactical turn based and a real time base building game. The tactical missions are the heart of the game for me and many other people. The game is about aliens invading earth and your attempt to stop them. You manage soldiers who level up over time (but die easily at low levels) and gather better equipment from research you do (both on captured alien technology as well as de novo research.)

Which xcom is the best? Gameplay and visually?

Hmm i might have to pick that one up for $2 then. I also like Freedom Force and have the Third Reich but for $2 that might be a good pickup as well. Gosh i hate when they have these sales because my laptop kinda stinks so i wind up having to play the games on one of the kids desktops.

The original was really good, Terror from the Deep is basically the same game with different graphics, one is a space shooter a la Wing Commander, one is a first-person shooter that got mixed reviews, and the third attempted to add real-time combat and seemed to get mixed reviews.

I intend to play them all as I only ever played UFO Defense, but I spent many many many hours on that one when it first came out.

thanks for that summary of the game. I'd heard a lot about it but never took the time to look what they were like. Just bought the pack, I mean $2 for 5 games is pretty much like freeware... No clue when I'll actually download and install much less play them, but I've at least secured them...

FM