Steam and GOG sales

[Tawmis]

For the new Bards Tale (Bards Tale IV) - as I said, with how buggy it was - and killing my CPU even at all settings set to as low as they could be - the game was utterly unplayable. So after a week of struggling, I just uninstalled it and never went back to it. As I said, they've probably applied patches and updates since the Kickstarter's release version.

Aw, too bad. It sounds like it would be a good game.

It could be. As I said - they've probably patched it since the Kickstarter release to make it more stable.

As for KQ5, not that I am aware of for subtitles.

Again, too bad. I was looking forward to playing KQ5 - last time I played it was over 20 years ago. IIRC, there were subtitles then.

If they were there before, then they still might be - or it could have been a fan patch that applied subtitles. I never experimented with it.

As for MoE - what issue do you see?

I ... don't know? I tried to start a new game, and after a decent pause (30 seconds) or so) I saw a kind of 3D map of the world. Five seconds later, the picture began to blink and flicker. It freaked me out (I hate blinking things!!), so I closed it down with Task Manager.
Is that normal?

Even though you got it on Steam - seems similar to this thread:
https://www.gog.com/forum/kings_quest_s ... unplayable

With the solution here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/kings_quest_s ... able/post3

[Rath Darkblade]

As for KQ5, not that I am aware of for subtitles.

Again, too bad. I was looking forward to playing KQ5 - last time I played it was over 20 years ago. IIRC, there were subtitles then.

If they were there before, then they still might be - or it could have been a fan patch that applied subtitles. I never experimented with it.

Hmm, I looked it up. IIRC, when I played KQ5 for the first time, I was in my first or second year of university; that means 1994-95. CD-ROMs were very new then, so I think I played it on floppy disk.

I also googled KQ5, and found that it was subtitles on floppy but speech on CD-ROM. It was an either/or deal, not together. Is that right?

As for MoE - what issue do you see?

I ... don't know? I tried to start a new game, and after a decent pause (30 seconds) or so) I saw a kind of 3D map of the world. Five seconds later, the picture began to blink and flicker. It freaked me out (I hate blinking things!!), so I closed it down with Task Manager.
Is that normal?

Even though you got it on Steam - seems similar to this thread:
https://www.gog.com/forum/kings_quest_s ... unplayable

With the solution here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/kings_quest_s ... able/post3

I actually got the on GOG, but didn't know there was a solution. That makes things simpler. Thanks, Tawm! I'll give it a try.

[BBP]

Yep, it's an or/or deal with the earlier speech games: LB2, Freddy Pharkas, KQ5 and another I forgot.

[MusicallyInspired]

There are no subtitles for KQ5CD. They don't exist in the game files. Some do, but most of it was stripped right out. There is no patch currently that can re-enable it. Later Sierra CD games had a toggle to have either speech or text and there have been fanmade patches to allow for both at the same time for those games, but KQ5CD doesn't have text at all.

[Rath Darkblade]

Oh? I tried to find a fan-made patch, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Any idea where they might be, MI? *crosses fingers*

[MusicallyInspired]

Actually, the only fan patch I know of that enables both at once is NewRisingSun's patch for SQ4CD. I don't know if there exists any for any other games. I know that ScummVM automatically allows both speech and text for pretty much every voiced Sierra game (again, not KQ5CD. There IS NO patch for KQ5).

[Rath Darkblade]

Steam is having a sale from now until 8 July (US time). If you were looking to buy a game from them, now's probably the time to maybe consider it.

(Now you know why I'm not a salesman)

As for me, I was considering these games:

Age of Empires III (Definitive Edition

Civ 7, Frontier Pass (a fairly big reduction, though I might just go with one or two of the civs I'd like and leave the others)
Reduced from $60 to $37.16

LA Noire (I very much like the film noir element, though I hope this game works -- apparently it includes 3rd-party DRM, which I'm not keen on at all)

Blacksad: Under the Skin (apparently another noir game - looks good, but apparently the gameplay is clunky and difficult to operate? Not sure).

Does anyone know about these games? What do you think?

[JasefWisener]

I've only played AOE, but it's a great strategy game.

[MusicallyInspired]

I recently went through the new challenges added to AOE3 Definitive Edition to unlock the new United States civ you can play. There are 50 challenges (for the 50 states) and you can only do 3 per day so you need a bit of time before it expires (which is sometime in early July I think). Otherwise you have to buy it. But it was a fun little challenge to unlock as a bonus.

To clarify, AOE3 has a feature where once you get to Age 3 you can either proceed to Age 4 (Imperial Age) or Revolt against your home country and become an independent nation. Depending on which civ you start with you can be a bunch of different revolt colonies and one of them is the United States (if you play as English or French for instance). But this new United States civ has more features and is entirely different. I wonder if you can Revolt from the United States though...hmm lol. Never tried it.

[Rath Darkblade]

What if you're one of the Confederate states, MI? *G*

Yes, I played AOE3 and I've seen the "Revolution" option. It's possible to revolt from Spain and become one of the South American countries, for instance.

What kind of features does the new United States have, by the way? I'm curious.

I recently re-tried AOE 1 again, after over 20 years of not having played it. It's very challenging, much more so than the later AOE games -- but it's a good game. *sigh* It's only too bad there are no Steam mods for it.

[MusicallyInspired]

I haven't really played as them yet. But here's the specs from the Age of Empires Wiki:

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/United_States

[Rath Darkblade]

So, GOG is having a sale again, and I had my eye on these two:

https://www.gog.com/game/chicken_police
https://www.gog.com/game/psychonauts

I like Chicken Police because first, I like noir-based games. The unusual art and good music is also a big drawcard.

As for Psychonauts, I've heard good things about it. It's made by Double Fine Games and produced by Tim Schafer, and I definitely liked their work on "Grim Fandango". (I think they also have some of the same voice artists, too).

Have you played these? What did you think?

[Tawmis]

So, GOG is having a sale again, and I had my eye on these two:

https://www.gog.com/game/chicken_police
https://www.gog.com/game/psychonauts

I like Chicken Police because first, I like noir-based games. The unusual art and good music is also a big drawcard.

As for Psychonauts, I've heard good things about it. It's made by Double Fine Games and produced by Tim Schafer, and I definitely liked their work on "Grim Fandango". (I think they also have some of the same voice artists, too).

Have you played these? What did you think?

Never heard of Chicken Police, but like you, heard good things about Psychonauts, but have never (to my memory) played it.

[Collector]

Syberia and Syberia2 free at Steam



https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2021microidssale

[notbobsmith]

So, GOG is having a sale again, and I had my eye on these two:

https://www.gog.com/game/chicken_police
https://www.gog.com/game/psychonauts

I like Chicken Police because first, I like noir-based games. The unusual art and good music is also a big drawcard.

As for Psychonauts, I've heard good things about it. It's made by Double Fine Games and produced by Tim Schafer, and I definitely liked their work on "Grim Fandango". (I think they also have some of the same voice artists, too).

Have you played these? What did you think?

If you like noir, you might enjoy Blacksad. The tone is definitely not tongue-in-cheek like Chicken Police. In fact, it earned its "M" for language and violence, but I enjoyed it. The music is also very good.

Never heard of Chicken Police, but like you, heard good things about Psychonauts, but have never (to my memory) played it.

I really enjoyed Psychonauts, though I haven't played it in a long time. Fun to play. Clever writing. I remember the difficulty going up quite a bit at the end. The problem may have been using keyboard-mouse controls and just getting overwhelmed. I have a controller now.