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So, does anyone know anything about the two game packs they are selling for $2 on steam? Are they any good? I mean, it's just two dollars, but I don't want crap, you know?
All quality. You get all of the best X-Com games (and a couple decent ones), and the Freedom Force games are a lot of fun. Definitely worth the money. Bought them myself just a couple of hours ago.
X-Com in this day and age is basically unplayable, and I'm not talking about graphics. Freedom Force is alright, but I can't imagine playing it over anything else that's out at the moment.
" X-Com in this day and age is basically unplayable, and I'm not talking about graphics. Freedom Force is alright, but I can't imagine playing it over anything else that's out at the moment. "
Excuse me, but, what are you talking about? That's like saying: "In this day and age Super Mario Bros. is basically unplayable."
Considering I played thru X-Com not 6 months ago (and it was still great) I find your statement (particularly without any reason as to WHY they are "basically unplayable") basically ridiculous.
" X-Com in this day and age is basically unplayable, and I'm not talking about graphics. Freedom Force is alright, but I can't imagine playing it over anything else that's out at the moment. "
Excuse me, but, what are you talking about? That's like saying: "In this day and age Super Mario Bros. is basically unplayable." Considering I played thru X-Com not 6 months ago (and it was still great) I find your statement (particularly without any reason as to WHY they are "basically unplayable") basically ridiculous. "
The controls are about as user-friendly as a Warhammer codex written in a foreign language. I'm a heavy player of RTS's and TBS's and even I had difficulty grappling with it. It's simply not worth it; I bought the whole package last year for $5, spent a couple hours trying to figure it out and realized that while it would've certainly been good for its time, it's completely broken by current standards. Your comparison to SMB doesn't hold because SMB's controls are still being used today while X-com's are obsolete.
The controls are about as user-friendly as a Warhammer codex written in a foreign language.
Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, there is no tutorial and I don't know if the Steam package has the manual with it. This was back in the day when the vast majority of games required you to actually look at the manual to figure out what all the things on the screen meant. So, yeah, in that respect it's very dated.
So, anyone picking up the game (who doesn't remember right of the top of their head because they played the games at least 4 times each back in the day) should hop over to the UFOpaedia and make like us old folks had to do years ago to find out what all those odd little symbols on the interface mean. Better yet, from the Game Editors page there you can find the link to XcomUtil, which lets you twitddle every twiddle-able thing in the game. Way cool.
" I believe they have Psychonauts for $2 now. :o "
I got that, but isn't that sale done and gone now? I'm finding that games controls not very intuitive with the mouse and keyboard... "
Hmmm not sure. I remember it was their midweek sale or something that was this week so I am not 100% sure if it's over. I haven't played it on PC either but from what you say about the controls, I'm not missing much. :/
" Depends how old you are. And yeah those are some good-ass deals. Makes me sortof want to get off my ass and install windows on a computer. "
Have we stumbled across one of the 15 linux users out there? "
Naah, that's... too much of an unfriendly mess for me to deal with right now. Also nothing I need runs on linux. I run a mac, I do a lot of video editing and shit, so that's gotta be my primary OS. I DID use Crossover to run Steam once, but only certain games would work, luckily, it was most of my valve games that ran pretty well. CS:S on a mac is a good time-killer if you've got some internet.
But I should install windows on a partition on this, so I can spend 300$ a year on games I'll never touch around the holidays, like everyone else.
" Depends how old you are. And yeah those are some good-ass deals. Makes me sortof want to get off my ass and install windows on a computer. "
Have we stumbled across one of the 15 linux users out there? "
Naah, that's... too much of an unfriendly mess for me to deal with right now. Also nothing I need runs on linux. I run a mac, I do a lot of video editing and shit, so that's gotta be my primary OS. I DID use Crossover to run Steam once, but only certain games would work, luckily, it was most of my valve games that ran pretty well. CS:S on a mac is a good time-killer if you've got some internet. But I should install windows on a partition on this, so I can spend 300$ a year on games I'll never touch around the holidays, like everyone else. "
If it weren't for RTS and TBS games, my Windows side of my Mac would never get switched on. You are missing out on some PC fun by not installing Windows. I certainly don't regret it, but it makes me glad I have a Mac though (for many and varied reasons).
@oldschool: Well I had windows vista pretty much since I bought my current macbook back in july, but I -really- didn't enjoy it. I kinda wanted XP, so I uninstalled it around december after playing a bunch of dragon age on it. So yeah I'm missing out unfortunately, but I need to reformat my hard drive (stupid thing refuses to acknowledge like 80 gigs of free space when I killed my windows partition) and I'm too damn busy to do the whole backup and reinstall everything process, and my snow leopard family disc has been whored out to too many computers at this point. Le sigh.
PC gaming... I basically use it for flight sims and space combat sims. Those are my total favourite genre on it. X2 and Darkstar One, or Freespace 2 gaah good fun. Oh and plane flights go FAST when you're distracted by GTA IV.
" @oldschool: Well I had windows vista pretty much since I bought my current macbook back in july, but I -really- didn't enjoy it. I kinda wanted XP, so I uninstalled it around december after playing a bunch of dragon age on it. So yeah I'm missing out unfortunately, but I need to reformat my hard drive (stupid thing refuses to acknowledge like 80 gigs of free space when I killed my windows partition) and I'm too damn busy to do the whole backup and reinstall everything process, and my snow leopard family disc has been whored out to too many computers at this point. Le sigh. PC gaming... I basically use it for flight sims and space combat sims. Those are my total favourite genre on it. X2 and Darkstar One, or Freespace 2 gaah good fun. Oh and plane flights go FAST when you're distracted by GTA IV. "
I use XP and I am glad I didn't get Vista, which was out at the time.
I know what you mean about backing up and reinstalling. My hard drive died and I managed to pull it all out and replace the drive, but what a pain it turned out to be. Lucky for me I have friends at the Mac Shop who helped me out or it would have been a lot worse.
I find Civislisation IV is a great distracter on long journeys for me :/
I love how cheap Sid Meyer's games are on steam actually... I payed full price for Pirates! when it came out, but I don't care. I STILL play that game, 5 years in.
" @oldschool: I love how cheap Sid Meyer's games are on steam actually... I payed full price for Pirates! when it came out, but I don't care. I STILL play that game, 5 years in. "
Sid's games don't really date badly as the gameplay is solid (I have Civ III and that is still fun). I haven't got Pirates and I really should (I do have it for the PSP, but that doesn't count - nothing on the PSP counts).
@oldschool: God our conversation is so offtopic so I should probably stop, but yo is Pirates any good on PSP? Just got one and... well yeah I love Pirates, yo.
Actually if any one is interested you can download the X-Com manuals at Replacementdocs.com and (this is the only one I downloaded so far) the manual for UFO Defense has a tutorial in it. I'm looking forward to playing it. I did play a little but of Enforcer and it was a blast. Very old school. God I miss health packs.
" @oldschool: God our conversation is so offtopic so I should probably stop, but yo is Pirates any good on PSP? Just got one and... well yeah I love Pirates, yo. "
The game itself reviewed well and looks good graphically. I did play some (a few hours) but couldn't get into it. That is mainly an issue with the PSP for me. I just don't like how it controls and not a single game in my collection has had long play time. If you like using the PSP, then it is definitely worth picking up. I am sure it would be cheap on the used game market.
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