Steam winter sale - post yer loot

[Thjan]

Bought Commander: The Great War, Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm + Addon and Sunless Sea so far.

Considering: Pike & Shot Campaigns, Homeworld: Deserts of Karak and CMANO. Too many interesting games, not enough time to play :(

[Bison]

Pillars is a great game.  You're in for a real treat playing it.

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to getting into this one -- have been for a while, really.  Any particular advice/recommendations for a newbie? 

Save often.   :)

[Ian C]

Life Is Strange
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Valkyria Chronicles

[Jarhead0331]

^putting aside all the japanime crap, Valkyria Chronicles is a surprisingly good game.

[Skwerl]

I made out like a bandit!

Beyond Sol
Ceres: Tactical Space Combat
Hard West
Homeworld
Pillars of Eternity
Rebel Galaxy
Victor Vran
Void Destroyer

[JasonPratt]

Heh, I managed to put Ceres into my shopping cart, at 10 am CST on Christmas Day. And that was the last time Steam worked for me, for a while... 

[Ian C]

^putting aside all the japanime crap, Valkyria Chronicles is a surprisingly good game.

My thoughts exactly. I'm not an Anime fan (Metal Gear Solid not withstanding) but it is a very good squad-based strategy game with a ton of depth.

[sandman2575]

^putting aside all the japanime crap, Valkyria Chronicles is a surprisingly good game.

My question is, how easy is it to ignore the japanime crap?  I've avoided Valkyria despite the glowing reviews because I just can't stomach the stuff. Metal Gear is about as far as I'm willing to go in putting up with it.

Edit - lol - looks like Ian and I are on the same page re: japanime...

[sandman2575]

Also, is the Steam store closed for Xmas or something? It's been down for a few hours now...

[jamus34]

If you turn off your brain on the cut scenes and can get past some missions that are brutally difficult if you don't know what needs to be done it is a great game. Think more x com but where the soldier interaction is important.
Trust me if you like small squad tactics it is a great game.

[Grim.Reaper]

Also, is the Steam store closed for Xmas or something? It's been down for a few hours now...

Its being overloaded by everyone redeeming their brand new activation codes they received for Christmas:)

Been proud of myself so far, only the $5 purchase of Star Wars legos and that's it.....

[RedArgo]

Haven't gotten anything, yet, but I'm sure I will soon.

Steam store isn't working for us either, I can tell my boys are growing up, in the past (like last week) they'd have been screaming bloody murder that that couldn't spend all their Christmas steam money immediately, now they're just watching YouTube and waiting patiently.

[undercovergeek]

If you turn off your brain on the cut scenes and can get past some missions that are brutally difficult if you don't know what needs to be done it is a great game. Think more x com but where the soldier interaction is important.
Trust me if you like small squad tactics it is a great game.

Seriously? Without knowing anything about the game only its title I thought this was a vampire fps thing - there is research to be done

[JasonPratt]

I've played Valkyria Chronicles twice (on the PS3, its original home), and admittedly I like the anime crap -- even if the hero is hilariously oblivious to the moral implications of his Darwinian philosophizing which goes on and on and on... and then when the story runs up against a practical problem for it, I figured "at last we'll see the in-plot dramatic reason for him taking those positions in the face of the war he's dealing with"... and then he, or the writers, shook their heads like an etch-a-sketch and after a moment of mental dissonance he jumped over the problem without addressing it at all and went on with his life. 

So if you like a fantasy alt-history WW1 + WW2 interwar tactical sim where the hero espouses the same philosophy as Hitler more-or-less while a similar genocidal slavery and bigotry is going on and this is never ever ever addressed in the game at all (his philosophy supporting what's going on I mean), then you may have less problem with the story than me. ;)

Other than that, I didn't mind the story, which aside from the broken aesop can be described as follows:

WW2 kicks off early with not-Russia invading a European confederation (including not-Germany) over control of a recently discovered energy source which has replaced coal and oil (and steam from those sources); and the quaint little neutral country of not-Estonia (or maybe not-Lithuania, with a large dash of not-Holland) is caught in the middle when the Russian panzers and shock troops roll in. The plucky civilians turn out to have a kick-ass military academy, and one young man returning from wandering the world to train as a naturalist gets swept up into the war to protect his invaded hometown and his not-Jewish adopted sister.

Fortunately, he can bring their deceased Dad's super-experimental tank, built back during not-WW1, so not surprisingly he's soon in charge of managing a platoon of quirky characters. The local baker's daughter, who is rather more gung-ho for defending their country than he is, tags along. Also, eventually there are human/alien hybrids (although not many of them).


The gameplay works like this: each side during a battle gets a certain number of command points per turn (based mostly but not entirely on the command skills of officers in the fight), and you can activate one character with a command point or one armored vehicle with two. Once activated, you zoom into a... I can't recall if it's 1ps or 3ps... view, where you can move the person or armor around the map taking various actions based on their own internal action point allowance -- rather like Mordheim in this regard, except that the enemy gets to shoot freely at you while you're doing this (if they have line of sight etc.) At any time you can pause to shoot back, which uses variable amounts of action points. Shooting back can use auto-aim to cycle through targets, but you can also manually aim for more precise options on targets (headshots for example). Once you've decided you're done moving your character, you end that turn, and it's the other side's turn. If you've set yourself up properly your characters can attempt opportunity fire during enemy movement.

The customization between missions isn't anywhere nearly as deep as even XCOM (the modern remake), but it pays to pay attention to your quirky characters' quirks because bigoted characters won't fight as well with not-Jews on the team, and especially nearby physically on the map, while gay characters will perform better near other gay characters. Or etc.

[sandman2575]

Has anyone else been tempted by Legends of Eisenwald for $7.49?