Cameron

My understanding, which could be wrong, is that sites like CDKeys buy copies of games from Russia, Brazil, and other countries that sell games for much less than European or North American countries. These keys are only supposed to be sold in those specific countries, but CDKeys resells them to anyone. That's why people call CDKeys grey market, because technically those keys aren't meant for people outside of those specific countries. They have no direct interaction with the publishers of the games and are just a reseller. GMG on the other hand is an official partner of most (or all) major publishers and gets their keys directly from them. Some people prefer GMG because they know the developers/publishers get paid directly.

@deerokus said:

So true. I watch tennis on Sky Sports sometimes and almost every single ad is for a different sports betting app. Very different from when I watch it on Canadian TV where the ads are usually just for the sponsors of the tournament. The gambling ads are, for the most part, some of the worst garbage I've ever seen. I don't know who watches those terrible Bet Victor ads and thinks "oh yeah, that looks like a reputable company I should entrust with my money."

As several other people have said, it will probably run today's games just as well as a current console, but it won't age as well. Almost every game today is GPU bound, even on weaker CPUs like the i3 in the Alpha, so it's the 860m that matters most. Developers will have to keep putting out games that run well on the current consoles until they get replaced (though based on the terrible performance of games last year it seems like many developers didn't get the memo). On PC, that's not the case and developers aren't going to care if their games run well on a 860m in three years. My general advice for PC GPU's is to either buy mid-range (~$200) and upgrade every two years, or go mid-high-range (~$350) and upgrade every three years. With the Alpha you are basically getting a year old mid-range GPU that you can't upgrade. As a secondary box that can natively play indie and older games and stream new stuff from a higher-end machine, it's great, but I find it hard to recommend as a main PC to play games.

I'll probably pick it up early next year when I can get it and the other two expansions on a disc (or online, but that's less likely) for about $30. I payed $30 (or maybe $40, I can't remember) for Destiny, and that felt about right. I love the shooting, and I'd like to do it more, but I just ran out of new things to do and I have no interest in grinding for gear. The previous two expansions didn't have enough content for me (I don't care about the competitive multiplayer and I don't have enough friends who play to do raids), but all three of them together for a reasonable price would probably get me back in.

The ending is pretty bad, especially if this is supposed to wrap up the Arkham games. I'm not going to hunt down every trophy just to get the real ending, that's absurd. What happens at the end of the main story missions is the ending, and it's not very good.

As for performance, there are a ton of problems. For me it was the memory leak and stuttering, but it was way worse for others. I couldn't get a constant frame rate no matter what I did. As soon as I'd start going fast in the Batmobile (which is a required part of the game) the frame rate would start bouncing around between 20-60. If I locked the frame rate to 30 (which is completely unacceptable in an action focused PC game) it would still stutter and drop. I was able to play and finish the game, but I'd give it a negative review just for the performance problems.

Some of the earlier stuff holds up pretty well, so you might enjoy the older games more that you think, even without nostalgia. I liked R.C. Pro AM, Jetpac has it's charms, and some of the ZX Spectrum games are neat from a historical perspective (though they mostly play like garbage today). Either way, it's a hell of a deal for $30, even if you only want the Viva Piñata and Nuts-N-Bolts games it's probably worth it.

If they released them separately they'd probably be a lot more expensive, as @chaser324 points out, the 360 games are still $15 each. If Gameroom is any indication even the older stuff would probably be $5 each, at least.

I'm sure some people can tell the difference between 900p upscaled to 1080p and native 1080p, but I'm not one of them. Get the one with the games you want.

I assume he does it because almost nobody gives a shit about the original Metal Gear games. I usually say MGS, but it's not like it's confusing when he talks about Metal Gear.

I feel the same way. I loved the combat system and that got me through about 60 hours of the game, but the story was poor (I couldn't tell you what it was about a year later) and the world wasn't anything special. I never finished it and that's very rare for me when I've put that much time into an RPG. I just got bored with the combat and the story wasn't enough to keep me going. Still, 60 hours is plenty, I enjoyed my time with it, and I'd recommend the game to anyone who likes the genre, but it would be so much better if it had a good story and world.

Is he supposed to be surfing?

Also, here's a link to the Time website in case you (understandably) doubt that it's the real cover: http://time.com/magazine/us/3986991/august-17th-2015-vol-186-no-6-u-s/