Game deals wot are bargains

[BillButNotBen]

Whoa. Deja Vu.

They changed something in the matrix…

[alms]

You probably already claimed them earlier.

DIdn’t they literally go free less than 24 hours ago?

Since it had me wait a long time for the pages to work, I’m trying to figure out if there was some glitch and the ‘ownership’ has been really registered.

PS: I don’t know anymore, my transactions show them claimed on August, 14. Never mind.

[Mac4]

Hi folks,

GOG is giving away Serious Sam #1, Serious Sam: The First Encounter, over the coming two days. I guess it’s on the occasion of #4 in the series being due end of September.

[ToomuchFluffy]

Cheap and obscure games, for anyone that’s interested.

Tiny Echo for 2,95 €.

The Shrouded Isle for 2,99 €.

Arctico for 3,99 €. It used to have a different name, but I can’t find it right now.

ADR1FT for 4,99 €.

Decay: The Mare for 0,49 €.

Hypergun for 4,09 €.

Dark Grim Mariupolis for 1,05 €.

Arc Savior for 4,37 €.

Husk for 1,79 €.

Reveal the Deep is not on offer, but it’s just 0,99 €.

Void and Meddler isn’t on offer either, but just 3,99 €.

Leaving Lyndow: Same, same price.

Fariwalk: The Prelude: Not on offer, 0,79 €.

Masteroid: Not on offer, 3,99 €.

Schein for 0,90 €.

The Deed for 0,69 €.

Symmetry: 1,99 €.

[BillButNotBen]

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is free on Steam at the moment.

I actually rather enjoyed this a few years back. It’s relatively close to Portal 1 (though obviously not as good as that).
The magnetism puzzles were physics driven enough that it allowed for some creative / unintended solutions, rather than being too prescriptive as a lot of later portal-likes became. They also occasionally led to janky frustration.

Recommended, if you aren’t too picky.

[ToomuchFluffy]

I think I got it free off of gog some years ago and the impression is that people have been harsher on it than it deserves, though I couldn’t say for myself since I never got to it. I suppose for the most part it’s just obscure.

[alms]

It’s relatively close to Portal 1 (though obviously not as good as that).

/lighs Molotov cocktail

Yeah, only Portal 2 is better than 1.

/flick of the wrist

[BillButNotBen]

/lighs Molotov cocktail

Yeah, only Portal 2 is better than 1.

/flick of the wrist

There are lighs, damn lighs and people who call portal 2 better than portal 1.

[chopper]

In a poll done on a previous forum, where everybody listed their top 50 games (not pc exclusive), Portal 2 narrowly edged out Portal in the voting. Both games made the top 10; Portal 2 was #7 and Portal was #8

[BillButNotBen]

There are lies, damn lies and statistics that imply that portal 2 was better than portal 1.

[Sarfrin]

I liked both Portals, but I liked 2 more.

[chopper]

Portal was one of the first games I picked up, having come back to gaming as an adult and not played anything since I was 15. As such, I had no idea how to appreciate anything other than on a superficial level, and Glados’s patter didn’t even register with me. The whole ‘cake is a lie’ thing was a mystery to me for years.

Portal 2 is probably my favourite just by dint of not having a clue in the earlier years. There were some people whom Wheatley(?) drove up the wall though, like, real hatred.

[Kajo]

Meanwhile, HITMAN and the Shadowrun collection are free on Epic

(And into the breach next week!)

[Kiril]

the Shadowrun collection

They are three very good RPGs. Start with the first one and then move one, it won’t be as fun if you start with Dragonfall or Hong Kong as they improve the game a lot.

[BillButNotBen]

Isn’t Into the Breach a repeat?

Good game anyway, although I absolutely suck at it. It looks so easy, and then I keep doing wrong things.

[alms]

In a poll done on a previous forum, where everybody listed their top 50 games (not pc exclusive), Portal 2 narrowly edged out Portal in the voting. Both games made the top 10; Portal 2 was #7 and Portal was #8

Portal is brilliant but I think some may rate it higher than 2 because it’s a smaller game and its brilliance shines brighter by way of its relative minimalism and purity.

Portal came first, and that’s a advantage as far as feelings go, because the “first true love” effect is real for a part of the audience.

[Baines]

Portal is brilliant but I think some may rate it higher than 2 because it’s a smaller game and its brilliance shines brighter by way of its relative minimalism and purity.

For me, the gels kind of bring down Portal 2. Regardless of how true it is, it feels like Portal 1 gives you more freedom in solving the traversal puzzles.

On the surface, the gels are no more a limiting factor than the lasers or cubes or whatnot that were present in Portal 1. You see a laser, and you know you are expected to redirect it. That isn’t much different from being asked to redirect gel in Portal 2. But there is a difference in perception in that gel is the new major gimmick of Portal 2. It isn’t just another puzzle factor like a laser. Gel is as important, and at times outright more important, than the portal gun itself. But gel isn’t as “free” as the portal gun.

[ToomuchFluffy]

The Station and The Spectrum Retreat are both 75 % off. Both narrative games as far as I can tell, but The Spectrum Retreat seems to be more puzzly in a manner kind of like Portal, Antimatter etc. The Station is apparently quite short (2 hours or so) and not very involved, but The color-coded puzzling in The Spectrum Retreat looks fairly substantial.

And ShadowSide for just 0,99 €. A walking simulator. Steam reviews are mixed, but for that price it may be worth a look.

[BillButNotBen]

Portal 2 is very polished and has nice dialogue and some nice puzzles, but it’s just much more restrictive.

For me the issue wasn’t so much the gels as the ‘moon dust’ surfaces. In Portal 1 the portal gun basically worked almost everywhere, but in Portal 2 there was often just one white panel that just happened to be in the right place to launch you towards that other white panel, etc…

Valve are great at drawing attention, so there’s usually be a light or something to draw your attention towards the correct spot for your portal, and then something else for the next one. The net effect was that it felt like there was one proscriptive and somewhat artificial solution to each puzzle, and you were kind of led by the nose through it.

I mean, that’s fine, and it probably allows them to craft more complex bespoke puzzles, but it’s not really how I felt about Portal 1. It’s closer to Monument Valley (which I also love) and a lot of the portal-likes that followed.
Portal 1 clearly had an intended solution for each area, but you could effectively put portals anywhere, which meant that you could experiment a lot more and come up with alternative solutions (something I doubt you could do at all in Portal 2). And even when you did come up with the intended solution, I felt more like I’d come up with it myself rather than been lead to it.

Playing Portal 1 a second time, I could come up with solutions to shortcut huge parts of the puzzles. The same thing was rarely possible with Portal 2 as it was just too ‘polished’.

(All of this applies only to the single player. I hear the co-op has more of a Portal 1 vibe, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet).

[Internet]

The dialogue in Portal 2 was quite open, and the game as whole opened up in the caves. Portal is just tighter, a lot tighter. The low step challenges showed how many solutions portal puzzles could have. It reminded me of rope arrows in Thief. They gave you the tool, and the level seemed to open up on its own.