Steam Holiday 2010 sales chatter

If demonic/unicorn/pegasus pony-raising sim Secret of the Magic Crystals reaches $2, I'm buying it.

ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

If demonic/unicorn/pegasus pony-raising sim Secret of the Magic Crystals reaches $2, I'm buying it.

Yep. That's the only game I'll consider buying in this year's Steam sale.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

If demonic/unicorn/pegasus pony-raising sim Secret of the Magic Crystals reaches $2, I'm buying it.

Yep. That's the only game I'll consider buying in this year's Steam sale.

This is really one you should buy at full price. We need to support games like this.

Grubber788 wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

If demonic/unicorn/pegasus pony-raising sim Secret of the Magic Crystals reaches $2, I'm buying it.

Yep. That's the only game I'll consider buying in this year's Steam sale.

This is really one you should buy at full price. We need to support games like this.

I think you're being sarcastic. I'm not. I'm actually quite interested in playing a game that's so clearly not intended for me or for anyone else on this site.

Actually, I'm completely serious about wanting to play it. The game has ponies from hell!

I just have a hard time justifying paying full price; once the novelty of hell ponies is over, what's there to do in the game?

Scanning back through the year, most of the games I had any interest in I already have. I just picked up Risen when it was $15 last weekend; I suspect it will be that low or lower during the holiday sale but decided it was cheap enough to go ahead and pick it up even though I haven't finished Fallout: New Vegas yet.

The only things I might pick up are Civ V and Singularity. Hopefully there will be some obscure/indie stuff to look it.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Dead Space for less than $10.

This would be good. I have the 360 version, but the controls were just in the 'too janky' range for my mouse and keyboard favouring hands.

Uh-oh. Steam just released an HD version of Flight Control. I was hooked briefly on the iPhone game, but set it aside because I finally decided I'm just not that big of a fan of iPhone games.

But if that sucker drops down to $2 or less, that may be a problem for my chances of finishing any more substantial games anytime soon.

ApplepieChamploo wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Dead Space for less than $10.

This would be good. I have the 360 version, but the controls were just in the 'too janky' range for my mouse and keyboard favouring hands.

Fair warning, you have to tweak the PC version a bit to get reasonable mouse controls. Aside from turning in-game sensitivity all the way up, I think I had to tweak v sync or something obscure, for the mouse pointer to behave like a normal mouse instead of a mouse trapped in molasses, quicksand, and quick drying cement all at the same time.

Stele wrote:
ApplepieChamploo wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Dead Space for less than $10.

This would be good. I have the 360 version, but the controls were just in the 'too janky' range for my mouse and keyboard favouring hands.

Fair warning, you have to tweak the PC version a bit to get reasonable mouse controls. Aside from turning in-game sensitivity all the way up, I think I had to tweak v sync or something obscure, for the mouse pointer to behave like a normal mouse instead of a mouse trapped in molasses, quicksand, and quick drying cement all at the same time. :D

Turn off v-sync in game (it also tries to cap it at 30fps)
Force v-sync in your graphics control panel, and turn the max pre-rendered frames to 1 or 2.

Two items currently on my wishlist:
* DA:O - Awakening
* SimCity 4 Deluxe (a double-dip but I haven't installed it on the new comp and don't want to deal with discs)

My breaking point is generally 75% for impulse buys, 66% off for games I want, and 50% for games I really want.

A decent sale on DA:O Ultimate would easily fill the DA:O - Awakening slot as well. (That is to say, I'd double-dip DA:O in order to get all the DLC as a good discount.)

TF2 Santa hat/beard or Rudolph nose - $4.99

I'll probably pick up DA:O if it's $15ish, and whatever indie games that are on sale for a few bucks. But let's be honest, I'm gonna be spending most of my money buying gifts on TF2.

I am also planning on picking up Recettear, and (finally) Dragon Age. Didn't drop quite low enough last holiday sale.

A 50% discount on Civ V might just make me buy it. I'm a big Civ fan, but I didn't get it at launch since my pile of unfinished games is huge already and the fact that civ games are such timesinkers. Let's see what the steam sale brings us... Although I would prefer a boxed copy, since it would look so cool next to my Civ 3, Civ 4, Civ:BtS and Civ Rev boxes*. (Alas, I threw away my Civ 1 box a long time ago... )

Oh, and I might pick up L4D1 for two of my friends who do have L4D2, but not the first one. Which I still think is more fun...

*: No civ 2, never cared much for that game, least favourite civ game by far...

Stele wrote:
ApplepieChamploo wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Dead Space for less than $10.

This would be good. I have the 360 version, but the controls were just in the 'too janky' range for my mouse and keyboard favouring hands.

Fair warning, you have to tweak the PC version a bit to get reasonable mouse controls. Aside from turning in-game sensitivity all the way up, I think I had to tweak v sync or something obscure, for the mouse pointer to behave like a normal mouse instead of a mouse trapped in molasses, quicksand, and quick drying cement all at the same time. :D

If it's that bad to start with I might give it a miss

No, once you tweak the vsync Dead Space is fine. It's a checkbox in the options menu, takes 2 seconds, and if you have screen tearing you can tweak that in your video card's settings. It's not a huge hurdle and Dead Space is a very good game.

jollyeskimo wrote:

TF2 Santa hat/beard or Rudolph nose - $4.99

I think you can guarantee that this will happen except, based on halloween, they will be $9.99.

But, you will be able to craft them with the metal dropped when you melee kill the giant Santa Claus boss.

ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

No, once you tweak the vsync Dead Space is fine. It's a checkbox in the options menu, takes 2 seconds, and if you have screen tearing you can tweak that in your video card's settings. It's not a huge hurdle and Dead Space is a very good game.

One additional point that probably affects me and one other person: I was about ready to write off DS for good after mucking with it for about an hour. Every time the game got past the opening cutscene and turned control over to me Isaac started acting like an epileptic Tasmanian devil. I finally figured out that DS was detecting my 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator as a joystick and adding it in as an uncentered controller. As soon as I unplugged it the game worked fine.

[size=3]Keywords for Google prosperity since I found no help on this: Dead Space death blossom spiral spin out control[/size]

Zero issues with mouse control on Dead Space for me and I recommend the game as well!

LiquidMantis wrote:
ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

No, once you tweak the vsync Dead Space is fine. It's a checkbox in the options menu, takes 2 seconds, and if you have screen tearing you can tweak that in your video card's settings. It's not a huge hurdle and Dead Space is a very good game.

One additional point that probably affects me and one other person: I was about ready to write off DS for good after mucking with it for about an hour. Every time the game got past the opening cutscene and turned control over to me Isaac started acting like an epileptic Tasmanian devil. I finally figured out that DS was detecting my 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator as a joystick and adding it in as an uncentered controller. As soon as I unplugged it the game worked fine.

[size=3]Keywords for Google prosperity since I found no help on this: Dead Space death blossom spiral spin out control[/size]

What is it with ports not knowing the difference between a joystick and a mouse? I just had this problem with Batman: AA.

karmajay wrote:

Zero issues with mouse control on Dead Space for me and I recommend the game as well!

Same here.

It's either an indication that I'm awesome, or too stupid to know the difference but the only tweak I made was turn V-sync off, and that's because my graphics card isn't great and I always turn it off in modern games.

Yonder wrote:

What is it with ports not knowing the difference between a joystick and a mouse? I just had this problem with Batman: AA.

It's a long standing issue with games that support both some joystick/pad control and mouse control. In DS you can instantaneously switch between controls, just pick up a pad and continue on if you prefer it, so both controls are always active.

I'm really looking forward to my first Steam sale, now it runs on the Mac, and I have one powerful enough to 'play' on. I'm a console player at heart, but still like the option of dabbling if the opportunity presents at my desk too.

I know 95% of the good stuff will be just for the PC, but I'm quietly hoping for Torchlight, or some of the big name items to get some Mac Lovin'.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

I'I know 95% of the good stuff will be just for the PC, but I'm quietly hoping for Torchlight, or some of the big name items to get some Mac Lovin'.

Torchlight went down to a fantastically low price last year, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop again. And it's a great game, too.

Of course the Steam sale hits just at the time I need to be saving money, but I'm sure at least a few new (to me) things that I never even knew about until they came up will get thrown onto the pile this season.

The ONLY ways to not buy anything from the steam sale is to stay off the steam store page AND to NOT read this thread!

Otherwise prepare to be enabled!

I am going to try and give the Steam sales a pass this year. There is too much crap that I bought and have never played. Although some kind of Capcom bundle would be nice. And those Alien Breed games seem kind of fun. And it would be nice to have the Age of Wonders trilogy for a rainy day and --- OHGODGETMEOUTOFTHISTHREAD

ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

No, once you tweak the vsync Dead Space is fine. It's a checkbox in the options menu, takes 2 seconds, and if you have screen tearing you can tweak that in your video card's settings. It's not a huge hurdle and Dead Space is a very good game.

I agree, don't skip it based on this. The fix is easy to do and once done the mouse control is actually way more accurate than using the gamepad. To clarify the screen tearing bit turn on triple buffering in the control panel for your video card if you need to:

IMAGE(http://www.tweakguides.com/images/GGDSG_20.jpg)

I'm looking specifically for a good FO3:GOTY deal, anything else is just extra awesome sauce.

clever id wrote:

I'm looking specifically for a good FO3:GOTY deal, anything else is just extra awesome sauce.

I bought it when it came down to $25. I already had FO3 from D2D (bought it at launch), but I didn't have any of the DLC. Definitely worth $25, imo. If it goes lower, you'd be getting an amazing deal.

Oh boy. Let's see, I'm interested in Amnesia, Alpha Protocol.. maybe DA:O if it drops to $10 or so..