Sin4profit

Steam's autumn sale is on and the Steam Controller is at the cheapest i've ever seen it so if you're curious about the thing $5+shipping maybe the right price to experiment with the thing. They claim the quantity is limited so i'm curious if they're going to stop production of the Steam Controller. (I've heard that this is a last batch discontinuation sale) As a fan of the SC i can only hope this mean's they'll be working on a 2.0 version soon.

Steam Controller Autumn Sale

For those wanting a personal opinion and some clarifications as to whether the Steam Controller is right for you i'll say, despite what you may have heard from the Giant Bomb crew, the controller works great for a large spectrum of games, yes, including FPS games. The only game i've run into that i couldn't really use it for at all was a typing game Hacknet and i would say twin stick shooters can be fussy with it and require a lot of tweaking on a per-game basis. Everything else works just fine.

However, if you require that plug and play experience, The Steam Controller may now be for you. There are many options to choose templates and other users profiles, but templates honestly doesnt often showcase what makes the SC great and are a very basic 1:1 emulation of a standard game controller, and User created content tends to be a crap shoot. Hell even official configs by the game devs can often be pretty poor.

If you're willing to learn the configuration software, Steam Input, you will be very exited by the possibilities that the SC offer. You'll get the laid-back comfort of a traditional controller with far greater capability and precision than a basic controller can have once you've grown accustom to using the SC to you're personal specs.

I've programmed controller configs for many genre of games, FPS, RPG, RTS, Fighting games, platformers, racing/driving games/sims, games with various distinct control situations such as Arma 3/Battlefield 3 type games, hell, i've even programmed the Steam Controller to fly jets and helicopters in Digital Combat Simulator. There's not much you can throw at the SC that simply won't work. As i said, twin stick shooters are finicky to program but not impossible.

i have a few gripes with some bugs/designs choices on the software side of the SC that only people who configure a lot of complex profiles will even notice. I've been using the thing since it was first released four years ago and still use it, almost exclusively, to play games on today.

I highly recommend checking one out while you still can at this super low price.

For programming tutorials i'll recommend The ExistentialEgg youtube channel.

For questions you can try the Steam Controller page on Reddit

@captain_insano: I've only played CoB two player as well and, in playing the online version, i realized we were scoring it wrong. Though, now that we're playing it right, i still lose every time. I'd really like to check out Stefan Feld's Trejan which looks like a mish mash of board games compiled into one.

Speaking of which, online board gaming sites, i've been visiting a few. At first i was seeking digital versions of board games to use to teach myself a game and see if it was worth buying and eventually i've stumbled into this world of "play by post" board gaming on the internet. The plus side, i can play board games for free and see if i like them, though the negative side is you have to create two accounts if you want to play a multiplayer solo game in an effort to teach yourself the game on most of the sites. Yucata.de is a site that lets you try out their system through a guest account system so i've been using that one a lot and it works fine, but a lot of the other games i want to check out are on the other sites. I've been burning myself out a bit by trying to play everygame on the site but i've checked out of playing some of the abstract games they have there.

1. www.yucata.de - This is the one i've been using the most since it has the convenient guest feature, i'm thinning out my list of games i want to play there but as of right now i enjoy playing Puerto Rico-cards (known as San Juan with it's expansion ), Castles of Burgundy, Port Royal, Automobiles (which i'm liking more now than when i reviewed it here), Russian Railroads (they have a solo games you can try), and it's always fun to throw Can't Stop in there as a filler between turns.
2. boardgamearena.com - The few solo games on offer here aren't that great but there's plenty available that i want to play that are free and aren't offered at yucata.de, Race For The Galaxy, Puerto Rico, Through the Ages, Tzolk'in, Caylus, Keyflower, Libertalia, K2.
3. boiteajeux.net - Maybe the jankiest looking of them all but you can play Agricola solo there and there are a lot of games i want to check out that you can't play elsewhere. Concordia, Deus, Kanban, Rallyman, Trajan.

They all work through an internet browser so they work on phones/tablets as well.

Anyway, if anyone else finds this forum post and y'all want to play games, or even learn some of these games, you can find me on all the sites as Sin4profit so feel free to add me to your buddy list there.

Forgot about the 2nd target and missed that one completely but the third target i got silent assassin on, to my surprise. She was fairly easy in retrospect.

Normally when i do an elusive target my first run is purely recon since you can restart if you don't engage in any of your objectives but due to circumstances i did this one in one run.

Back again, with my annual report of board gaming. I'll say off the bat that i'm trying to be a little more organized on Boardgamegeek.com so if you want to fallow my profile on there you'll get a better organized sense of my game tastes. (BGG - Sin4profit). Anyone else on BBG?

The Castles of Burgundy

Enjoyed this game as a two player game. Played it with my sister over the holidays and she beat me every time. What i find most interesting about this game is the scoring and the sense of huge comebacks. Each game i played i was way out in the lead, but come time for bonus scoring and i always fell short. There is an issue with boning yourself during setup though. You can place your starting castle in a location that will screw you over early in the game but that's a lesson you learn once.

Champions of Midgard: Vallhalla

The more i play this game the more i like it. One thing that greatly improved the game is banning the Wealthy Stranger (gain 2 coin) tile as this put more emphasis on getting out and fighting monsters and made for more interesting decisions. As far as the expansion, it makes the concept of "sending your warriors to die" more digestible. Having warriors die feels like your doing something wrong in most games, but it's important to know the inevitability in this game and Vallhalla gives you such powerful options for your fallen warriors that you'd gladly send your men to their doom.

Chronicles of Crime

played this over the holiday with the family and it was a pretty good time. Basically it's an adventure game in board game form. We only completed one scenario but had fun doing it. I do, however, have a few issues with it, mostly about what it could have been with the implementation of technology they are using. I was surprised to find that the scenarios aren't remixed to change the characters involved which i thought was the main point of having a batch of nameless character cards. Also i was surprised to find out that there will be physical expansions as i thought it was all going to be digital. However, i did look into the kickstarter and the next two expansions seem like they may add a little more mechanical depth and play somewhat differently to the base set. There are a lot of complains about this game claiming to be a 4 player game when realistically it's a two player game at most, the other people at the table aren't doing much other that chiming in with their opinions on things, which can be nice when you have people who won't play board games if they find them too complex.

Dead Man's Draw

simple fun press your luck card game that comes with a lot of optional variation. We played a few of the variations, it was good if you're looking for a simple filler game.

A Fake Artist Goes to New York

Hidden identity meets Pictionary. It's similar to Spyfall, but rather than talking you're all contributing to a single drawing. Everyone knows what they're suppose to be drawing except one person(fake artist). Drawing too obvious, the fake artist guesses the picture and wins. The game inspires a lot of chatter afterwards. people explaining what they were going for. It's a good time and i think it's better than Spyfall but realistically you can easily buy a pack of multicolor markers and create your own version of the game.

Galaxy Trucker

I originally played the digital version of this game and had a good enough time with that that i thought i'd buy the physical copy but really wasn't feeling the board game version. The game feels more like a novelty than anything else. You build your ship, and with little knowledge of what's coming, you watch as the randomized card deck slowly destroys that ship. It's like building a sand castle and watching a heavy wind destroy it.

Lords of Waterdeep

Finally bought and played this and everybody liked it a lot. Thinking back to the other worker placement games i started with i think LoW is a far better place to start in that genre. One thing i've learned that i like in a WP game is the ability to build places that others can use which benefit you when they do. I avoided this game at first as i was worried people only liked it because it was a D&D license but really the D&D theme isn't there and rather it's a game where you play an RPG party gatherer and dispatcher. I don't believe the game is themeless like others do. I just see it as a game of competing politicians who are vying for position as the lord of Waterdeep. If you're expecting RPG game elements you may be disappointing. I enjoyed the different perspective of playing the people who send the adventuring parties onto their quests. Also bought the expansion for this but have yet to play it. This is the game that got me to finally appreciate worker placement games.

Lost Legacy: The Starship

Enjoyed this game when i played it but i burnt myself out on Love Letter so it's difficult to get me to want to play something so similar to that.

Magic Maze

Played a bit of this. It was quite good. If you're looking for a game where you need everybody to shut up for a few minutes, i'd recommend it. Would have to play it more to have a stronger recommendation though.

Roll Player

I played this more as a solo variant on Table Top Simulator and liked it enough that i bought it with the expansion. Only managed to play the base game as a two player game but there's an issue with lopsided experience with this game. You'd have to play it with people who have played it a few times to get the best out of it. The expansion, which i only played on TTS, adds more interesting decisions to the game and boosts the excitement of the theme, as the base game is pretty much an abstract dice allocating game.

San Juan

If you're looking for a great card game, this is it. I have San Juan on my phone and i've played it on the table a few times. Really good card game that's only marred by my curiosity if i would like Race For the Galaxy more (which i've played the tutorial for in digital form)

Space Base

This game brings together a lot of elements from other games i've enjoyed. Space Base has you acquiring cards in an effort to build combos that will trigger both on your turn and on other people's turn. It feels good when you've built an exciting combo on your board but the rules can be a bit confusing as to what you can activate on your turn vs your opponents' turn.

Werewords Deluxe Edition

One Night Ultimate Werewolf meets 20 questions. It's good, and maybe it's a good way to introduce new people to One Night, but for me personally, i'd rather play One Night.

Games i still play to force myself into liking them

Viticulture Essential Edition

Still playing it, still can't figure out the adoration for this game, still just dry and boring to me.

This post is super long so i'll cut it off here. Wanted to talk a bit about digital board games and such but i'll leave that for another time.

Sucks that you can't buy anything in the Epic games store if you live in Korea.

Super sucks that if you're in Korea you can't just change your region in your profile.

...and it SUPER DUPER sucks that you can't change your region DESPITE the fact that you live in Texas, which is in America, but for some reason Epic games thinks you live in Korea.

So, i guess i'll be sticking with Steam and GOG then.

The first time i played Far Cry 1 was the demo and i hated it. mostly because the AI was pretty stupid - murder a guy, hide right in front of the body in the tall grass and just murder the train of dudes coming to check on the bodies. However, i eventually played the full game and liked most of it, the ending was pretty crap.

What i liked about it was the sense of tactics i felt from doing long distance recon over an area. Binoculars in games were never useful as more than compensating for lower resolutions, but here, it was a tactical tool. At the time, applying tactics was something i didn't know i was missing in FPS games.

The only time i remember the game feeling frustrating was somewhere around the end, As soon as the buy eyed apes show up the game takes a dive but it was great up until then.

Far Cry 2, however, sucks.

My two internet choices are Unlimited (but can't stream SD movies) or 1TB data cap (but better internet speed). I'm on the latter.

It use to be an issue but i've knocked all the streaming service videos down to SD quality and i can't hit the cap. So the last 3 days of each month becomes my, "download all the large files you can so you don't waste that data next month" routine.

Just finished the first Desperados game in the series and about to start Desperados 2. I'll likely be playing through all the isometric stealth tactical games in this genre that i've missed before, some of the later Commandos games, maybe Robin Hood. All this in anticipation for Desperados 3.

I'm playing Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive - After the announcement of Desperados 3 it dawned on me that i own both of the games in the series but haven't played them despite my love for the Commandos series and really enjoying Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun a few years back.

I'm close to completing it and i'm really enjoying the game despite glaring flaws. This game type is basically a genre all it's own and i'm looking forward to playing the second game in the series as well as going back and finishing the Commandos games that i never managed to finish. Maybe i'll even play that Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood if that thing runs.

@relkin: Comparing Commandos with Shadow Tactics i don't think ST got too hard and i finished it on as high difficulty as possible. The game has 3 difficulty settings so you should be good if you want to check it out sometime. For comparison's sake i've never finished a Commandos game. It's not so much that they got too hard it's more that they eventually start to play like a tight puzzle game that require some timing elements. It slows the action down to a crawl. though, that's also because i refuse to set off the alarm in each level.

I liked ST a lot so i'll be looking forward to Desperados 3. I do hope that they develop more unique skills for your characters though instead of just rehashing ST in a western setting but either way i can do with just playing more ST-like gamer. That said, looks like this game coming out will be a good excuse to try and play the Desperados series for the first time seeing as i've owned them on GOG for a long while.