The Bargains Thread

The PSN January sale has started, because of course it has. Lots and lots of bargains.

Tempted by AC: Odyssey (even though I've still yet to finish Origins) and God of War. No idea when I'd play them around Hitman, though.

I've got enough waiting to be played :)

Cracked on God of War; £23 was just too good to pass up.

What Remains of Edith Finch (PC version) is free on the Epic Games Store for the next two weeks.

I was in B&M today to buy some Play-Doh and spotted a basket of PS4 games at by the till. Everything was £9.99, titles (the I can remember) were Prey, Elder Scrolls Online, Deus Ex: HR, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Steamworld Dig 2 and Ashes Cricket.

The current PSN Deal of the Week is Shadow of War, that sequel to Shadow of Mordor that everybody seemed to forget about within fifteen minutes of release. Was this any good? I had a lot of fun with the first game, and £20 for the definitive edition with all the DLC is a pretty tempting prospect.

I’ve heard it’s very good but takes a lot of liberties with the source material. Depends how much that bothers you.

Wasn't it chock full of microtransactions?

They took all that jazz out a while ago.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-03-middle-earth-shadow-of-war-ripping-out-microtransactions-and-loot-boxes

I’ve heard it’s very good but takes a lot of liberties with the source material. Depends how much that bothers you.

I had - no joke - completely forgotten that it's based on Lord of the Rings.

So no, it doesn't bother me.

It's a decent game, but it's much baggier than the original, and kind of outstayed its welcome. I keep meaning to go back and finish the Shadow Wars (the endgame you need to do to get the "true" ending, which consists of repeated stronghold defence/attack cycles). I was waiting for the microtransaction-removal patch, but had moved on to other stuff by the time it rolled out.

There's half off Sea of Thieves on the Xbox store, which covers both Xbone and PC versions.

You should all buy it. We can talk about putting a crew together but never actually do it!

I have a spare Xbox code for it if anyone wants it.

(I have one that came with my Xbox One as well, so I don't need the spare myself, but I haven't set my XBO up yet)

I've let my Gamepasslapse, so I'd be up for the code if it's going spare.

Once I hand my thesis in, in a few days I am going to be doing the fuck all for the next two months. Pirate shipping could very much be an option.

Pool Panic is currently on sale on the Switch eShop at 66% off - that makes it less than £4.

I genuinely think some of you should consider dropping just over the price of a cup of coffee for that one.

That looks entertaining. Does it have inappropriate adult humour in it or is it all good clean fun?

Bought it, I'll have a gander tonight!

That looks entertaining. Does it have inappropriate adult humour in it or is it all good clean fun?

It's weird and quirky. There's no text, it's all done with facial expressions and noise. Most offensive thing I can recall from it is fart jokes, and I'm thinking maybe that might be my brain making that up. But it's definitely not adult humour.

Cool, that’s getting bought then.

Maybe we need a thread for “Weird shit on the Switch no-one’s ever heard of”. There’s an astonishing amount of stuff on there and I have no idea what’s good and what’s not.

Maybe we need a thread for “Weird shit on the Switch no-one’s ever heard of”. There’s an astonishing amount of stuff on there and I have no idea what’s good and what’s not.

Done.

mart gifted Pool Panic to me/my kids. It is definitely some seriously weird shit.

Disgaea 5 Complete is also 50% off on the Switch at the moment. That’s a lot of game for your money.

Disgaea 5 Complete is also 50% off on the Switch at the moment. That’s a lot of game for your money.

I've tried to get into Disgaea so many times before. I wish it had clicked but it never has. Dunno why, I was obsessed with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Gah.

my humble bundle subscription ticked over because im dumb as hell who wants Just Cause 3 XXL edition or like… all of Metal Gear Solid 5 on PC?

They’re quite different, I can see why one would appeal but not the other.

I don’t understand why no one has re-released Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, the best SRPG ever made and only ever released on the PSP.

I was kicking myself that I’d missed the Disgea offer over Xmas - thanks.

I just restarted Tactics Ogre on my unsellable Vita.

I've bounced off every SRPG I've ever played except for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which I sunk well over 100 hours into. I've tried Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics, Jeanne d'Arc, and even the original Final Fantasy Tactics (well, the PSP version) and none of them clicked with me at all.

(Though I loved the original Advance Wars, which is mechanically similar, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for WarGroove; the perma-death aspect of Fire Emblem just frustrated me.)

They’re quite different, I can see why one would appeal but not the other.

I don’t understand why no one has re-released Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, the best SRPG ever made and only ever released on the PSP.

It's still playable on Vita, and Square are shite at supporting anything that doesn't revolve around Final Fantasy, and even then it's only certain ones.

The problem I've had with just about every SRPG is that it's all about the grind. If a fight is hard, that's because you've chosen not to grind enough. So even if you resist the boredom of grinding in favour of a tactical challenge, you soon enough get a level which you just can't finish because you haven't done enough grinding. So you go back and do some grinding and the only decision is how long do you want to be bored for and how easy do you want the game to be.

I guess that's a strategy. Kind of.

That's the precise charm of Disgaea though, it's not hard at all and it's mostly about finding the most entertaining ways to break the game. Want to over-level and steam through the game with one character? Want to use one of the ludicrously strong DLC characters on your team? Want to pass legislation to make the game ridiculously easy or stupidly hard? You can do all those things, and the various ways of chaining attacks mean you can blast through however you like. The story mode is really just the introduction, then it's a way of perfecting your strategies for essentially cheating at the game.

Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is free on uPlay for PC owners right now. A fun little 2D stealth game that's not much like the main games.

I don't even see Disgaea as much of a strategy game, at least for me the fun has always been the insane power creep and honestly, good luck with any strategy in somewhere like the Land of Carnage item world that isn't 'complete overpowered annihilation'.

I think in story at least you can still strategize, but then you will eventually need to power up like an anime character on steroids. I can see how people aren't up for that but honestly, there's not much in an RPG that's more satisfying than your maxed Monk reincarnating to level 1 and literally punching 9 level 9999 demons into the sun and seeing him get enough exp to level up 3000 times in a single punch, it's so utterly godlike.

You can get OP builds in other strategy games with flexible character progression, but even in Final Fantasy Tactics you will never be strong enough to take an entire map dropping a payload of nukes on with you not taking a scratch. I'd say cheating is the right word, as demons the main characters talk about it constantly, strategy is for nerds and angels.

As much as I lov Disgaea I've never ever gotten very far as I've always struggled with how to break it, the games tutorials don't really teach you how to "play" it properly

There's a discount on Hitman 2 - 30% off when you buy it through the in-game store, I guess?

https://twitter.com/Hitman/status/1095412894546575360

Obduction, the latest adventure game from Cyan Worlds (creators of Myst), is 12.99 on the PS Store right now. Just in case that's your sort of thing.

https://www.base.com/buy/product/tetris-effect-ps4/dgc-teteffps4.htm?awc=2694_1550657832_a645e92a5692aaa2f16038f6f4de0611

Tetris Effect down to £22 and change, if anyone fancies it.

Thimbleweed Park is currently free for PC users on the Epic Games Store. It's a fun revival of old-school point and click adventure games - it goes a bit off the rails in the final third but it's still well worth playing if you haven't done so already.

From March 7th they are giving away Slime Rancher though which is absolutely brilliant so make sure you come back and grab that one.

Sega sale on the Switch store. Valk chronicles is 7.99 and Outrun is 4.50 something.

I only just realised that as an Amazon Prime subscriber I'm entitled to download multiple free games a month from Twitch Prime by linking my accounts. This month includes Snake Pass and a bunch of others I've never heard of. Free stuff. I've undoubtedly missed loads of free stuff.

(As an aside, with this, PS+ and the regular giveaways on Epic Games I'm now getting a stupid amount of stuff automatically added to my backlog every month, not including any free-to-play games like Tetris 99 or Apex Legends. It's getting a bit silly now, and increasingly hard to justify paying full price for pretty much anything).

You've not missed a lot. I keep half an eye on it, but it's probably shit you've got clogging up your Steam account anyway. There comes a point where a man cannot own any more copies of Sub Nautica.

Hitman 2 is currently 40% off on PSN, I believe. Just in case anyone's interested.

Crackdown 2 is free on XBox One right now.

Crackdown 2 is free on XBox One right now.

I'm waiting until Microsoft offer me £10 to have it.

Slime Rancher is now free on the Epic Games Store for PC owners. I absolutely loved this game when I played it on the Xbox, definitely recommend it if you've got the chance to play it.

The Order 1886 is cheap on the PS Store – is it worth playing? I've got a feeling that I read a piece saying that despite its reputation there's something vaguely okay about it.

I enjoyed it. Paid about £15-20 second-hand about a year after it came out and felt I got my money's worth.

It's got great tech, decent gameplay, and an interesting world. The biggest problem it has, to be honest, is that there just should have been more of it.

If it had been a launch title, I think people would have gone nuts over it.

Thanks! I'll probably buy it, it was the only thing in the most recent sale that looked quick and dumb enough for me to get through.

Just picked it up.

A game getting slagged off for being short sounds right up my alley, at the moment.

It has a penis in it.