[Souffrir]

I'm possibly getting a new laptop soon (most likely not a gaming intensive pick), so my situation may change, but as of now I was planning to play the games in Boot Camp on a 2015 MacBook Pro.

Glancing at Black Mesa’s recommended specs, you should be okay as long as you aren’t trying to run it at high settings.

[MysterD]

What a last few months for Post-Apoc games lately.

 

Encased free on Epic; ATOM RPG and Trudograd been in bundles and/or cheap IIRC; Fallout 3 GOTY was before Free on Epic; Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics was free on Epic; Wasteland 3 is in the current Humble Monthly/Choice; FO NV Ultimate was Free on Amazon with a GOG Key.

 

Good (post-apoc) times.

[Kyle1022]

Fallout New Vegas on GOG was also given away for free on Prime Gaming last month

[gamegirlpocket]

Getting back into PC gaming since this summer and stoked for the winter sale. GMG has good XP deals on the FF Pixel Remasters, slightly more of a discount than through Steam so I finally snagged the rest of them (already had FF6).

Update - this may be old news to some, but Bing / Microsoft Rewards has 5% cashback on GMG, which is an additional nice perk. Will be buying from them more when there's something I want.

 

HL2 has aged pretty damn well. Original HL, I dunno, it is 25 years old by now. Wouldn't be shocked if it was rough to play through. If you want to play the first game it might be best to jump straight to Black Mesa, provided you have a build that can handle it (doesn't require much, but still considerably more than the original and you say you aren't much of a PC gamer so I'm not sure what you've got to work with).

 

Outside of the Portal games, the only other thing I'd have personally recommended from the Valve bundle is L4D2 which is still a whole lot of fun with a good group, and much better than Back 4 Blood.

Agreed, plenty of shooters from the early 2000s are showing their age and are hard to go back to (Doom 3, Soldier of Fortune, the early Medal of Honor games were all impressive for their time but feel very dated now). Half Life 2 has such a wonderful atmosphere, sound design, and physics which still feel pretty impressive. I think the original Halo is the only other single player FPS from that era which can feel relatively timeless, especially with the upgrades in the modern release.

 

Games like UT / UT 2003 etc are on my short list too, for what it's worth.
 

[rpgaymer]

I actually just got a steam deck and bought Black Mesa and Half—Life 2 from a previous sale. Is there a best order to play these? I know Black Mesa retells the first game story wise, but going to HL2 right after might be weird since it’s so old.

[Miketheking]

I wish I entered to win that steam deck doing VGA. Heard they gave out more some time after, for people who registered. Its just so much you can do with it right, ps5 remote play, GP dont care for, emulators of ps3 and below, steam/epics games store.

[walletandgromice]

I wish I entered to win that steam deck doing VGA. Heard they gave out more some time after, for people who registered. Its just so much you can do with it right, ps5 remote play, GP dont care for, emulators of ps3 and below, steam/epics games store.

lol. Over 1 million people were registered supposedly and under 500 winners selected. Your odds of winning one weren't that good anyway

[spoderman]

lol. Over 1 million people were registered supposedly and under 500 winners selected. Your odds of winning one weren't that good anyway

None of that mattered anyway, it wasn't tracking who was watching the stream properly. It only tracked a few mins for me even though I watched the entire stream. There was a way to check the log and for most people it didn't track their time. So it's likely none of us even had a chance lol

[Insomniac_34]

I actually just got a steam deck and bought Black Mesa and Half—Life 2 from a previous sale. Is there a best order to play these? I know Black Mesa retells the first game story wise, but going to HL2 right after might be weird since it’s so old.

HL2 might be as close as an FPS can get to being timeless. Excellent pacing and storytelling. Terrific atmosphere. And it's remarkable how good the Source engine looks 20 years later. I wouldn't worry at all about playing it after Black Mesa.

[Miketheking]

lol. Over 1 million people were registered supposedly and under 500 winners selected. Your odds of winning one weren't that good anyway

oh lol guess that puts my regret to rest then. Thought it was like a few thousand maybe. Then again I have been lucky a lot with winning things so maybe I couldve won.

[Souffrir]

Stop stealing my winning crap from contests luck, you jerk. Literally the only things I've ever won from this sort of thing are a hotwheels car and a plastic hat.

[Miketheking]

Stop stealing my winning crap from contests luck, you jerk. Literally the only things I've ever won from this sort of thing are a hotwheels car and a plastic hat.

Lol, I could brag on the things I won. You're luck will change man one day.

[INMATEofARKHAM]

Hope everyone is safe and warm. We didn't get much snow here, it was actually so cold we didn't get much here, but I got to drive in it coming home ftom work the other day. I've been heating the garage so we don't have frozen water pipes but hopefully won't have to do that after tomorrow... We should be up closer to normal winter cold.

But, yeah, real cold so cold that two of my cats who don't like each other agreed to not be bastards to each other and slept with me for the shared warmth.

[rpgaymer]

HL2 might be as close as an FPS can get to being timeless. Excellent pacing and storytelling. Terrific atmosphere. And it's remarkable how good the Source engine looks 20 years later. I wouldn't worry at all about playing it after Black Mesa.

Gotcha, thanks. I’m excited to finally play these games and other pc stuff I missed over the years.

[MysterD]

As great as HL1 and HL2 and the 2 Episodes are - man, do I love me some FEAR 1.

[JohnnyCage]

I was ready to buy the Metro bundle on Steam and then find out that Epic is giving away Metro something tomorrow. Hopefully it's the trilogy.

[MysterD]

GreenManGaming - Final Fantasy Sale:

-> https://www.greenman...y=Final Fantasy

[moonknight80]

GreenManGaming - Final Fantasy Sale:

-> https://www.greenman...y=Final Fantasy

Oh, thanks for posting that. I was eyeing FF7 Remake on Epic, but with my XP bonus and this discount it's only a couple bucks more and I'd rather have it on Steam due to getting my Steam Deck

[walletandgromice]

Metro Redux is today's Epic launcher freebie

Tomorrow is rumored to be Death Stranding, if Wario64 is right.

[Insomniac_34]

Metro Redux is today's Epic launcher freebie

Tomorrow is rumored to be Death Stranding, if Wario64 is right.

Hint looks just like the dog tag looking thing Norman Reedus' character wears in the game.

[INMATEofARKHAM]

GreenManGaming - Final Fantasy Sale:

-> https://www.greenman...y=Final Fantasy

Wow, is there any franchise that has been milked more than Final Fantasy?  37 titles?  Yikes!

 

Won't lie, the pixel remasters look pretty awesome...  Now, if I could only remember which one was FF2.

 

Also was poking around and found a 5% off code (that seems to be account linked), a 3% off code, and a couple of preorder codes for games at 22% off and not the zero or 15% off in the store normally.  (I mention it because I'm sort of surprised I found it.)

 

Guardian of the Galaxy seems to be a new low, $17.85  (Before the above code.)

[Souffrir]

Wow, is there any franchise that has been milked more than Final Fantasy? 37 titles? Yikes!

Won't lie, the pixel remasters look pretty awesome... Now, if I could only remember which one was FF2.

Also was poking around and found a 5% off code (that seems to be account linked), a 3% off code, and a couple of preorder codes for games at 22% off and not the zero or 15% off in the store normally. (I mention it because I'm sort of surprised I found it.)

Guardian of the Galaxy seems to be a new low, $17.85 (Before the above code.)

If you mean American SNES FF2, that was actually FF4.

[INMATEofARKHAM]

If you mean American SNES FF2, that was actually FF4.

I was actually joking about not knowing which was which but thanks for pointing it out.

 

Looking around if you want all the pixel remakes GMG has a bundle and Dec17 code gives 17% off. making it 62.24 for all.  (10.38 each)

 

https://www.greenman...i-vi-bundle-pc/

[caldazar]

Wow, is there any franchise that has been milked more than Final Fantasy?  37 titles?  Yikes!

 

Won't lie, the pixel remasters look pretty awesome...  Now, if I could only remember which one was FF2.

 

Also was poking around and found a 5% off code (that seems to be account linked), a 3% off code, and a couple of preorder codes for games at 22% off and not the zero or 15% off in the store normally.  (I mention it because I'm sort of surprised I found it.)

 

Guardian of the Galaxy seems to be a new low, $17.85  (Before the above code.)

I actually Snagged World of FF and FF 3 (3D Remake) off of this deal.

[nitrosmob]

I own FF6 pixel remaster from when it went on sale a bit ago. I wonder how well FF1-5 have aged, although I used to play the FF4 randomizer often a year or two ago. I'm sure that's fine and the FF5 job system makes up for that pretty weak story. FF3 I believe has a better job system in the remaster where less grinding is needed, and I frankly just didn't like FF1-2 many years ago when I played on the PSX (just kind of boring to me at the time). If they all came up to $5ish each I would think about them, but I'm not sure. FF6 is one of my favorite FF games although I haven't really played the MMO ones or FFXV after a few hours.

[Souffrir]

FF1 holds up today about as well as it has since 1990, which is to say it’s an entirely competent, but super basic, plotless RPG that gets some extra bonus points for historical value and FF trappings.

FF2 is hard to get into, but to be fair, it was hard to get into when it first came out. The odd “leveling” mechanics, basic plot and characters, and lack of anything all that memorable about it makes it the least appealing Final Fantasy barring personal problems with plots or characters in later entries.

I’ve only played the 3D remake of FF3, and I understand balancing and changing jobs is a bit different in the original and Pixel versions, but I had a ton of fun with it last year. Granted, I’m a weirdo who loves the job system, and some of the oddities of FF3 make creating odd builds unusually fulfilling for an RPG of its age (let alone a JRPG), but I think the gameplay is very accessible to anyone willing to look up how the mechanics work and likes planning out party builds.

FF4 is the first really plot-centric game in the franchise, and it shows. Not to say the story is bad, but it does feel kinda immature compared to some of the later entries. Probably not compared to X, though.

FF5, I would say, holds up very well. It has a fun plot, engaging likeable characters, and easily one of the best refinements of the job system to date, making it both a fun reasonably short play, and one of the deepest games in the series mechanically if you want to get into it. It might be the only game in the series I would unreservedly recommend to nearly anyone interested in getting into FF.

[Jodou]

FYI, Darktide is now on other game key stores like Fanatical. Down to $34 now with various discount codes. Humble is still at $40.

A wash since I wanted deluxe that ends up being about the same price via bundle discount. I ended up buying it because there's a cash shop item I did want and even though they removed the timers, it's still a limited time offer and no clue when it would be back. Wouldn't have cared but the deluxe pack gives you free credits so might as well. Already got my Zealot back up to 30 in record time now that I know what missions to push.

 

As for validation on the purchase, I have zero troubles getting a group for any given mission whereas Game Pass servers I'd be playing with a full group of bots for 50% of my runs. Less crashes to boot, so yeah: never falling for anything MP on Game Pass PC again.

[easper]

Thinking about getting Neon White to play on my new Steam Deck, but with my backlog and rumors of it coming to Xbox Game Pass I’ll probably hold off. Unless any of you feel strongly enough about it to convince me otherwise??

[moonknight80]

FF1 holds up today about as well as it has since 1990, which is to say it’s an entirely competent, but super basic, plotless RPG that gets some extra bonus points for historical value and FF trappings.

FF2 is hard to get into, but to be fair, it was hard to get into when it first came out. The odd “leveling” mechanics, basic plot and characters, and lack of anything all that memorable about it makes it the least appealing Final Fantasy barring personal problems with plots or characters in later entries.

I’ve only played the 3D remake of FF3, and I understand balancing and changing jobs is a bit different in the original and Pixel versions, but I had a ton of fun with it last year. Granted, I’m a weirdo who loves the job system, and some of the oddities of FF3 make creating odd builds unusually fulfilling for an RPG of its age (let alone a JRPG), but I think the gameplay is very accessible to anyone willing to look up how the mechanics work and likes planning out party builds.

FF4 is the first really plot-centric game in the franchise, and it shows. Not to say the story is bad, but it does feel kinda immature compared to some of the later entries. Probably not compared to X, though.

FF5, I would say, holds up very well. It has a fun plot, engaging likeable characters, and easily one of the best refinements of the job system to date, making it both a fun reasonably short play, and one of the deepest games in the series mechanically if you want to get into it. It might be the only game in the series I would unreservedly recommend to nearly anyone interested in getting into FF.

FF3 NES suffers from the same issues of FF1 and 2. The plot is very, very flat, since the characters are very generic and the Job System is the main thing. FF3DS adds a lot of needed character and characterization, but that version is *HARD* due to some of the technical limitations that were apparently in place.

[MysterD]

NewEgg.

 

God of War (2018) [Steam] = $21.99 with EREBZ2422 promo code