Steam+ Deals Mega Thread (All PC Gaming Deals)

Neuro5i5

Neuro5i5

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This thread will attempt to provide a place to discuss past/present/future PC gaming deals. While mainly focusing on Steam games, any standout sales may also be presented. I will not be updating every Daily/Weekly/etc. sale. The tools to help individuals become a smarter shopper will be provided below.

See this POST for links to store sale pages, threads of interest and other tools to help you become a more informed PC game shopper.
 
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MysterD said:
I think it depends on the game and what it aims for, on if it needs symbolism, political statements, and things of the sort. I wouldn't expect that stuff in say Doom (dammit, just give me demons to kill in tons of ways and lots of action) - but I so would expect something like all of that stuff in a deep Irrational-developed Bioshock game.
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Ohhh man you're off on Doom dude. Allegorical tale about the horrors of drug addiction

 
pasports31 said:
Ohhh man you're off on Doom dude. Allegorical tale about the horrors of drug addiction
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n5oDrY.gif


 
Humble Monthly games were posted on Tremor today and are already gone. Managed to nab a single copy of Battle Chef Brigade. Unsure whether to keep it or flip it. Also, they have Overwatch for the extremely low price of only 10k coins!!!

 
MysterD said:
Always interesting to see opinions, IMHO.

One reviewer might love the game, another is "meh" about it.
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I care more about opinions from people I know than from "gaming journalist" randoms with something to prove to make their Bachelors in Communications legitimate in their parents' eyes.

That said, most of the reviews seemed rather favorable towards the game mechanics even if they whined about the deep meta context of hitting a guy with an ice axe being inadequately explored. I don't know what Mr Gamespot's issue was and don't really care either.

 
MysterD said:
Eh, I don't think it's the #1 thing that I really look for in a Lara Croft game. It certainly could help, though - if they ain't really changed enough else on the gameplay side of things with Shadow. Only time will tell, when I get around to Shadow...and when it gets cheaper.

When gameplay doesn't improve enough to suit you - eh, you have to start looking for other things that need to be improved. If those other things don't - eh, it's "more of the same." Whether you want "more of the same" or something more than "more of the same", that also could be another story entirely.
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The Tomb Raider series is exactly the kind of series that I think could use some legitimately strong story-telling that tries to explore its characters from other directions. If SotTR is anything like the previous two games, it'll have brilliant, beautiful, crazy, action-packed set pieces scattered in between hours of mindless platforming, lazy puzzles, dumbed-down stealth and poor gunplay. If they're not gonna fix the gameplay, the least they could do is implement a halfway decent story that's more than just your played out "Oh no, __________ is out to get some ancient artifacts so they can uncover the lost city of _________ and maybe conjure up some powerful spirits or placate a vengeful god or achieve crazy powers or I dunno." TR 2013 tried to do that at the start with the Lara character (Hour one: "Wow, killing someone for the first time has really taken a toll on me") but quickly abandoned it (Hour two: "I MUST QUENCH MY THIRST FOR BLOOD!"). Sounds like SotTR stumbles in a similar fashion.

I was actually fine with the TR formula for the first game. It was basically the video game equivalent of a popcorn flick. As someone who had never played an Uncharted game it all felt fresh and exciting in spite of its many shortcomings. But for me, RotTR was worse in practically every aspect minus the visuals. Made me lose a lot of hype for SotTR.

 
It's fitting that Nvidia chose to go with Shadow of the Tomb Raider to demonstrate the capability of their new RTX card lineup.  So perfectly blah. 

 
Insomniac_34 said:
The Tomb Raider series is exactly the kind of series that I think could use some legitimately strong story-telling that tries to explore its characters from other directions [...]. If they're not gonna fix the gameplay, the least they could do is implement a halfway decent story that's more than just your played out "Oh no, __________ is out to get some ancient artifacts so they can uncover the lost city of _________ and maybe conjure up some powerful spirits or placate a vengeful god or achieve crazy powers or I dunno."
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But here's the thing: They can't. Not really. Video game writing is average at best. Dramatic video game writing is garbage. I don't know if it's because the medium doesn't attract that sort of writers or if it's hampered by being attached to game play or what but dramatic video game writing is consistently bad. They can do action stuff just fine, they can do humor, occasionally they can pull off a moment of long-distance phone commercial melodrama (and obviously they can do some amazing world building set pieces) but there isn't a single dramatic game story I can think of that's actually good as a whole. And the ones that I think "Eh, that's pretty good" are only good as representatives of the medium. If I saw them as a movie, I'd probably be turning them off a half hour in (which is likely why all the video game to film adaptations are CGI action flicks). And that's fine with me because I can play the games for fun and get my gripping stories and character development from film, television and books.

So I don't care if they don't explore the psyche of Lara Croft and her "shadows" or make salient cultural points in Far Cry or Wolfenstein because, honestly, they can't do it. And if you're playing the games for those reasons you're either going to be regularly disappointed or else you have a much lower bar than I do.

 
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KeeperOfWind said:
You can now clear previous aliases on Steam now. Now you can remove all the stupid names you used over the years.

no6krJs.png
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Very sad day. I feel no longer special because I had zero names over almost 10 years.

(though you could do this via support previously, someone posted that in reddit and they flooded support so much they had to add option).

 
Nothing371 said:
Thanks. I've just been buying about one piece per month when I find something during a good flash sale. Deals hunting and building piece-by-piece has been fun. Each new part has taken my build in a new, unexpected direction. It's a rarity that the new 9th gen Intel processors will work with the current Z370 mobos, which is cool.
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That MB is quite a splurge! If you don't mind my asking, what kind of deal did you get? I'm in the market for a Z370 MB as well.

 
Syntax Error said:
But here's the thing: They can't. Not really. Video game writing is average at best. Dramatic video game writing is garbage. I don't know if it's because the medium doesn't attract that sort of writers or if it's hampered by being attached to game play or what but dramatic video game writing is consistently bad. They can do action stuff just fine, they can do humor, occasionally they can pull off a moment of long-distance phone commercial melodrama (and obviously they can do some amazing world building set pieces) but there isn't a single dramatic game story I can think of that's actually good as a whole.
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Found the guy who hasn't played played Persona or God of War 2018. Or Horizon, or half of of the top few games each of the recent years honestly. Apparently you also didn't play Horizon, Bloodborne, or any RPGs really. I heard that Nier had some awesome writing last year too.

If the best movies were extrapolated over 40+ hours then they would have "garbage writing" too. That's how it goes when your medium involves dozens of hours of gameplay content. Most games I play have several instances of engaging dialogue or sequences of very interesting lore though. Voice actor talent makes a large difference too. In fact many games like Skyrim include all sorts of optional lore and storytelling scattered throughout the world in the form of tomes. Almost every npc in Pillars of Eternity had well-written backstories that you could mind-read. I guess since you ignore them then they don't exist? Anyhoo, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. If you want whole good stories then better stick to the 3 hour indie darlings I guess.

 
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DrR0Ck said:
That MB is quite a splurge! If you don't mind my asking, what kind of deal did you get? I'm in the market for a Z370 MB as well.
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Someone mentioned it in Reddit comments and it was only $200 brand new from Amazon and on backorder. I put it an order so I could think about it and then it ended up shipping only two days later lol.

 
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Nothing371 said:
Found the guy who hasn't played played Persona or God of War 2018. Or Horizon, or half of of the top few games each of the recent years honestly.
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Found the guy who's easily impressed?
shrug.gif


If the best movies were extrapolated over 40+ hours then they would have "garbage writing" too. That's how it goes when your medium involves dozens of hours of gameplay content.
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Sure, it's almost as though I said "...or if it's hampered by being attached to game play....". This may be an excuse for why the writing is bad but recognizing it doesn't make the story better. That said, I don't think they hold up as "Watch all the cut scenes on Youtube" either.

In fact many games like Skyrim include all sorts of optional lore and storytelling scattered throughout the world in the form of tomes.
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If you think the Lusty Argonian Maid is what makes a game for you, that's great. But that sort of thing is more "world building" than actual story writing as it relates to the game plot. A lot of games have excellent world building while still having pretty average (at best) stories.

Anyhoo, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
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I thought it was pretty obvious in context but, since you missed it, I'll restate: I'm not concerned with reviews that hand-wring over the lack of character development and writing in a story (or worse yet, the lack of substantial themes relating to the real world and "statements") because video games generally suck at those things anyway. It's like telling me that a car gets great mileage and handles like a dream but the resolution on the in-dash display doesn't show movies well and the cigarette lighter can't fast-charge your phone.

 
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Syntax Error said:
Found the guy who's easily impressed?
shrug.gif


Sure, it's almost as though I said "...or if it's hampered by being attached to game play....". This may be an excuse for why the writing is bad but recognizing it doesn't make the story better. That said, I don't think they hold up as "Watch all the cut scenes on Youtube" either.

If you think the Lusty Argonian Maid is what makes a game for you, that's great. But that sort of thing is more "world building" than actual story writing as it relates to the game plot. A lot of games have excellent world building while still having pretty average (at best) stories.

I thought it was pretty obvious in context but, since you missed it, I'll restate: I'm not concerned with reviews that hand-wring over the lack of character development and writing in a story (or worse yet, the lack of substantial themes relating to the real world and "statements") because video games generally suck at those things anyway. It's like telling me that a car gets great mileage and handles like a dream but the resolution on the in-dash display doesn't show movies well and the cigarette lighter can't fast-charge your phone.
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Doubling down on the all video games have bad writing argument?

only on the internet....lmao

I guess that Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, hands down the most intriguing upcoming video games, have bad writing too huh :rofl:

 
Nothing371 said:
Doubling down on the all video games have bad writing argument?

only on the internet....lmao

I guess that Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, hands down the most intriguing upcoming video games, have bad writing too huh :rofl:
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They very well may. I haven't played them yet. But I'm interested in Cyberpunk 2077 for the graphics, game play and world building, and because I figure it'll have plenty of "Wow, that's pretty cool" sci-fi moments. But not because I think it's going to do an excellent job of telling a gripping well paced story that leaves me feeling somehow different or engages me with characters that I actually care about. But if it can pull that off, that would be a novelty.

As for "All video games have bad writing....", I mentioned that games are usually fine when writing for humor or basically giving you a reason to shoot all the bad guys. It's when video games get into dramatic writing and trying to get philosophical or make you feel all the emotions that the wheels fall off and they fail.

 
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Syntax Error said:
They very well may. I haven't played them yet. But I'm interested in Cyberpunk 2077 for the graphics, game play and world building, and because I figure it'll have plenty of "Wow, that's pretty cool" sci-fi moments. But not because I think it's going to do an excellent job of telling a gripping well paced story that leaves me feeling somehow different or engages me with characters that I actually care about. But if it can pull that off, that would be a novelty.

As for "All video games have bad writing....", I mentioned that games are usually fine when writing for humor or basically giving you a reason to shoot all the bad guys. It's when video games get into dramatic writing and trying to get philosophical or make you feel all the emotions that the wheels fall off and they fail.
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Just going to have to disagree, there. I mean, sure, you get stuff like DAO where you can tell the writers are trying really hard to make something emotionally gripping and failing miserably, but there are quite a few games out there I'd say are actually better at conveying dramatic, emotional moments because of the gameplay. Now I'm not saying we're talking Shakespeare or Milton or Melville or Dostoevsky, and outside of some visual and kinetic novels (which don't really count as games anyway), gameplay always hampers storytelling to some extent or another, if for no other reason than that it messes with pacing. But there are plenty of games I would say tell legitimately engaging dramatic stories.

Tomb Raider is not one of them, to be fair.
 
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Souffrir said:
Just going to have to disagree, then. [...] But there are plenty of games I would say tell legitimately engaging dramatic stories.
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That's cool. I can't say that I've come across one that rises above "This is pretty decent... for a video game"

But that's fine by me. I'm not complaining about it, just saying why the reviews for Tomb Raider were amusing to me when they dwelled on it. In my experience, it's like being upset because your cat doesn't play fetch as well as a dog -- that's not what cats do. Be worried about whether or not it's a good cat and you're golden.

But my goal isn't to make anyone else not like their game stories. If you thought the story in [Game] was engaging and well written then more power to ya.

 
ACG liked the new Tomb Raider and I trust his opinion more than anything published by Gamespot/IGN so I am not worried.   He did note that there is less fighting than the last title and more exploring/Tomb-Raiding but that is a plus for me.  And the underwater stuff looked really neat.

 
Nothing371 said:
Doubling down on the all video games have bad writing argument?
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Honestly, go read a book. The interactive element of video games is always going to hinder proper pacing. Game play will always compromise the writing. (Just look at TR 2013 for that.)

Honestly, I think DAO is the best written game I've played... and frankly some of that much of that comes down to just how many choices are in the game. And thats the catch DAO, and ever game you mentioned, could have a far more impactful story if the writers could really narrow shit down.

Hey! You need to be such and such by this time... Me, I'm just going to wonder around a look at the flowers. Maybe there's an collectible around that rock too!

Books lack interactions (Well, minus choose your own adventures but lets face facts Dungeon of Dread or Mountain of Mirrors isn't top notch writing cause it too suffers from the choice) but they can tell the best stories.

Every form of media has its positives and its negatives. That's just life but its also why all of these different forms of media exist.

 
INMATEofARKHAM said:
Honestly, go read a book. The interactive element of video games is always going to hinder proper pacing. Game play will always compromise the writing.
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And, because of the pacing issues, when the games DO have some scene that's supposed to be emotional they need to account for the fact that you possibly spent the last two hours running side quests or collecting thirty hidden tchotchkes for achievements. Which they do by dialing up the maudlin melodrama to let you know that you're supposed to be profoundly affected by this person dying or that person getting their heart broken, etc. So the scenes are overwritten and, in my experience, fail to land an impact.

Part of that might be age and experience. Teen literature and films are written for an audience who is between emotionally inexperienced and "I feel things so deeply, man" and frankly most video game dramatic moments feel like teen lit. I'm sure there's a segment that appeals to even if it's eye-rolling to others.

 
I never would've guessed that Parallacks was Mr. Fighting Games. Guess he's a long way from not being about to view gifs on dial-up now.

 
pasports31 said:
Tomb Raider should absolutely get slogged if it's not a deep investigation of Lara Croft's psyche and personal motivations and the context of vengeance in modern society, those types of things are expected in today's games.

For example everybody knows the Borderlands series has only been successful due to its brilliant satire of gun culture in America, not for being a fun loot n' shoot.
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I raise my PBR and snap my fingers in regards to your post while listening to beat poetry at the corner hookah bar. Good show, sir!


Also, the weakness in Tomb Raider is its lack of diversity. TR2013 would have been better if the protagonist was a heterosexual white male, a minority figure if I ever saw one!
 
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Just pooping in to say I'll be skipping all of the cutscenes in the new Tomb Raider, just like I always do in those games. If I had time to waste on god awful filth I'd rather spend it here in this thread.

 
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DickDangus said:
Just pooping in to say I'll be skipping all of the cutscenes in the new Tomb Raider, just like I always do in those games. If I had time to waste on god awful filth I'd rather spend it here in this thread.
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Yeah, well, we love you too! :D/

Tried the FH4 demo. It was far longer than any of the other demos they've released before the games have come out. I felt like it was a couple different championships. I had sound for most of the loading/transition screens but none for the racing or cut scenes. The cutsecnes this was a favorable outcome I'm sure... Racing not so much.

You know pick an avatar from a handful of options... All of them more lame looking than the rest. I'm guessing someone at Microsoft felt the target audience for the game are those who hide in garages and live with their folks and never get a drivers license... Causes all of them instilled that opinion to me. Oh, well, minor complaint but I will be putting a paper bag over my guys head as soon as possible.

Racing seemed to be good... Though I feel like the cars floated over the train a bit much... Not enough movement from the driver's view... Chase cams always feel floaty to me so I never use them. I feel like some sort of post processing camera effect is missing from the demo.

All in all very solid. Won't change your opinion on racing games but if you like the Forza series you should be happy. (No frame issues btw. It defaulted to medium on me (970x @ 1080P) and I think it ran at 72 constantly.)

 
weretable said:
ACG liked the new Tomb Raider and I trust his opinion more than anything published by Gamespot/IGN so I am not worried. He did note that there is less fighting than the last title and more exploring/Tomb-Raiding but that is a plus for me. And the underwater stuff looked really neat.
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Nice, probably my favorite reviewer.

 
Given how quickly the prices drop for non-JRPG Square Enix games, might be worth waiting for a sale on Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unless you plan to play right away. Deus Ex Mankind Divided is dropped so steeply in price, for example, just over two years later.

 
Forza Horizon 4 seems pretty well optimized on PC. Just finished up the intro that takes you through all the seasons and then drove around a bit, and on Ultra settings in glorious 3440x1440p I never dropped a frame below 60fps. I tried unlocking the framerate and it stayed pretty close to my monitor's max 100hz refresh rate. Also, I'm happy to report that you can actually adjust the brightness in the PC version, which was a feature that I recall was lacking in FH3.

Best news of all? You can choose Rachel Dolezal as your avatar!

 
DickDangus said:
Forza Horizon 4 seems pretty well optimized on PC. Just finished up the intro that takes you through all the seasons and then drove around a bit, and on Ultra settings in glorious 3440x1440p I never dropped a frame below 60fps. I tried unlocking the framerate and it stayed pretty close to my monitor's max 100hz refresh rate. Also, I'm happy to report that you can actually adjust the brightness in the PC version, which was a feature that I recall was lacking in FH3.

Best news of all? You can choose Rachel Dolezal as your avatar!
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Worst news of all? Having to try to download something from the MS Store.

Ended up torrenting 3 despite legitimately owning it.

 
INMATEofARKHAM said:
Honestly, go read a book. The interactive element of video games is always going to hinder proper pacing. Game play will always compromise the writing. (Just look at TR 2013 for that.)

Honestly, I think DAO is the best written game I've played... and frankly some of that much of that comes down to just how many choices are in the game. And thats the catch DAO, and ever game you mentioned, could have a far more impactful story if the writers could really narrow shit down.
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DAO was great at the writing, dialogue & character stuff TBH, like most BioWare games. Though, the plot-line of "Let's get everyone together of different races, religions to defeat the big bad evil felt like a major "MacGuffin," being nowhere as important as the deep characters & interesting choices you had to make.

But when it comes to writing, prose, dialogue, back-stories, plots, choices, settings, and things of that sort - for me, it's Planescape: Torment. PST didn't have the best combat by any means (it's still nowhere as good as other Infinity Engine games such as BG2 in the combat department) - but its writing stuff is in a class still of its own.

 
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They must have learned from their mistakes on FH3, cause this is great. I've had $150 in MS credit rotting away for nearly a year and I'm about to dump most of it on the ultimate edition.

 
spoderman said:
Torrenting would suck, unless you can get the latest patches. They optimized FH3 quite a bit in the new patches compared to the original release.
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You can. Works the same as if it had been installed from the store.

I've done the same for every other UWP game I own.

 
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weretable said:
ACG liked the new Tomb Raider and I trust his opinion more than anything published by Gamespot/IGN so I am not worried. He did note that there is less fighting than the last title and more exploring/Tomb-Raiding but that is a plus for me. And the underwater stuff looked really neat.
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IGN's review felt & sounded over-scored. She (Lucy O'Brien) complained a lot about things, yet still scored the game with a 9.0. Feels like the review is more of a 7.0-8.0 to me, not 9.0.

GameSpot's review felt & sounded under-scored at 6.0. It's like he nit-picked every single issue he could w/ the game. Even games with "more of the same" for gameplay like AC: Revelations were still worth playing and were still good b/c the story & character stuff was so good in that game. A lot of blanks filled in and more added to both Ezio and Altair's lore and stories (especially Altair). I dunno if 3rd time around for this gameplay style will be too much for me on Shadow of the TR - but, we'll have to wait and see.

What's interesting in both IGN's review and in a new article on GameSpot, they mention some stuff about the Harder difficulties. Lucy from IGN is wondering if she should've played on Hard (she didn't do a lot of side stuff and felt she didn't need to, to finish the main quest - so I'm guessing she went w/ the Normal default), while GameSpot's other employees (that did not review the game) are saying it should be played on Harder difficulties. I do wonder if also the AI's much better on Hard or the game's more intense on hard (with less "modern game" features) b/c the stealth seems to be a big complaint w/ the game everywhere from reviewers (b/c they probably played on the default Normal difficulty setting).

 
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MysterD said:
IGN's review felt & sounded over-scored. She (Lucy O'Brien) complained a lot about things, yet still scored the game with a 9.0. Feels like the review is more of a 7.0-8.0 to me, not 9.0.

GameSpot's review felt & sounded under-scored at 6.0. It's like he nit-picked every single issue he could w/ the game. Even games with "more of the same" for gameplay like AC: Revelations were still worth playing and were still good b/c the story & character stuff was so good in that game. A lot of blanks filled in and more added to both Ezio and Altair's lore and stories (especially Altair). I dunno if 3rd time around for this gameplay style will be too much for me on Shadow of the TR - but, we'll have to wait and see.

What's interesting in both IGN's review and in a new article on GameSpot, they mention some stuff about the Harder difficulties. Lucy from IGN is wondering if she should've played on Hard (she didn't do a lot of side stuff and felt she didn't need to, to finish the main quest - so I'm guessing she went w/ the Normal default), while GameSpot's other employees (that did not review the game) are saying it should be played on Harder difficulties. I do wonder if also the AI's much better on Hard or the game's more intense on hard (with less "modern game" features) b/c the stealth seems to be a big complaint w/ the game everywhere from reviewers (b/c they probably played on the default Normal difficulty setting).
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Reviewing the reviews.... Excuse me for a second...

dKuckvs.gif
 
fuck stories in video games. The whole story-centric shift is ruining games in general with these AAA $60 six-hour narratives. More important (obviously aside from gameplay) is the setting and atmosphere. If you can create a believable world you don't need a story. And most stories tend to be horrible.

 
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Mooby said:
fuck stories in video games. The whole story-centric shift is ruining games in general with these AAA $60 six-hours narratives. More important (obviously aside from gameplay) is the setting and atmosphere. If you can't create a believable world you don't need a story. And most stories tend to be horrible.
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I would pay $60 for the AAA narrative video game of Mooby agonizing over which Hearthstone skins to buy while he first-person shoots down positivity on CAG.

And by saying I'll pay $60 for such a game, I meant that I would pay $1 for the AMD code if someone would unlock it for me.... Maybe....
 
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