Pricewatch!

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Wow on GOG!

OK, Freespace 1+2, and Sacrifice are new for me.
Should I get them?

Sacrifice is a very interesting game, and I would say that it is well worth the price GOG asks. It is a form of strategy/tactics game, where you play as an on the field commander/soldier/mage, and you build up an army of creatures, steal the souls from the enemy creatures in order to bolster your own army (souls is the currency in the game, and each creature costs a set amount of souls, once it dies, its souls can be harvested again). The game is very different from any other game, which should be reason enough to try it out. On top of all that, the game actually manages to be quite funny from time to time.

Yeah, I think, out of that list, Sacrifice is the best bet. TY!

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm thinking of getting Stonekeep and Shogo. I've heard a lot of good things about Shogo, but I'm a little more hesitant about Stonekeep.

Do you think Stonekeep is playable for someone who got into RPGs pretty far after it came out?

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
Do you think Stonekeep is playable for someone who got into RPGs pretty far after it came out?

I can't say because I've never played it, but the reviews I've seen are very mixed. Some people claim it was a good crpg for its time, while others say it was mediocre, with graphics and gameplay that were dated even by 1995 standards.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I can't say because I've never played it, but the reviews I've seen are very mixed. Some people claim it was a good crpg for its time, while others say it was mediocre, with graphics and gameplay that were dated even by 1995 standards.

A popular let's play guy on youtube did an entire playthrough (kikoskia). I'll probably watch some of that.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
Do have a decent joystick? If so, then I would definitely recommend Freespace 2. I'd personally say that it's probably the best space-sim ever created. One word of warning if you don't have a joystick: I've heard that it's not very intuitive to play without a joystick (though I can't verify because I haven't tried it myself), but it's a great game if you do have one.

Wasn't Freespace from the same people that made Wing Commander? If so, I played all the Wing Commanders with keyboard+mouse and didn't miss a joystick at all.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Wasn't Freespace from the same people that made Wing Commander? If so, I played all the Wing Commanders with keyboard+mouse and didn't miss a joystick at all.

No, the games were made by different people. Freespace is kind of a part of the descent series, but not really. The games have very little in common, other than being made by some of the same people and having the Descent name (in the US, here in Europe it was known as Conflict Freespace).

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
Do have a decent joystick? If so, then I would definitely recommend Freespace 2. I'd personally say that it's probably the best space-sim ever created. One word of warning if you don't have a joystick: I've heard that it's not very intuitive to play without a joystick (though I can't verify because I haven't tried it myself), but it's a great game if you do have one.

Ack. I got them too. They could have mentioned this joystick thingy.

Elemental: War of Magic is at Amazon for $28. I'm wondering if its fixed/playable yet.

If you like programming, look out for the special issue of the German magazine called "c't" : This special issue has the simple title of "c't kompakt : Programmierung".

The DVD comes with many programming environments,
but my personal favourite of them of the successor of "RealBasic", now called "RealStudio", and it comes on the Disc for Windows, MacOS and for Linux.

It's in fact the "Personal Edition 2010 r1", whatever this means.

But I assume that even for this programming environment lone, the 8,90 Euros are a good deal, imho.

It's this, and you can order it from the online store, too : http://www.heise-shop.de/heise-zeits…_14814391.html

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
Do you think Stonekeep is playable for someone who got into RPGs pretty far after it came out?

I don't think so. The only good thing that I could say about Stonekeep is that it was pretty atmospheric back in the day. It had decent graphics, sound and music for the time and it somehow generally managed to evoke a nice claustrophobic dungeon crawler atmosphere.

Other than that it was pretty terrible. The main reason there was a lot of hype about the game and the reason it turned into a massive love/hate affair was the combat system. To swing the sword in Stonekeep you had to simulate that movement with your mouse on the mouse-pad. Back then this was extremely innovative and it was kind of worth checking out the game for how this new system worked but if you want to spare yourself the pain of finding out how "well" it "worked" or was received then just think for a moment about how many games are offering the same kind of combat system today. Right. None.

My personal opinion is that the combat system was beyond retarded and except the atmosphere, as previously mentioned, I definitely don't have any good memories of Stonekeep. I remember giving up on the game when it became way too repetitive. All you did was walk down one long, empty corridor after another with doors to the sides. Then you opened a door, killed the two or three skeletons in the room and moved down the corridor to the next door. Rinse. Repeat. Ad nauseum. It sucked.

Well, I remember these corridors, too, but on the other hand there also were tiny "communities" there - that of the Dwarves, and that of the evil Throgs and their smaller counterparts, the Shargas - of which ione particular Sharga wanted to travel with the hero ! - as far as I can remember.

There were a few easter eggs in the game as well - like a mighty dagger in the beginning (hidden behind a few bricks) and a giant Sharga.

And yes, it's essentially nothing but a massive "dungeon crawl".

The spell casting system was something I haven't found in any game so far - Arx is the game that comes closest to what I have in my memory.

My personal favourite of the game is, however, the novel "thera Awakening", which tells the story of the Goddess names Thera who awakes hundreds or thousands of years before the game takes place. It marks the very first and tiny step of her and her Champion (the character you play i the game) finally succeeding.

As a kind of easter egg, only understandable to those who have read the book, there are a few bones and remains which can be found in the deepest part of the fortress ? called Stonekeep - just one or two levels before you face the end boss himself : These remains are the remains of Thera's very last High Priestess and her lover, who had battled her way to defeat the end boss - but were defeated by him (or nother adversary) only shortly before they could succeed.

The protagonast of the book, Rathe, is the son of her, and he is the very last person to be on Thera's trail, so to say, because *all* temples of her had been destroyed - and those of all other gods as well.

In the book, however, he manages - with some help - to restore the very first of her temples again.

The book itself is really nothing very good. It's a nice story, and not really worth the money - but I'm totally in love with it. There are a few books I've read in my live which went straight to my heart, so to say, and this is one of them. Because it is book filled with the theme of healing - in one way or another.

What is hinted at is a different thing . The world of Stomnekeep is basically a kind of "Fallout setting". The COMPLETE civilizations have been bombed back thousands of years into the beginnings of civilizations. The world is devastated by huge magic, and the last remains of the former civilizations live in deep fortresses.
And in a few villages, if I understand it correctly.

In the boo,, for example, there is a "woodcutter season" (as I cal it), where woodcutters go out and fetch wood. They trade with Throg villages and with villages of "wild men", so to say.

Needless to say that almost everything on the surface is composed of woods and of the free spaces between the villages.

And during the winters they live in the fortress, with the help of the Dwarves who usually love deep underground, farming mushrooms. A dwarf who likes to see the sun and likes travelling on the (dangerous) surface is a real rarity there.

Apart from "Thera Awakening" there is another novel out there, it's "The Oeath Of Stonekep" of hich I know absolutely nothing.

And then there are somewhere on the inernet the remains of a second game called "Godmaker", because the evil sun god is gone, then.

I loved Stonekeep for the type of game that it was, a big dungeon romp (with a story!). However, it is an rpg that has probably aged the worst. Even with my standards, the graphics make the game hard to enjoy now (though they were good at the time). Perhaps it is because we all have a bigger monitors these days.

In other news, Steam has a weekend deal for Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga (50% off, $19.99), which from what I gather is Divinity 2 plus expansion. Marketing claims are that it is over 100 hours worth of gameplay. Anyone got any opinions of it from an average rpg perspective?

Well, before my graphics card exploded I had a chance to play it, and I found divinity 2 to be a really good game overall. It had a huge world, there were a lot of quest, and the combat was fun & satisfying, plus there were segments where you would turn into a dragon (which appealed to me quite a bit, it did the dragon flight sequences better than Drakan: Order of the Flame at least). The game can be a bit slow at times though, but it was not a bad deal, even at full price. At $20, I would really recommend it.

big THQ sale on direct2drive. notables are gameoftheyear (ie all dlc) edition for borderlands for 11.95 and bioshock 2 for 7.95

Originally Posted by wiretripped
Ack. I got them too. They could have mentioned this joystick thingy.

Well, technically it's not a requirement so I suppose they're not obligated to do so, but it would be nice if they provided a warning! Oh well, I'm sure that it's probably still fun with the mouse+keyboard, it just seems to have been designed primarily with a joystick in mind.

Originally Posted by Scrav
In other news, Steam has a weekend deal for Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga (50% off, $19.99), which from what I gather is Divinity 2 plus expansion. Marketing claims are that it is over 100 hours worth of gameplay. Anyone got any opinions of it from an average rpg perspective?

We have dozens of threads with opinions about it. Good game, just very mainstream. Slightly similar to The Witcher IMHO, just with less Gothic and a more open world.
The add-on alone is worth the 20 bucks.

http://www.buygamesnotsocks.com/
5 indie games for $5. No CRPGs, but at least delve deeper (which I spent yesterday evening playing) is well worth that price alone.

I bought Delve Deeper when it was released. It's an amazing turn based strategy game with fantasy concepts. It's quite a different game, but it does work well and is quite addictive. It does have a risk vs reward mechanic as well. Get too greedy and you can lose it all.

For any strategy or castle sim enthusiasts out there, the entire Stronghold collection is a whopping 75% off on GamersGate, only today.
Couldn't resist at a mere €5 price tag…