merry xmas (GOG/Steam direct download weekly specials)

Yes

is neo scavenger finished?

Least appetizing Steam sale ever? I miss drowning in 75%, 80%, 90% off discounts.

That's probably what the Christmas sale will be like.

Haven't bought anything this time around, though I'm kinda curious about Endless Legend. Since I've not had any interest in playing anything other than Binding of Isaac Rebirth (and Afterbirth) for the last three months, I don't really see any point in buying anything at the moment. Also, I have quite a few unopened games left from the summer sale.

I got the First ep of Life is Strange, all of Krntucky Route Zero, and v cheap Grim Fandango and Gods Will Be Watching

huh, I hadn't noticed three of them were adventures. maybe even the last is, after a fashion

afterbirth is so good

so I've been spending the weekend (a) blowing my usual ridiculous wad o' cash on way too much stuff and (b) trying to get comfortable with the Steam Controller. gonna talk mostly about the latter: it has a downright vertical learning curve since using touchpads is completely counterintuitive to thumbs trained over decades to expect analog sticks or buttons, but the more comfortable I get with it, the more I like it - ESPECIALLY the fact that it lets you rebind any input to whatever makes most sense to you. the community has already come up with bindings for a bunch of stuff, too, meaning it's FINALLY possible for me to play Sid Meier's Pirates on the goddamn couch again. plus it makes whole new genres easily playable, most specifically point-and-click adventure games and 4x/turn-based strategy games. so far, Civ V is hella fun using it (even if the text is really small) as is FTL; I also bought Pillars of Eternity [who already released official SC bindings] but I wanna get a little more comfortable with the controller before I commit to learning what I understand is an extremely complex game.

the controller is also surprisingly tactile for something that looks and feels like a cheap piece of shit at first glance: the touchpads give good haptic feedback, the squeeze-buttons on the back are a godsend (they're basically a fixed version of the Vita's stupid rear touch panel), and from reading the reviews the trigger buttons are maybe the best stock triggers on any controller this side of the legendary Xbone Elite Controller.

tl;dr: if you're willing to invest the time either to find a useable binding from the community (which isn't hard at ALL) or to put your own bindings together, the Steam Controller can make an ungodly number of formerly KB+M-only games playable from your couch. it's not as good as a "proper" controller (e.g. an Xbox/bone piece), but what it lacks in immediate ease-of-use it looks like it makes up for in potential play opportunities it creates. I have both (plus a Tuact Aimon for when I really feel like driving myself bonkers) and it seems like a really good setup.

also ever since I upgraded to W10 I discovered that all the games which used to drag ass on 8 suddenly work perfectly well; Wolfenstein, Shadows of Mordor, and even Witcher 3 run way better on my PC than they did on either of the two nextgen consoles. now I just have to wait for IDARB's long-promised Windows 10 launch and I can finally rest easy.

also also, one of the games I picked up was that Jack Box 2 deal someone mentioned over on the PS4 thread; I got the Steam version since it was cheaper , but if the Twitch & play-from-a-device features are legit we should def get an ILXor game going at some point

Steam games I bought

Broken Sword 5
Her Story
Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, because I just read the novel
Divekick, which I have on PS+ too
Ys I and II Chronicles+

I haven't played any 3D (polygonal) games lately so I'm not buying them now.

her story looks great

i probably don't need to buy divekick, do i

i think Divekick is worth $2 for the idiotic laughter it will bring you, if you're into that sort of thing
Torchlight II getting a mere 50% discount at $9.99. It came out in 2012, and has been Humble Bundled!
tempted by Her Story tho, damn this recent spate of '90s FMV nostalgia

btw thanks for the Steam Controller review james, def interested in takes

https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle-6

3D Realms Anthology with 32 games. also a few others -- crosscode looks interesting.
$5

so tempting for the +41 to my Steam account

I splurged on it; that's a solid price to legit own digital licenses to a bunch of ROMs that are fun as fuck to play with my arcade stick, but the majority of the games in the bundle are either formatted as standalone DLs or games that run in a browser window. the only Steam keys are for Metal Slug 1, 3, and X + King of Fighters '98 and 2000.

man I've been wilding out buying games from Steam et al lately; it's mostly just because I finally have a pretty solid complement of controllers to use (Xbone pad, Steam Controller, MadCatz TE 360 fightstick, and a really good Saitek HOTAS setup I got for cheap pretty much just so that I can finally play TIE Fighter and the X-series on something other than a keyboard. (Elite: Dangerous was also cheap in the Thanksgiving sale, which I chalked up as a second reason to just spend the money already dammit James. in any event I just got the stick & throttle yesterday so I am still squarely in the "how do I make this thing work with Windows 10 in the first place" stage of the relationship; I'm sure reports will follow once I figure shit out.)

I doubt that the winter sale will be quite as ruinous to my bank account, but I'm hoping for a few games to get decent price cuts - really just Dragon Quest Heroes, Hard West, Trails in the Sky SC, and the enhanced Baldur's Gates since they apparently work really well with the Steam Controller (which at this point I recommend without reservation to anyone on the fence about one; if you commit to the learning curve built into this thing, it will give you a chance to play a whole bunch of games again. plus the thing keeps getting more functional every day the more the community uses it. my biggest gripe with it is that it doesn't work with GOG's launcher yet AFAIK, which is a shame because I would love to play something like Master of Magic or Ultima 7 on my TV from my couch with this thing if they'd just support the kerfungled thing). but then again the attitude "pfft, there are only a few games I want this Steam sale anyway" is legally admissible as proof that the person who said it is both crazy and an idiot, so stay tuned for updates, I guess.

the attitude "pfft, there are only a few games I want this Steam sale anyway" is legally admissible as proof that the person who said it is both crazy and an idiot

Or (like me, sigh) that they've just bought WAY too much stuff in previous sales/bundles and so there's only a finite amount of non-shit stuff left to even want.

recent pickups I regret in no way:

Road Redemption (http://store.steampowered.com/app/300380): I've been waiting like two decades for a next-gen Road Rash and now it's finally here
Kero Blaster (http://store.steampowered.com/app/292500/): I was surprised at how much I liked Pixel's second game when I first played it on iPhone, but it's way more engrossing with actual physical buttons
Gauntlet: Slayer Edition (http://store.steampowered.com/app/258970): basically a shallower Diablo, and I mean that as a compliment; it's a fun game to just zone out and play

Oh cool, I think that's the same Gauntlet that's free on PS+ this month.

the sale is of but of course the site is exploding. so far i was able to see witcher 3 @ 50% off, mgsv @ 33% off, and a couple of other games I tried to search are on their "regular" sales which look nice (33 on life is strange 1-5 or 2-5, ootpbaseball is 50 off, i think invisible inc was 50 off)

maybe invis inc isn't on sale? boy this is confusing!

i thought porting games over to steamos would mean they'd come to mac too but alas that does not appear to be the case

same here... figures if they went through the trouble they might as well do it for Mac too

no votes or flash sales, looks like they've dropped those for a while now

lame. isn't the winter sale supposed to be the big one? i was anticipating.

Invisible Inc is 50% off, $10. ...almost there.

also, Humble Bundle Squeenix 3 is up. I'll spend a buck for Murdered: Soul Suspect, I guess, though I don't think my PC can run it

this is still a big sale, but they've been gradually reducing the strength of these sales for the last year or two. practically everything is on sale but no longer at the ruthless prices they used to be

So they really got rid of the daily deals huh. Finally got to open my wishlist and most games are 10-40% off. RIP Steam sales :(

55% off Car Mechanic sim 2015!!

ootpbaseball is also 10 bucks in the current Humble Sports sale

Super Mega Baseball is also on slaw for like $12; it is hands down my favorite sports game since that 9 Innings iPhone game from a few years back and I endorse it with every fiber of my being.

I came into some unexpected disposable income so I decided to buy another stupid huge batch of games; I'm on sabbatical from work run so for once I may actually end up playing the stuff I buy. Picked up a couple of games I'd gotten for free on PSN since they were on sale (Super Mega Baseball, Galak-Z, Axiom Verge, Super Time Force Ultra, etc), with a special eye towards games that don't have a companion Vita version. Wish Trails in the Sky SC was on sale for more that 10% off (to say nothing of Dragon Quest Heroes or Nuclear Throne, both of which are going for full price). Oh and I bought everything Platinum Games has available on Steam since they own so goddamn hard, which makes me a thirty-four God damned year old man who just spent money on a Transformers game; line forms to the left, ladies.

On sale, not slaw, obviously

Seriously though: if you like baseball and/or arcade sports games in general, PLEASE buy Super Mega Baseball

I think the steam authentication servers are getting barraged so hard this morning no one can login on the North America side.

Only partially correct; they're under barrage alright, but from punk-ass idgit haXor kiddies

http://www.techworm.net/2015/12/skidnp-fulfill-their-promise-steam-servers-down.html

cursing myself for not having claimed Steam keys for all my Humble Bundle games yet cz there's a few things in the Steam sale which I kind of want but think I may already have via HB (yes, I buy games, don't play them, and forget I have them)... except I can't log in to HB to check, because I reinstalled Windows and HB's browser verification email never arrives, and obviously nobody is going to answer support calls on Christmas Day (I hope for their sake)

so I guess it's good timing for me that there aren't any daily deals which I'm missing out on. stupid script kiddie ddos sucks tho

holy shit Steam is fucked up right now, go into Account Details and you can see another user account with all their personal details including credit cards, phone numbers etc.

ok that is terrifying

AAARgh what is happening ?! This is horrible

ok, this is insane, but glad I'm not the only person this is happening to at least.

is something happening, its' gone blank. that's good yes ?

anyone still seeing account info?

Looks like they finally pulled the plug. Don't worry fluffyhaggis02 I won't tell people about your addiction to boob visual novels.

oh shit that's me! What are the chances.

some sort of puzzle in the steam sale

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3yu53d/steam_winter_sale_arg_confirmed_opening_any_steam/

uh oh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/steamsaledetectives/

You get the feeling Valve's been prepping this one for years and has happily burrowed as deep as possible just to see what people will find.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/3yyju8/how_to_get_the_red_herring_steam_badge_holiday/

i can't get it to work though

ok got it in chrome. make sure you type SEARCH in caps and press enter

got it in Firefox, too

Last couple of hours of the sale. My haul:

Lucasarts Adventure Bundle (felt nostalgic, it's Loom, The Dig + the two Indy games)
Rock Boshers DX: Director's Cut
Goat Simulator: GoatZ (still haven't even played the base game, but what the hell it was $1 and change)
Roundabout (the FMVs and generally gameplay look suitably wacky)
Downwell (looks to scratch the same itch as Super House of Dead Ninjas)
Undertale (My concession to internet hype)

i grabbed renowned explorers - fantastic

Thanks, hadn't seen the Lucasarts bundle.

Bought a few other things earlier in the sale (Monkey Island reissues, Escape Goat 1 & 2, and some other cheapies) but just went "what the hell" and bought 4 platform games including Out There Somewhere in a 43 pence bundle. I know nothing about any of them but Steam showed me OTS in one of my daily "queues" and the description looked kind of up my platform-puzzling street so eh.