Today's Steam deals!

[theweaselking]

Max Payne 1+2 for $2.50 each, Civ IV for $7.50, Left4Dead for $7.50, and CoD5 for $25.
(CivIV Complete Edition, which includes all three expansions, is $13.60.)

If you've never played Max Payne, get it. For $2.50, it's well worth the price even for people who generally dislike shooters and will play it on Easy or with a god-mode code. If you liked 1, get 2 - it's not as good, but it's not *bad*, either.

If you've never played Left4Dead and you like shooting games *at all*, get it. It's not as good a game as L4D2, but it's still amazing fun and groundbreaking, and $7.50. It's only playable[1] if you want to get together with other people and play online, though.

CoD5 is just amazing fun. But, again, gotta love shooters.

And CivIV? Will eat your life. Will eat *months* of your life. But it's cheap!

EDIT:
[1]: You *can* play it singleplayer with 3 bots, or even with just one other person. It's just.... the bots suck, and you're missing out on a lot of the experience. And you'll *never* survive on Expert with a bot, or on Advanced with 2 or more. They're just not capable of the necessary teamwork.

Comments

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Does L4D not have a single-player mode, or is it just retardedly difficult to play solo?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Any roles not filled by a player are filled with bots, and while the bots are reasonably functional (they shoot accurately, they keep their ammo full, they upgrade their guns when they can, etc) they're also *dumb*. It's extremely hard to play alone, and generally unsatisfying. And also not NEARLY as much fun.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Do they have an option, like Counter-Strike, to join servers where you play together? Or does it basically necessitate having friends who like FPS gamse? I only have about 2 friends on steam. :/ Most of my friends aren't gamers, and the ones who *are* gamers play mostly RPGs and MMORPGs.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Indeed, you can totally play "open" games with other people looking for open games. And you can "friend" them afterward and get notified when they're online and invite them specifically in the future.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Cool. :) I'll give it some more thought, but I'll definitely consider buying it, since I've heard so many good things about it.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

To use a WoW term, a pug is a pug is a pug. Sometimes they're great, most of the time they're adequate, and sometimes they fall apart before they even get started. But you take the good with the bad, and you friend the good players for future reference. :)

Still, it's nice to have an option at least to play with others.

[fearmeforiampink]

L4D1 doesn't have the issue that L4D2 seems to have, namely that every so often, when you get jumped, the bots can't path to you and die.

But the game is built around the fact that every so often, each survivor will be jumped in a way that they cannot get out of alone. And while the bots are okay at dealing with that, they're not great. Plus, when hordes of zombies approach, the bots aren't as good at working out the best way to share out the guard duty.

Generally it's reasonably achievable to get through on easy mode, rather harder above that. And it's an okay ride, it's just so much less than doing it with people.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

On release day, the L4D2 bots often *didn't detect* Charges, Jockeys, or Spitters as enemies and wouldn't shoot them or save you from them (or avoid spitter goo!)

That's been since patched.

[fearmeforiampink]

Fair enough. My getting ignored by the bots was a fair bit later than that though. I also have the issue that it occasionally just hangs, but I think that's my computer slowly dying.

[fearmeforiampink]

ION, there seems to be a much higher rate of ragequitting in L4D2 than in L4D1. Possibly it's the longer levels.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

I should add a caveat that one shouldn't get L4D if one has issues with gore.

[fearmeforiampink]

L4D1 had some, but not huge amounts of gore. L4D2 is massively more gorey.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Damn you... i succumbed to the Civ4 package.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Psychonauts: $2