The steam christmas sale has BEGUN

[Mr Majestyk]

As someone who's last submarine game was Silent Service on the Atari 800, how playable is Silent Hunter 3? I'm sure one of them had a ludicrous keyboard overlay. I'm more of a casual sim fan than a realistic one

[mr_woo]

Finally got through with that Eidos pack purchase, looking at a few other cheapy options.

Looking at Nation Red, Alpha Prime (only 59p!) and Ghostmaster at the minute. There will probably be plenty more by tomorrow morning

[Schnibbles]

Silent Hunter III can be casual or realistic - case in point, you can do all the difficult triangulation and analysis so that when you do finally get a firing solution and hit a merchant, it's incredibly satisfying, or you can get the game to do it all for you. You're still likely to be spending a lot of time alternately waiting for ages for a merchant to arrive and running the fuck away from British destroyers.

[Mr. Gerbik]

I'm desperately trying to make my final few slaes but Steam won't accpet my money! My Visa works fine, but Steam keeps returning an error at the checkout

[Guest]

I'm desperately trying to make my final few slaes but Steam won't accpet my money! My Visa works fine, but Steam keeps returning an error at the checkout

Try re-entering your details again - I've had this issue a couple of times.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Silent Hunter III can be casual or realistic - case in point, you can do all the difficult triangulation and analysis so that when you do finally get a firing solution and hit a merchant, it's incredibly satisfying, or you can get the game to do it all for you. You're still likely to be spending a lot of time alternately waiting for ages for a merchant to arrive and running the fuck away from British destroyers.

Yeah, I played SH3 with all the proper realism stuff - like ships taking four hours to sink, and the in-depth torpedo targeting - turned off. It was still plenty immersive and still a good deal more hardcore than most games. Just remember to turn the voices to German.

[Schnibbles]

Yeah, I played SH3 with all the proper realism stuff - like ships taking four hours to sink, and the in-depth torpedo targeting - turned off. It was still plenty immersive and still a good deal more hardcore than most games. Just remember to turn the voices to German.

Yeah, that's the way I did it too. When you first play it you're like "haha, I'm going to try and take on this destroyer with my deck gun" and then it totally destroys you in about three hits and you don't do that again.

[mr_woo]

I just realised that I now officially own Shellshock 2, the fucking shame

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Yeah, that's the way I did it too. When you first play it you're like "haha, I'm going to try and take on this destroyer with my deck gun" and then it totally destroys you in about three hits and you don't do that again.

Taking out motor torpedo boats in the Channel with the deck gun is great fun, though. Then submerging to get away from the destroyers that come after you, and then getting DIEFE UNTER KIEL IST FUNF METER and thinking 'oh fuck' because the Channel is so shallow you can't crash dive without wrecking your sub.

[Schnibbles]

And then going into free camera mode to watch the searchlights of all the destroyers panning across the sea. Then spending the next two hours in silent mode inching your way out of the deathtrap that the surrounding twenty miles of sea have become.

Of course, that's two hours at something like x256 speed.

[Schnibbles]

Man, X3 is one of those games that you'd love to have the patience to put a hundred hours into, because it's clearly awesome once you've done that - it's just that for the first fifty hours it's incredibly boring and crap.

[Mr Majestyk]

Cheers folks, may just stick to Defense Grid and Trackmania :-)

[Rudi von Starnberg]

And then going into free camera mode to watch the searchlights of all the destroyers panning across the sea. Then spending the next two hours in silent mode inching your way out of the deathtrap that the surrounding twenty miles of sea have become.

Of course, that's two hours at something like x256 speed.

It's a brilliant experience all told. Those moments when you attack a convoy in stormy seas at night make all the waiting worthwhile.

[snowbind]

Anyone recomend any other desktop defence games. I have defense grid. Anything else in a similar vein. Or rts's I have DoW, CoD, Civ, RA. I would prefer something more actiony, than civvy.

[stefcha]

Mass Effect isn't very long in the whole great scheme of things.

How long isn't very long? Even something like Batman AA seems fairly epic with the amount of time I seem to get to put into a game these days, and that was a rare unputdownable.

[giant_frying_pan]

Does anyone want/need a Killing Floor guest pass? I have one left to spare. PM me your e-mail address / Steam ID. First come, first served!

[EDIT - Pass is gone!]

[Rudi von Starnberg]

How long isn't very long? Even something like Batman AA seems fairly epic with the amount of time I seem to get to put into a game these days, and that was a rare unputdownable.

Batman is about as long as Mass Effect, unless you do every single one of the identikit random planets in Mass Effect. 15 hours would be a ballpark estimate for ME.

[champloo]

Is anyone still having trouble at the checkout? I get an error when using the debit card I normally use, and the same when I try to select paypal.

[Schnibbles]

I bought World Of Goo today and didn't have any trouble.

[Raane]

I've been bamboozled by my games.

Firstly, my mind has been equating that the amount of money is kind of indicative of the size of the game. But a £5 game can still be 15gig to download while a £7 game can be 99meg.

Also, i've got so many new games i've seeminlgy given up deciding which one to play and download and now i'm a little lost.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Just rounded things off with Metal Drift and didn't have any problems

[Vimster]

I'm about to head for bed. By the time I get home from work tomorrow all the dealz will have gone, so last chance. Let's see...

[mr_woo]

Bought FUEL, Ghostmaster, Nation Red and Alpha Prime there now. Still looking so goodness only knows what I'll spot next

FUEL was only £2.99 as well. I know it's not a popular game and didn't review well but I like it a lot and for just under £3 thought I'd give it a shot on the PC too.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Try re-entering your details again - I've had this issue a couple of times.

Done that, and also tried restarting steam and even windows but nothing helped. Tried purchasing through the Steam website but that gave the same error, that my credit card was declined. Card is definitely fine, as I rang Visa to make sure, and I just tried purchasing Planescape Torment online with same card which worked fine. Dammit, I'm going to lose out on my last-minute deals

[Super Craig]

None of my C&C games work.

[Madness]

I've spent £57 in this here sale.

[champloo]

Done that, and also tried restarting steam and even windows but nothing helped. Tried purchasing through the Steam website but that gave the same error, that my credit card was declined. Card is definitely fine, as I rang Visa to make sure, and I just tried purchasing Planescape Torment online with same card which worked fine. Dammit, I'm going to lose out on my last-minute deals

I'm having the same problem with my visa. I assumed it was a result of having spent so much on steam over the last couple of weeks, but maybe not. Paypal still won't work either. It just brings up an error instantly, without even giving me a chance to log-in to my paypal account.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Oh, for anyone who bought Morrowind in the sale, there's a good topic here that gives advice on how to mod it to get the most out of it. The screenshots of the graphics improvements that mods have made... pretty stunning really.

[Joyrex-J9]

PayPal wasn't working for me

I tried my Amex card and that too failed about 4 times, before it worked.

It seems bit broken at the moment

[Mr. Gerbik]

I'm having the same problem with my visa. I assumed it was a result of having spent so much on steam over the last couple of weeks, but maybe not. Paypal still won't work either. It just brings up an error instantly, without even giving me a chance to log-in to my paypal account.

I've read on some thread on their support forums that apparently Steam locks out credit cards of users that suddenly start buying loads of games, contrary to their usual purchasing habits, in case the account has been hijacked or the card stolen. This is of course exactly what I have done, as I've never bought a game on Steam before until these holiday sales where I suddenly bought a SHITLOAD every day. I don't know if this is true, but my card company says everything is fine and every other sites accept my card just fine, so I sent off an annoyed message to their support department, making special note of the fact that I'm now missing out on all the deals that I especially saved for the last day.