Mystery GOG countdown (now general GOG discussion)

[Bullwinkle]

And yet...

Hind


GT Link

[EddieA]

Anachronox is available today too - $5.99.

[Bullwinkle]

Anachronox is available today too - $5.99.

Funny, it wasn't up when I posted.


Anachronox


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[Louis Cypher]

FINALLY!!!!!!

[Bullwinkle]

Journeyman Project 3


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[kronovan]

Journeyman Project 3


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That was a good Journeyman game -probably the best- although I seem to remember some annoying companion, but maybe I'm remembering another adventure game. I wonder how stable it is though; the last time I tried to play it under WinXP I got a lot of geeking with the sound. There wasn't a patch around at that time to resolve that, but maybe there is now?

[Bullwinkle]

FREE release: Treasure Adventure Game


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[EddieA]

GOG has made a few changes.  They've redesigned the website, changed their name to simply "GOG" and will be offering new and recent indie games, such as Legend of Grimrock, Trine, and The Whispered World.

[Bullwinkle]

The website isn't dramatically different, at this point.  And I'm still seeing GOG.com everywhere.  Maybe these are coming?

But they certainly are releasing these indies. 

The Whispered World

Trine




GT Link

[EddieA]

The website isn't dramatically different, at this point.  And I'm still seeing GOG.com everywhere.  Maybe these are coming?

No, they're just really small changes   They dropped the "Good Old Games" part of the name and are now just "GOG.com".

[CeeKay]

Machinarium Collector's Edition




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[EddieA]

They'll be giving away a "legendary RPG" this Thursday.  Since this coincides with the release of the extended edition of The Witcher 2 and CD Projekt Red's press conference, I'd say the chances are pretty high that the free game is The Witcher.

[Bullwinkle]

Darwinia


Wing Commander IV




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[Laner]

Wing Commander IV


GT Link

Oooh... WC4 with the DVD cutscenes... I tried for years to get that working (unsuccessfully, I might add).

[CeeKay]

Oooh... WC4 with the DVD cutscenes... I tried for years to get that working (unsuccessfully, I might add).

I wonder if this is kicking off a new batch of Origin Systems games.

[The Rocketman]

Wing Commander IV


GT Link

Oooh... WC4 with the DVD cutscenes... I tried for years to get that working (unsuccessfully, I might add).

Quite clever of them to release this just after the Wing Commander Saga game has come out. Which is, if I may add, fantastic (and free! )
Here's hoping that some developers are watching just how succesful this genre can still be! (Just like Firaxis has shown that they still consider a turnbased strategy game viable...)

[CeeKay]

[Jimmy the Fish]

The free gift was announced, which turns out to be Fallout.

What a letdown...

[CeeKay]

Assassin’s Creed™: Director’s Cut Edition,

Heroes of Might and Magic V Bundle


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[kronovan]

Meh, can't say that GOG's HoMM V bundle price impresses me much. Steam offers all they do for that price, but also throws in Dark Mesiah of Might & Magic. Not that DMoMM was a great game or anything, but hey its thrown in for free.

[Blackjack]

I downloaded Fallout and the free bonus pack stuff. The forum avatars are kind of fun.

[Calavera]

Meh, can't say that GOG's HoMM V bundle price impresses me much. Steam offers all they do for that price, but also throws in Dark Mesiah of Might & Magic. Not that DMoMM was a great game or anything, but hey its thrown in for free.

The Assassin's Creed bundle is also the same as you'll get on Steam or Amazon. Amazon's is also DRM free and only $15 right now. Ironically, Amazon is just about as Anti-DRM as GOG is and tries to get DRM free versions whenever possible.

GOG has also taken the "Steam sales are devaluing games" stance on game pricing. Which is slightly ironic considering they have 50%-60% off sales routinely...

[CeeKay]

“Heavy discounts are bad for gamers,” Rambourg explained. “If a gamer buys a game he or she doesn’t want just because it’s on sale, they’re being trained to make bad purchases, and they’re also learning that games aren’t valuable. We all know gamers who spend more every month on games than they want to, just because there were too many games that were discounted too deeply. That’s not good for anyone.”

translation: 

WAAAH WAAH!!  Steam is making more money than us!  WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

[raydude]

Oooh... WC4 with the DVD cutscenes... I tried for years to get that working (unsuccessfully, I might add).

I wonder if this is kicking off a new batch of Origin Systems games.

If so, I'd be interested in a release of Strike Commander. I thought it was a refreshing change of pace from the other flight sims, and it had a story to boot.

[Crawley]

If so, I'd be interested in a release of Strike Commander. I thought it was a refreshing change of pace from the other flight sims, and it had a story to boot.

I could barely run it on my computer. And it had the fog issues where you couldn't see very far in the distance. I dunno if they ever fixed that.

I tried playing it for awhile, as I also purchased the speech pack day 1 with it, but I just wasn't enjoying it with the low framerates and the disappointing visuals. It was one of those games I was looking forward to so much but kinda regretted purchasing it.

[Isgrimnur]

“Heavy discounts are bad for gamers,” Rambourg explained. “If a gamer buys a game he or she doesn’t want just because it’s on sale, they’re being trained to make bad purchases, and they’re also learning that games aren’t valuable. We all know gamers who spend more every month on games than they want to, just because there were too many games that were discounted too deeply. That’s not good for anyone.”

translation: 

WAAAH WAAH!!  Steam is making more money than us!  WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Pretty much.  Gamers spending too much on games because there are too many good deals?  WTF?  I'd much rather blow $60 on 12 titles, of which only three hold my interest for a long time, than a repeat of October where I dropped $240 to get MW3, BF3, Batman: AA, and Rage.

[kronovan]

Oooh... WC4 with the DVD cutscenes... I tried for years to get that working (unsuccessfully, I might add).

I wonder if this is kicking off a new batch of Origin Systems games.

If so, I'd be interested in a release of Strike Commander. I thought it was a refreshing change of pace from the other flight sims, and it had a story to boot.

I'd love to see the Origin Skunkworks team's games like Janes Longbow 2, USAF, F-15 and F/A-18 make it to GOG. However, I can't imagine the risk would be worth it for them with the quirky stability such games had. Maybe if they could get patched versions that even included some of the fan patches.

[Isgrimnur]

I'd rather a Kickstarter re-do something along those lines. 

[Bullwinkle]

Darkstone



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[Gratch]

Darkstone



GT Link

"and the Darkstone shiiiiiiiiiiiines..."

Loved this one back in the day, but doubt it holds up well.

[kronovan]

I never played Darkstone. Some reviews or impressions back in the day kept me away from it. Does it have any story or is just pure H'n'S?

[warning]

Darkstone



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"and the Darkstone shiiiiiiiiiiiines..."

Loved this one back in the day, but doubt it holds up well.

Oh God the song! Thanks for reminding me about that!

[CeeKay]

Loved this one back in the day, but doubt it holds up well.

yeah, the graphics look a bit rough 

[Gratch]

Darkstone



GT Link

"and the Darkstone shiiiiiiiiiiiines..."

Loved this one back in the day, but doubt it holds up well.

Oh God the song! Thanks for reminding me about that!

Apparently, it even had a music video

[Blackjack]

I never played Darkstone. Some reviews or impressions back in the day kept me away from it. Does it have any story or is just pure H'n'S?

Of course it's a hack'n'slash, and of course there's no story of interest, but there is a big dragon at the end, and a lot of quests.   I seem to recall the game having a little randomizing in terms of quest order, something like that, which did keep it a bit fresh on replays. I don't think the levels had much randomization in terms of structural design; I realize GoG is hawking that, but I seem to recall the dungeons being very square-ish, and the randomizing just changing a few walls and treasure chest locations.

I loved it. It had the misfortune of releasing in summer 1999, a few months before Diablo II in 2000. No, it wasn't beautiful, it was for its day, pretty blocky 3-D, but it looked good in combat, imho.

I eventually ran a fairly popular fan site on it (The Shadow's Darkstone Tomb; if you Google the term, some references to it come up) and for a while got pretty handy with Javascript, CGI-BIN stuff and the like. I ran an EZ Boards forum on it where, for a time, the Delphine devs would show up now and then to ask questions. Eventually it became a "Prima Games affiliate" site and Prima even sent me a bunch of Darkstone strategy guides, which I might still have. I kept the nice letter Prima sent me on company stationary.  

I think the Planet gaming fan sites eventually wanted to try to convince me and the few other fan site webmasters to work together on a joint community site, but we were all too selfish and wanted to do our own thing.  

The main gimmick was that you controlled two characters at a time, not just one, and you could quickly switch between either (reasonably decent AI controlled the one you weren't actively controlling). The game was quite a bit of fun in co-op, but there was no battle.net type thing, nor a "powered by Gamespy" type server list, so getting games together was tough. You'd probably have to still trade IP addresses to get a game going today.

I'm curious if this GoG version is the final updated version, which added "respawning" enemies to areas you had cleared. While this was nice, in theory, in terms of letting you backtrack to get more coins and loot, it became rather annoying to some that it became difficult to tell what areas you had previously cleared. And sometimes you'd just get buried in respawning monsters.

Despite my affection for Darkstone, with Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 coming up, why spend time poking holes on a 1999 game?   I think Titan Quest (circa 2007-2008) holds up a lot better for those looking for a solid Diablo-ish game that shakes up the skills choices/class types, imho.

[Bullwinkle]

Theme Hospital



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[kronovan]

I think Titan Quest (circa 2007-2008) holds up a lot better for those looking for a solid Diablo-ish game that shakes up the skills choices/class types, imho.

Yeah, I have Titan Quest -don't have the expansion though- but I've never made it enough time to get going with it. I think I need to do that before I reach back as far as Darkstone.

[Blackadar]

I think Titan Quest (circa 2007-2008) holds up a lot better for those looking for a solid Diablo-ish game that shakes up the skills choices/class types, imho.

Yeah, I have Titan Quest -don't have the expansion though- but I've never made it enough time to get going with it. I think I need to do that before I reach back as far as Darkstone.

I have to +1 TQ.  It was a far better game than Darkstone in the first place, never mind that it holds up fine (graphically and game play) today.

[Crawley]

Theme Hospital



GT Link

Used to play the hell out the game. There's been a few clones but they've never been satisfying to me. Probably pick it up on sale.

[CeeKay]

Theme Hospital



GT Link

Used to play the hell out the game. There's been a few clones but they've never been satisfying to me. Probably pick it up on sale.

I remember I couldn't run it because my PC wasn't powerful enough at the time.