steam summer sale surprise stinkers/gems list

[Hefeweizen24]

Gem - Burnout Paradise. What a fun racing game, very over the top but in a great way. And for some reason G&R never gets old for me.

Stinker? Oblivion GOTY. Wow. Since Daggerfall, I've tried again and again but haven't connected with any of the elder scrolls games. Got about 15 hours into Morrowind before getting bored - took me about 4 hours with Oblivion. Just not my cup of tea at all.

[Major Malphunktion]

Gem:

Saints Row The Third (€7.50 / $9)
Oh my. I am not sure where to even start with this one. I usually tend to avoid these type of games in general, not because I have anything against them, but because I tend to find myself bored after a few days of screwing around in the sandbox world they provide. However, my friend and I both gambled and snagged a copy of this in hopes cooperative play would be entertaining, and that gamble paid off big time.

We played for around 7 hours straight yesterday, and my sides still hurt today from laughing so much. The story and missions are incredibly absurd, and there have been quite a few random moments out of nowhere that had us wiping away tears from laughter. We're only halfway through the story so far, but we both feel we got more than our $9 worth out of it.

Welcome to the club.
It's my GOTY.

[Knightsaber]

I know, I was never a big fan of GTA or Saints Row but I picked up The Third on a lark and liked it so much I played straight through it. Awesome stuff.

[legowarrior]

I got the tribes starter pack, despite having the technician already. I'm really enjoyed it, and for it was a gem. My mains are benefiting from the pack.

[cliffski]

Tropico 4 has proven to be an unexpected delight to me.

[DeForrestation]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

[JDSIDD]

Gem: I grabbed the Tribes pack too and managed to unlock all the classes with it and a little XP. Very good game, doesn't feel like the usual free to pay garbage at all.

Stinker: I loved Fear back when it came out so I grabbed the pack for $10 and started in on Fear 2. After 3 hours I'm ready to call this a turd. The shooting feels off, the AI does nothing and YOU SHOOT GHOSTS! Seriously! With bullets! WTF? Okay, maybe the first one had some of that but it just feels like a really bad package. I'm hoping part 3 is a better game. I remember Tom liking it.

[Nightgaunt]

When you say "campaign" what do you mean? Story? Puzzle missions? Context?

My favorite relatively recent RTS campaign is in EndWar, which provided a great context for globe-spanning war of conquest.

Thanks for the recommendation. I like campaigns that do a good job introducing the game elements slowly and building up a picture of the full gameplay. And something that gives you some general objectives, even if there are a number of ways to complete them. I know some people hate them, but I think the Annos do a pretty good job of this.

[Otagan]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

If you didn't get the unofficial patch, then you'll probably want to. It has so many fixes that I can't imagine playing the game without it. Just grab the latest version of the English patch (8.1) and install it before you get too far in and your experience will be dramatically improved.

[lokiju]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

I really enjoyed it, and seem to remember it getting fixed to be a workable game. Hell, a few of the original devs that worked on the game kept helping the ones working on the official patches long after Troika went out of business.. Metacritic has it at 80 and an 8.7 user score. Serious fun for vampire genre fans.

[Anonymgeist]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

Damn, I must have missed that. I had bought it when it first came out and enjoyed it, but lost the disks somewhere in the meantime. I've been getting the urge to replay it, and $15-$20 is more than I'd want to pay to replace it but $5 sounds just right for me.

[charmtrap]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

This game is not a stinker by any stretch. It's one of the best RPGs I've ever played.

But oh my yes, patch it! Patch it!

[legowarrior]

I can agree completely.

[JetLagger]

I bought Just Cause 2 for the price of a cup of coffee at starbucks and it turned out to be a total stinker. There were player controls that I just could not remap, like the Left Control -> "drop" button and ESC and the Enter key. So frustrating!

It wasn't until I plugged in my ps3 controller into my pc and configured the motioninjoy driver to emulate a Xbox 360 Controller that this game turned into an awesome gem!!

Now off to find some quality JC2 mods.

-Tim

[Quaro]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

This is considered one of the best Deus Ex style RPGs ever. Not that terrible is a huge understatement.

Really recommend the patch here:

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php

I played it with the + version after playing vanilla and the differences are pretty minor, I say go with +. The main thing is that everything is hugely rebalanced which is a good thing as there were some useless and overpowered skills in the original.

[Zeitgeist]

The problem with Metro 2033 is that the game is way to stingy with ammo.

I got to a point where I had to knife these uber demons because every one of them took like 99999 bullets and there simply was no ammo. To make things worse, the good ammo is also the currency in the game with which you buy stuff. No fun at all.

But then again I read somewhere that you have to play in "Ranger Hardcore" mode because although you die faster, the enemies do as well.

[Balasarius]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

I am not a violent man, but I've never wanted to punch another QT3'er so bad in all my years here.

[Timsfker]

Gem: Alan Wake

I'm actually finding this game as creepy as Amnesia. Plus it's got a fun story with interesting plot developments, and although the combat is a bit meh it's still good entertainment.

[lord_pall]

I am not a violent man, but I've never wanted to punch another QT3'er so bad in all my years here.

So I've always had high hopes for this game. I bought the collectors edition. The one that came in a damned box.

And it was kinda crappy.

I drag it out every now and then and install the fan patch. It still doesn't grab me. I don't know why.


Also as an inflammatory sidenote, I thought Shalebridge Cradle wasn't a very good mission in Thief.

[Bandersnatch]

Gem - Burnout Paradise. What a fun racing game, very over the top but in a great way. And for some reason G&R never gets old for me.

Stinker? Oblivion GOTY. Wow. Since Daggerfall, I've tried again and again but haven't connected with any of the elder scrolls games. Got about 15 hours into Morrowind before getting bored - took me about 4 hours with Oblivion. Just not my cup of tea at all.

You can salvage your stinker with the Nehrim total conversion mod.

[Shadari]

Gem: BIT.TRIP RUNNER: Seriously, this game is amazing. I've never laughed so much playing such a simple and silly little game. Just watch this person playing it. You'll love it and buy it no matter what the cost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ9Aqqse67Q

It really is a great game. It's like Portal -- it's pretty much perfection for what it does.

[dgallina]

Gem: Driver San Francisco. I somehow missed it the first time around. Huge fun, though the Mac port is under performing and will only use keyboard controls. Made me go right out and buy the 360 version a few hours later.

[Brian Rubin]

Gem: Driver San Francisco. I somehow missed it the first time around. Huge fun, though the Mac port is under performing and will only use keyboard controls. Made me go right out and buy the 360 version a few hours later.

Yay! So glad you're enjoying it!

[Gremlinclr]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

This has a history of being a phenomenal stinker, like nuke from orbit class. For 5 bucks though, couldn't resist. I'm about an hour or so in, and it doesn't seem that terrible. The tutorial biker guy looks and sounds exactly like an uncle of mine, so I might be giving it too much credit :)

Am I setting myself up for disaster, or has the game been patched to being playable?

I would put playing VtM:B through as a Malkavian in my top 5 gaming experiences of all time. It really is that good. I would recommend playing through as a normal class first though. Then you can appreciate just how different it is.

[legowarrior]

I would put playing VtM:B through as a Malkavian in my top 5 gaming experiences of all time. It really is that good. I would recommend playing through as a normal class first though. Then you can appreciate just how different it is.

Sadly, I've only played through the entire game as the Malks. I might try the game as some one else, but it was really fun as the malks.

[DoomMunky]

Well, I got Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and for the first hour or so it is a TOTAL stinker. There's a bunch of Ezio running around doing FedEx quests for his villagers at the Doma or whatever, then a really lame cannon sequence (that I think let me win after 3 failures), then a bunch of modern day stuff that's so barely interactive it's a joke. You literally walk up (in a cutscene) to a door with a mechanism near it, the characters make terrible sexy talk to each other, then it goes into player control. You walk over to the mechanism (the obvious only thing worth doing) and an onscreen prompt comes up that says "Hold Any Button". You do this, and you get a mini cutscene of the characters traversing the now open door. You press forward for a while until you get to the next door or old bridge or whatever and do it all again. For about 20 minutes. With terrible sexy dialogue the whole time.

I just got to the open world part and am hoping it's good because otherwise this shit is barely a game. SERIOUSLY. Fuck that stuff.

[Rock8man]

Warhammer Space Marine + DLC (12 bucks something on flash?). Was about to give up on this as totally dire after playing the first few single player levels, but then found .. horde mode! Holy shit that is awesome.

After reading this, I hope the game goes on sale again. Every time I want to buy Space Marine, I go to the page and it says right there: "No Games for Windows Live", so I think, okay, I'll buy the 360 version instead. But then I read posts like this, and I think, I should get it cheaper for the PC instead, but then I go to the page, and it says "No Games for Windows Live", and I think, well, I'll get the 360 version instead.

It's a never ending loop. I should get the 360 version though, seriously. I think the horde mode was a free update for the 360 version too, right? Or was it a paid download?

[JoshL]

Gem: Vessel. Ok, I'm cheating a bit, I actually bought this a couple days before the sale. It's really good. If a puzzley side-scrolling platformer sounds at all interesting, try it out.

Stinker: The Walking Dead. Ok, I'm kinda yanking your chain, it's actually pretty good (at least in terms of the story), but I was expecting a point-and-click style adventure game (similar to Tales of Monkey Island), but it isn't that at all, in fact the few puzzles it does have are awful and probably should have been left out. Oh, and quicktime events. Yahtzee is right about QTEs, they are never good.

[Shadari]

After reading this, I hope the game goes on sale again. Every time I want to buy Space Marine, I go to the page and it says right there: "No Games for Windows Live", so I think, okay, I'll buy the 360 version instead. But then I read posts like this, and I think, I should get it cheaper for the PC instead, but then I go to the page, and it says "No Games for Windows Live", and I think, well, I'll get the 360 version instead.

It's a never ending loop. I should get the 360 version though, seriously. I think the horde mode was a free update for the 360 version too, right? Or was it a paid download?

Bro, you're so the console gamer, but your platform is dying faster than the PC was back in 2005. Good luck bro!

[Marcin]

And the vibration of the controller in your hands make it so satisfying.

wtf

I recommend playing it with a 360 controller over the mouse.

WTF

get out