CD Projekt RED Wants You To Spend The Weekend With Geralt of Riva…

TW_Free_WeekendGot a Steam account? Good. A decent to killer gaming PC? Even better. Now, all you need is time and a lot of coffee or something else to keep you away through Sunday, as CD Projekt RED is letting you play both The Witcher Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition for FREE until then. Yikes.

That’s a LOT of ground to cover, even if you’ve already played both games and know what to do, where to go and which dialog choices to make (as the game changes based on your decisions. If that’s not enough time for you, BOTH titles are on sale for 80% off ($1.99 and $3.99 respectively) until February 18, 2014, meaning you can keep playing as much as you want after that freebie ends and not pay much money for two great adventures.

Of course, it IS Valentine’s Day, so if you have that special someone who’s not a gamer in your life, and you want to tackle these games this weekend, you’d better spill the beans now or else it’ll ONLY be Geralt getting some action. Of course, this is one of those well written mature fantasy experiences that may draw in someone who thinks games are still for kids, so who knows. Just be gentle with whatever you do. We wouldn’t want to see you all cranky and weird come Monday morning…

GOG.com Shows EA How Free-To-Play SHOULD Work With Dungeon Keeper…

DK_valentineOkay, so it’s probably being done with EA’s approval partly to appease fans of the original and new players ticked off at the recently released mobile/tablet remake that’s been seen by some as a wallet draining arrow to the heart, but hey, gog.com is doing it up right.

You can boogie on over to gog.com NOW and get the original Dungeon Keeper Gold (which contains the Deeper Dungeons expansion pack) for FREE this weekend. In addition, you can grab Dungeon Keeper 2 for a paltry 1.49 (!), making this quite a sweet deal on Valentine’s Day. Amusingly enough, I snapped up this as soon as I saw it earlier this morning and got the following message:

BIG SUCCESS MY MINION! You’ll get your game soon! Minion, due to high demand, we will tell you when your free copy of Dungeon Keeper is ready via email in a little bit.

So, yeah… like the remake that has you wait HOURS if you choose not to pay your way into the game, it seems that it’ll take a bit of time before I can see the fruits of my clicky labors. Still, at least I’m getting an entire game and expansion for nothing here and not a grumpy face because some pay wall popped up and wants my credit card number. I guess this also shows that the classics never die (which is always a great thing) Thanks, gog.com!

Oh, there’s also a VERY nice sale happening, but you’ll see when you hit that front page…

Gog.com Makes Time Travel REAL With Their Latest Sale!

 
A-ha, I KNEW IT! Of course, it wold be gog.com that discovered how to make time travel work, as they’re the KINGS of bringing us Good Old Games from the era before all this nasty DRM. Anyway, they’re doing you PC gamers a favor deluxe with their latest promotion, a DRM-Free Time Machine Sale that lets YOU choose how long a game stays up for sale (eek!) as the day creeps onward by adding or subtracting one second from each sale’s time limit. I’d actually prefer a straight up sale page over a gimmick like this, but it’s actually interesting because sod old farts like me will want certain games up longer than others so more of you kids can try them out. Anyway, go poke around on that page and check out a deal or five, I say. With classic PC games from 1983 and up going for as little as 59 cents, you may find yourself hanging out a bit longer than you thought.

This Week’s Humble Weekly Sale: Roguelikes Like Rogues Like Me…

Gyaaah. Here I am, JUST writing about a fine and dandy new(ish) RPG I’m in love with (see previous post) and what happens? The folks at Humble Bundle read my mind and come up with an EVIL PLAN to take more money from me, grrr. And for a six buck minimum, I’m going to let them. As my backlog is so stupidly massive, I’ve only played a few demos of some of these and wanted to pick them up when I had the time (and yes, when there was an appropriate sale or something). Well, I guess the time is ripe for me to go ba-na-nas on this deal and add MORE games to the digital warehouse of stuff I need to get to as I free up time. Wah! Anyway, six games and five complete soundtracks all for the taking.

Oh well. Such is the life I lead. Click. Buy. BOUGHT. *Sob*, oh, my poor backlog…

Paper Sorcerer Now Available On Steam: And With A Hook, You’re IN The Book!

PaperSorcerorAnd the people have spoken! Paper Sorcerer is now on Steam! Yes, it’s still five bucks and yes, it’s been tweaked up a bit since my review. You can play using your keyboard and mouse or if you like configure a USB controller (a wired Xbox 360 one is recommended) if you’re more used to that means of playing games. Finally, new to the Steam version are 39 Achievements, which means I’ll need to play this version at some point just to see what they are.

Yeah it’s a short post, but hey – it’s FREEZING in here today and as noted earlier, my poor brain isn’t working as well as it needs to. Brrrr. I need to get the heck home soon and curl up with a good book, methinks…

Bundle Stars’ New Math Gets You Too Much For Too Little (Again!)…

BS_kingdoms bundle banner

These charity game bundles are driving me nuts, but it’s all good. Paying a mere three dollars for all these games is a super steal (if bought individually elsewhere you’d pay $65) , but as always the drawback is finding time to PLAY them. My own newly adjusted backlog of completing all the games I’ve paid so little for from Steam, gog.com, Desura, Indie Gala, Humble Indie Bundle and yes, Bundle Stars is currently hovering somewhere around 2015, but that doesn’t include other games, movies and important stuff like breathing, so methinks I’ll need to re-crunch those numbers at some point soon.

 
Anyway, the latest BS deal (The Kingdoms Bundle) is no BS at all, offering you 95% off of six games with four of those six being deep historical and military simulations and the other pair a fantasy action/RPG hybrid and a streamlined yet complex space strategy game. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I’ll admit. But for those with the time and patience or those who want to try something different, these come recommended.

The Indie Gala January Bundle Gets Deadly… And You’ll Get A Premonition When You Buy It…

Indie_Gala_JanuaryHa! ANY chance to write more about one of my favorite games is a good thing, so here you go. Over at the Indie Gala site, their January bundle just got even more interesting, going from a must buy pack to “If you DON’T buy this bundle, you’re nuts!” deal. $5.19 got you seven games up until today when Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut was added to the deal and three more Steam games are coming soon. Nice.

The Steam version of DPTDC adds a ton of bonus content, Steam-specific achievements and (Xbox 360) controller support (sure you CAN play with a mouse and keyboard, but this is ONLY recommended if you already do so and are GREAT at it). As for the game proper, it’s a surprising throwback that won’t win any awards for visuals, but has a story that’s quite interesting on a few emotional layers. In addition, the game is a homage to all sorts of cool stuff and packs in movie trivia like a boss (just drive around and listen to the banter for some fun knowledge dropping). Sure, it won’t look amazing at all on that 50″ or three screen monitor setup and the game isn’t going to task your overclocked gaming rig at all. But good, quirky games like this don’t need fancy system defying visuals to be awesome, I say.

That, and the rest of the games in the bundle are all pretty unique in their own right. You’ll see soon enough. Now go spend a few spare bucks (part of it will be going to charity, so it’s okay!) and have a great(er) weekend!

Review: Paper Sorcerer

PaperSorcerorPlatform: PC/MAC

Developer: Ultra Runaway Games

Publisher: Ultra Runaway Games

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: N/A

Official Site

Score: A- (90%)

Five bucks used to not buy so much as far as games went until the indie scene exploded and small developers started churning out way too many games either as free labors of love or inexpensive alternatives to big dollar major label releases. Paper Sorcerer is one of those cool budget-priced games that comes recommended because you’re getting a lot of game for that fiver and fans of classic computer RPG adventures as well as anyone looking for something a wee bit familiar yet a wee bit different will probably find plenty to love here. The striking black and white art style may be the bigger draw than the intriguing story to a few of you out there, but there are some nice plot twists and the ending is a total hoot. A few kinks in the armor keep this one from perfection, but with some player input the game is going through a few updates now that it’s been voted into the Steam Greenlight program… Continue reading

Atlus Joins The Humble Weekly Sale Action – Knock Yourself Out For A Few Bucks….

While it would have been nice to see an ALL Atlus bundle, the three games here plus the Tripwire Interactive titles aren’t bad at all and for six bucks (which unlocks everything including the soundtracks), you’re getting a really nice deal in this Humble Weekly Sale. Of course, if you’re like me, this tempting set of titles only means your backlog of games you’ll need to play only grows like a beanstalk up to a giant castle full of MORE games (and a golden egg laying goose, perhaps?). And hey, as you can see above, Rock of Ages is insane and hilarious enough to pay six bucks for on its own. Both Zeno Clash games are a hoot as well. Anyway, you know what to do, correct?

Gog.com Makes The World A Temporary Fallout FREE Zone (With An Expected Paradox)…

Which is, amusingly enough, radiation exposure will actually go way UP across the globe thanks to all the new and old people spending too many hours playing Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics once they download them all for FREE as part of gog.com’s fantastic DRM-FREE Winter Sale. Yeah, get this deal NOW and don’t delay, as in less than 48 hours all three titles will be disappearing from the site forever as their rights belong to another huge games publisher who wants more control over distribution of those titles.

Yeah, it’s one more “best deal of the month!” for you, but make sure to check out the other goodies on the sale page (over 600 games means over 600 sales!), as you can walk away with a ton of great games for insanely low prices. OK, get crackin’ and remember, if it’s too busy to download the games today (because a chunk of the planet is crashing gog.com’s servers), as long as you have the games in your gog.com account before the sale ends, you can download them afterwards. I got three hours of sleep and woke up to this news, so perhaps I’m still asleep or something. But I think not…