Bargain Thread 2012 Edition

Khoram · 2012-11-30T11:51:24.000Z

Having never played a Gothic game before, if you were to pick up Gothic 2 or Gothic 3 for a 2 week business trip for $4, which one would you recommend? It looks like Gothic2 has the higher rating per reviews on GoG.

Thraeg · 2012-11-30T11:56:51.000Z

Brian Rubin:

If I was interested in Dark Souls at all, should I get the PS3 version, or would the PC version be better?

I would go with the PC version. The DLC is included, it came out more recently so there’s likely to be more people still playing, and with a decent PC and the application of mods, you should be able to play with higher resolution and a more consistent framerate.

BrianRubin · 2012-11-30T11:57:59.000Z

Yeah, PC was what I was thinking too, thanks guys. However Vesper, would not a keyboard and mouse be sufficient?

Giaddon · 2012-11-30T12:02:55.000Z

It is not.

Thraeg · 2012-11-30T12:03:13.000Z

It’s definitely designed for a gamepad. My understanding is that the M+K controls were pretty janky, but have been somewhat polished up by a mod. I’ve just been sticking with the pad, though.

BrianRubin · 2012-11-30T12:13:29.000Z

Well, when I get the game on sale, it’ll be a good excuse to finally get one of those 360 pads I keep hearing about.

SamS · 2012-11-30T13:02:32.000Z

Khoram:

Having never played a Gothic game before, if you were to pick up Gothic 2 or Gothic 3 for a 2 week business trip for $4, which one would you recommend? It looks like Gothic2 has the higher rating per reviews on GoG.

Gothic 2 definitely.

Gorath · 2012-11-30T13:09:12.000Z

Khoram:

Having never played a Gothic game before, if you were to pick up Gothic 2 or Gothic 3 for a 2 week business trip for $4, which one would you recommend? It looks like Gothic2 has the higher rating per reviews on GoG.

The safest choice would probably be the first Risen for 5$ on sale somewhere. ;) Risen is basically Gothic 2 with decent controls according to today’s standards.

G2 and G3 are two fundamentally different games.
Gothic, G2 and Risen have open worlds of reasonable but still manageable size. Every m² is filled with content, much of it meaningful. There’s a lot of depth. Especially G2, which really is probably the old Gothic 2 Gold (including the superb Night of the Raven add-in), is a 70 hour content monster with very high difficulty.
Gothic and G2 are two of the best RPGs every made, but they are demanding and certainly hit or miss. Few other RPGs offer such a sense of progression, so much direkt control over your character in combat, so many memorable chacters (especially Gothic; story & setting think Escape from New York) and the freedom to be clever and be rewarded for it, for example if you transform into a friendly animal to get past a creature guarding the area behind it.
But this comes at a price: They put a learning wall in front of you. With the help of a certain FAQ you can climb it within a couple of minutes. The controls are simple, but unfortunately not intuitive at all. (G2 at least has a streamlined inventory.)

Gothic 3 on the other hand is more similar to an Elder Scrolls game than to G2. It’s easier to get into, has a gigantic world - some players think it’s the most beautiful created to this day. Of course G2’s incredible depth had to be sacrificed for this. You can spend 150 hours in Gothic 3, doing a couple of quests here and there, dealing with Orcs, Humans and these assassin types, keeping your options open for a very long time. Or you can free 3 cities / burn down 3 rebel camps quickly and commit to one side. It’s a sandbox game.
At release it was a complete debacle. A group of enthusiastic fans fixed 1000+ bugs and repaired the broken combat system as much as possible. Now it can actually be called a game. Don’t even think about trying G3 without the Community Patch.

What all Gothic / Risen games have in common is the lack of loading zones. As long as you don’t die, the game only stops to reload when you enter another continent. Otherwise there’s no interruption at all - you can play a whole weekend without seeing a loading screen.
The other thing to remember is that you can run into strong enemies at every time. 10 meters from your current location could be an Elite Orc who can kill you with one blow. Or you could be provoked into an unfair fight by some bully. In that case simply run away. You can return later to settle the matter.

Dan_Theman · 2012-11-30T13:45:27.000Z

Being an open-worlder, myself, I’d go for G3 plus the community patch. But as Gorath says, they’re games made for different styles of play so I’d go with the one that matches you.

hardcorebabbler · 2012-11-30T14:04:45.000Z

Papageno:

I wonder if my UT2K4 install DVD would still install the game under Windows 7, and whether it still runs? Is it available on Steam if not?

What was the soccer-style mode where you were trying to get a ball through a goal or something?

Deathball! I remember that mod. It was fantastic.

arrendek · 2012-11-30T14:27:47.000Z

Here’s the link for the $5 Spec ops on Amazon that just unlocked now on some gamespot show: http://bit.ly/gsbf-specops-theline

Links to this: http://www.amazon.com/Spec-Ops-The-Line-Download/dp/B0085NTITS/ I don’t know if you need to use the first url for the deal, but it doesn’t look like it.

Edit: I just realized what they did with that url. Classy, Amazon. Classy.

strummer · 2012-11-30T14:42:14.000Z

arrendek:

Links to this: http://www.amazon.com/Spec-Ops-The-Line-Download/dp/B0085NTITS/ I don’t know if you need to use the first url for the deal, but it doesn’t look like it.

Edit: I just realized what they did with that url. Classy, Amazon. Classy.

Nice. I laughed.

Telefrog · 2012-11-30T14:43:33.000Z

“B0085NTITS”

Awesome.

Brad_Grenz · 2012-11-30T15:58:49.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Well, when I get the game on sale, it’ll be a good excuse to finally get one of those 360 pads I keep hearing about.

You’ve got a PS3 controller. You can use that on PC. Plug it in with a miniUSB cable and emulate a 360 controller with MotionInJoy.

BrianRubin · 2012-11-30T15:59:50.000Z

Oh right, I totally, TOTALLY forgot about that. Derp. Thanks!

Khoram · 2012-11-30T17:40:51.000Z

Gorath:

The safest choice would probably be the first Risen for 5$ on sale somewhere. ;) Risen is basically Gothic 2 with decent controls according to today’s standards.

G2 and G3 are two fundamentally different games.
Gothic, G2 and Risen have open worlds of reasonable but still manageable size. Every m² is filled with content, much of it meaningful. There’s a lot of depth. Especially G2, which really is probably the old Gothic 2 Gold (including the superb Night of the Raven add-in), is a 70 hour content monster with very high difficulty.
Gothic and G2 are two of the best RPGs every made, but they are demanding and certainly hit or miss. Few other RPGs offer such a sense of progression, so much direkt control over your character in combat, so many memorable chacters (especially Gothic; story & setting think Escape from New York) and the freedom to be clever and be rewarded for it, for example if you transform into a friendly animal to get past a creature guarding the area behind it.
But this comes at a price: They put a learning wall in front of you. With the help of a certain FAQ you can climb it within a couple of minutes. The controls are simple, but unfortunately not intuitive at all. (G2 at least has a streamlined inventory.)

Gothic 3 on the other hand is more similar to an Elder Scrolls game than to G2. It’s easier to get into, has a gigantic world - some players think it’s the most beautiful created to this day. Of course G2’s incredible depth had to be sacrificed for this. You can spend 150 hours in Gothic 3, doing a couple of quests here and there, dealing with Orcs, Humans and these assassin types, keeping your options open for a very long time. Or you can free 3 cities / burn down 3 rebel camps quickly and commit to one side. It’s a sandbox game.
At release it was a complete debacle. A group of enthusiastic fans fixed 1000+ bugs and repaired the broken combat system as much as possible. Now it can actually be called a game. Don’t even think about trying G3 without the Community Patch.

What all Gothic / Risen games have in common is the lack of loading zones. As long as you don’t die, the game only stops to reload when you enter another continent. Otherwise there’s no interruption at all - you can play a whole weekend without seeing a loading screen.
The other thing to remember is that you can run into strong enemies at every time. 10 meters from your current location could be an Elite Orc who can kill you with one blow. Or you could be provoked into an unfair fight by some bully. In that case simply run away. You can return later to settle the matter.

wow thanks for the in-depth response. For $4 I may try both and see which one I like best :)

peterb · 2012-11-30T21:04:44.000Z

Brad Grenz:

You’ve got a PS3 controller. You can use that on PC. Plug it in with a miniUSB cable and emulate a 360 controller with MotionInJoy.

Secretly, this solution sort of works, but also sort of sucks and doesn’t work. Usually on whatever game matters to you most. Whereas the 360 controller Just Plain Works™.

peterb · 2012-11-30T21:07:15.000Z

Khoram:

wow thanks for the in-depth response. For $4 I may try both and see which one I like best :)

I think he’s underselling the difficulty of Gothic 2. The difficulty isn’t so much “it’s hard to learn how to play” but “Seven hours into the game you may (read: will) discover that the character progression style you chose makes further progress completely impossible, so you should have played with a laptop next to you with the walkthrough open so you didn’t ‘do it wrong’.”

I find that to be strongly, intensely, and deeply Not Fun™.

My not-snarky-i’m-totally-serious suggestion is to skip Gothic 1 and 2 entirely and just install the Nehrim mod (http://nehrim.de) in Oblivion, which has the good aspects of Gothic without the need-the-walkthrough-open-in-another-window nature. IMHO.

I started Gothic 3 but didn’t get far enough in to have an opinion about that one.

Scotch_Lufkin · 2012-11-30T21:20:11.000Z

peterb:

Secretly, this solution sort of works, but also sort of sucks and doesn’t work. Usually on whatever game matters to you most. Whereas the 360 controller Just Plain Works™.

This. I’ve been using my PS3 controller as a controller for years, since back when Darksiders I came out, and while it worked great for that and emulating FFXII, I have to constantly fight it in terms of keeping it configured, keeping it detected by windows, not letting it accidentally power on the PS3 in the other room, which causes everyone to freak as the 5.1 system kicks in and drowns out the TV, etc.

I’m picking up a 360 controller for my PC gaming. The PS3 controller is awesome, and it’s too bad there isn’t native Windows drivers, but enough is enough.

habibi · 2012-12-01T00:05:30.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Yeah, PC was what I was thinking too, thanks guys. However Vesper, would not a keyboard and mouse be sufficient?

I’ve not used a gamepad to play a game until Dark Souls. This game got me started in gamepad and now that I’m used to the pad, I played most games with it.