Game deals wot are bargains

Kiril 2019-09-13 09:57:14 UTC #1214

The image seems to be all the Batman games, people are guessing its the Arkham Collection from the consoles on PC and the Lego games as the Arkham Collection is rated M, they will be giving a second game.

Mac4 2019-09-14 21:02:00 UTC #1215

I’ll be happy to receive Arkham Knight for nought if that’s the case, to complete my collection. Never finished any of them yet, but like them well enough, they have character and a sense of flow alright. And I’m not even a Marvel Heroes fan! Though if I had to pick one of them, the bat guy would certainly be it. (Speaking of flow, Arkham City’s Catwoman is fun to play, btw.)

Dirt Rally’s free again, this time at Steam, until this Monday. Looks to be in promotion of Dirt Rally 2 which is 60% off, plus there’s a range of discounts again (aren’t there usually, in one form or another?) on other Codemasters titles, notably their racing games looks like.

BillButNotBen 2019-09-18 01:16:01 UTC #1216

Download Rockstar’s new launcher and you can get a copy of GTA San Andreas for free:

https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/rockstar-games-launcher

“For a limited time”

I’m not keen on yet another launcher, as I have a dozen already… On the other hand, I underestand you need some kind of Rockstar crap even with a lot of their games off of steam, so maybe it’s unavoidable.

I’ve heard horror stories about their Social Club… I wonder if this replaces that.
I wonder if I can register my old steam GTA games on there too?

[edit] You know what, I’ve had GTA:SA on my wishlist for ages, and want to play it, but having looked at the massive amount of crap I’m going to have to go through to get it playable on modern PCs, and having looked at the massive amount of crap the installer wanted to install, I’ve just deleted the launcher installer.
I have enough other games that I can play to not have to mess with all this stuff

I also question the logic of giving away a game that apparently doesn’t work on most modern systems as a freebie.

It’s a shame…

Mac4 2019-09-18 15:50:48 UTC #1217

(btw, May I commend y’all for never chastising me for confusing DC Batman for a Marvel character above! )

The RPS article on it points to this Rockstar page on supported titles. Anyway, ask yourself if that’s what you want: All these stores and launchers have a knack for enticing you to interlink them in any way possible. I’m sure that’s a goldmine in analytical data alone. I’m not saying that’s the case here, and it may well be that Rockstar is really only interested in its own games (itself not uninteresting to them, I’m sure), it just pays to give oneself pause here.

The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy (the first three games) regularly gets steeply discounted, it was so again just last week or thereabouts, down to c. 5 Euros or so. So I reckon you might as well get it that way if you want it.

Their playability I don’t know about, as usual some good first-stop resources would appear to be the Steam forums and their sticky threads (one in this case, “The Steam version is the worse version of the game,” lol), and their Guides>Modding and Configuration section. But of course maybe you’d already checked all that.

BillButNotBen 2019-09-19 08:03:26 UTC #1218

Apparently you need mods to get a lot of GTA:SA working on modern systems. But then mods mainly only work on the older version. So you need to downgrade first and then mod it.
But the downgrader doesn’t work on the free Rockstar version, and apparently the launcher may detect mods and then reinstall the game over them.

Though there are conflicting reports on all of these things.

I’d been waiting on a very cheap price on GTA:SA (I already have the first 2) because I’d heard it was flakey on modern systems.
To quote someone on the steam forums:

Basically it’s the Steam version but worse, something that for a long time was thought to be impossible.

Life’s too short for me to try and find out.

Mac4 2019-09-19 14:40:06 UTC #1219

Ah, that does all sound like way more hassle than certainly I’d be bargaining for. Thankfully for me, GTA doesn’t appeal to me.

Oh well. Plenty of other games awaiting us! Odd indeed that they’d pick this title to haul people in. Hmm.

dfl1010 2019-09-19 16:12:15 UTC #1220

Epic’s weekly is now live:

Lego Batman Trilogy
Batman Arkham Collection

Six games in total; not too shabby.

Next week, it’s Everything, and Metro 2033 Redux

sabrage 2019-09-19 19:17:07 UTC #1221

For GTA3 (same engine, I believe?) I don’t think it was much more than a widescreen patch and a controller fix.
Edit: Well I checked and I have a bit more than that.

GInput_3 fixes XInput devices, the two versions there I believe had different control schemes.
GTA3.WidescreenFix does what it says on the box.
LCLF and SilentPatch are both catch-all fixes for various bugs and quality of life issues.
SilentPatch doesn’t even have different .exe’s for III, Vice City and San Andreas. GInput has multiple releases for each game, it’s on the same creator’s website as SilentPatch:

BillButNotBen 2019-09-20 04:20:22 UTC #1222

Plus my library can now be seen in List View, which is good as I have a whole bunch of games on there now.
Very happy about this week, despite already having lego batman one. Arkham Asylum for me and Lego Batman 2 (+3) to play with the kids.

It’s getting to the stage where I’m starting to feel like I should buy something from Epic, just because I feel guilty about all the free games they’ve given me.

What I read was that the Silent Patch needs a downgraded v1.0 version, and that needs the Downgrader and that doesn’t work on the free version. I have no idea if that’s correct… but I’ll probably just play batman instead of trying to figure it out.

BillButNotBen 2019-09-20 04:28:53 UTC #1223

Not PC, but it is a PC game too:

Downwell is free on google play until September 27th.
Info here:

I heard it was a good game, though I have no idea if that applies to the mobile version as well.

sabrage 2019-09-20 18:58:07 UTC #1224

That’d be a shame, going from one of the best-realized open worlds to one of the most pointless, but considering how little Rockstar cares about PC I couldn’t blame you. It’s probably easier just to emulate the PS2 version of San Andreas and enjoy the correct soundtrack, if you’re not playing with the more extensive mods.

Similar 2019-09-23 12:46:06 UTC #1225

heh. "Experience the classic space trading game, Elite, as released on the BBC Model B in 1984, by Ian Bell and David Braben."
https://www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-dangerous-cat/elite1984.html
(“Package includes a disk image of the original Elite for BBC Micro B; BeebEm, a BBC Micro and Master 128 emulator that enables you to run BBC Micro software on your PC; and instructions for getting started with both BeebEm and Elite.”). Should also include the manual (and maybe the novel?), so that in itself is interesting.
It’s free (I imagine you have to make an account to download it, though. I haven’t tried yet).

I wonder how that would feel to play now. It was the first version I tried (a friend had what was probably the only BBC in the country).

Edit: Also, if you’re into this sort of thing, Ian Bell has had an Elite home page for decades, with various versions of the game that can be downloaded, manuals (sadly not very good versions) and such.
http://www.elitehomepage.org/game.htm

Blackice 2019-09-25 13:59:23 UTC #1226

GOG obviously don’t want to be outdone in the “give a way a classic space game” stakes, so Freespace 2 is currently free on their site

https://www.gog.com/game/freespace_2

dfl1010 2019-09-26 15:05:34 UTC #1227

It’s Thursday, so time for Epic’s giveaways.

Everything, and Metro 2033 Redux.

Next week it’s Minit.

Kajo 2019-09-27 13:50:11 UTC #1228

Asmodee digital is having a sale on Steam (boardgames and expansions)

dfl1010 2019-10-01 23:45:02 UTC #1229

For those with Twich Prime chits, the new lot of free games are live:

Adam Wolfe
The Walking Dead: Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries (*)
Stranger Things 4: The Game
Deadlight: DIrector’s Cut
Serial Cleaner

(*) The Walking Dead is an Epic Store key, so you’ll need an account with them to redeem it, and it’ll show there rather than the twich launcher. First time I’ve seen this.

Blackice 2019-10-03 14:00:23 UTC #1230

Not exactly a bargain as such, but EA are offering a free month of Origin access basic for turning on 2 factor authentication during October. The free month will start on or near to the 1st November.

Current subscribers will get a free month too if they sign up, with existing Premier users getting a free month of that.

dfl1010 2019-10-03 15:04:56 UTC #1231

Epic store again.

Today it’s the lovely Minit (or Rninit, according to their artwork).

Next week, it’s Surviving Mars, one that’s been on my watchlist for a while.

BillButNotBen 2019-10-03 15:05:56 UTC #1232

It seems like a bargain to me.
I got to play a bunch of games off my wishlist last time there was a free/cheap month of Origin Access.

Of course, 2 months later Epic gave them all to me for free anyway, but hey…

As such, if anyone goes for it, I’d recommend trying the EA exclusive games first, such as Titanfall 2 and the Mirror’s Edge games.

Internet 2019-10-08 10:04:27 UTC #1233

EA unloaded a bunch of old games on humble bundle. Dragon Age 2 is there for $2.50. That’s about right. Mass Effect trilogy is $15, which doesn’t seem to bad either. Keys go to origin.