The steam christmas sale has BEGUN

[SqueakyG]

Oh wow, I so very nearly bought Lumines earlier this afternoon for £5.99!

Ha, bought it, but Steam's servers are too busy to download it.

[Uzi]

What difference does it make to the buyer if it becomes cheaper after they bought at a price they deemed worthwhile at the time?

£4

[James Lyon]

Fuckers. They shouldn't reduce things that have been in once. Good case for a refund, that.

Bah! Boycott Steam! Rip down Valve! I for one am not going to play Half-Life Episode 3 after this debacle and I've already taken down my Gabe Newell poster in protest, (and so on...)

Oh well. Lesson learned for next time: only buy the things I want on 24-hour special offer. Leave everything else to the last day.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Well, if they do the same with Trine then I'm there.

[therealjohnpeat]

Steam Bastards!!!! I only bought Torchlight late on Xmas eve and the damn thing didn't finish downloading til yesterday afternoon

Definately not buying anything else now out of protest!

You go on kicking yourself in the face if you like - but £4 is not exactly a huge amount of cash (I'm willing to bet you've lost more than £4 in the last 3 months)...

The Steam Sale always has a "I'm not buying any games" effect on me once it's finished, but to get upset because something is cheap in a sale is a bit daft really - everything gets cheaper, sooner or later.

How do you think people who bought East Indies Company at £30 felt when it was under £15 inside 4 weeks!?!? Or people who paid £30 for Borderlands which is as low as £12-odd from various places online atm!?!?

I reckon the supercheap Torchlight is only possible because most people who were ever going to get it, got it in the various sales before now (e.g. they aren't really losing anything letting it go for £3.50 for one day only).

[Unofficial Who]

And on the upside the more people who play Torchlight the sooner we'll see some fan mad mods and total conversions. Win win really.

I got my $20 out of it easily.

[therealjohnpeat]

p.s. - on the downloading speed thing, when I d'led Foerign Legion it was a bit slow, but then it's a tiny game.

Within the last hour I installed TF2 and it came in at 1.2-1.4mbps and yet Borderlands is now installing at a mere 650kbps so I think some 'servers' are busier/have more capacity then others (e.g. Valve games have priority - basically)??

[Tunisia]

Nabbed myself BF2 with 3 expansions for £3.74, not a bad steal. I already had BF2 and Special Forces, but the money's worth it for the convenience of having it on steam, let alone the extra expansions.

[Vimster]

Nabbed myself BF2 with 3 expansions for £3.74, not a bad steal. I already had BF2 and Special Forces, but the money's worth it for the convenience of having it on steam, let alone the extra expansions.

I have BF2 complete on disc and it's a right pain in the arse to install. You install each expansion, the one involves having to go to the EA website to activate. I hope the Steam version doesn't make you go through all the hoops.

[Naysonymous]

I have BF2 complete on disc and it's a right pain in the arse to install. You install each expansion, the one involves having to go to the EA website to activate. I hope the Steam version doesn't make you go through all the hoops.

One of the selling points of Steam is that you dont have to deal with any of that bullshit. It auto installs and auto patches. I havent played BF2 since it first came out, and that was on a different machine so I cant comment specifically, but I have played dozens of games on Steam down the years and never had a problem with any of them.

[fasteasyfree]

p.s. - on the downloading speed thing, when I d'led Foerign Legion it was a bit slow, but then it's a tiny game.

Within the last hour I installed TF2 and it came in at 1.2-1.4mbps and yet Borderlands is now installing at a mere 650kbps so I think some 'servers' are busier/have more capacity then others (e.g. Valve games have priority - basically)??

They just come from different servers. Steam also employs a bittorrent-esque method of having clients help out with distribution.

IMO they should provide a bonus-point scheme where if you opt-in to it, you upload the files to other Steam users when required. With each upload you get a certain amount of points, and you then get to use those points as a form of currency when purchasing games.

[RubberJohnny]

Torchlight Get!

[Jamie John]

System Requirements Labs seems to think that my laptop can run STALKER on a laptop graphic card. Will it run well though? Can't be had with all this slowdown and things with 3D PC games. Haven't bought one in years.

That Torchlight game doesn't look too demanding though.

Hmm.

[daveodeth]

4 quid for torchlight.... bargain.

[Isaac]

System Requirements Labs seems to think that my laptop can run STALKER on a laptop graphic card. Will it run well though? Can't be had with all this slowdown and things with 3D PC games. Haven't bought one in years.

That Torchlight game doesn't look too demanding though.

Hmm.

STALKER's system requirements are a filthy lie. Don't trust them.

[Jamie John]

Yeah, price's gone back up now anyway.

Bought Torchlight. Gonna do my best to play it using the laptop's touchpad.

Thanks to the OP for the heads up.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Torchlight has a special netbook mode that tones down the shinies so that it will actually run on crap PCs.

[Dimahoo]

People go on about how expensive upgrading PC's can be but some people in here doing that in the future will be very pleasently surpised.

[mr_woo]

I said on the Torchlight thread how I wasn't that fussed on it but bought it in the Steam sale anyway as it was so cheap (hell I've bought a lot worse tat for that price) That and Lumines for just over £5, not too shabby at all.

[SqueakyG]

Hmm... do you think Peggle will be in a daily sale? I'll be very angry if I pay £5.99 now and see it for less later in the week.

[Mortis]

As with every sale I'd say wait till Jan 3rd if a couple of quid of difference would enrage you that much. Otherwise spend £6 and just have fun.

[SaintM]

System Requirements Labs seems to think that my laptop can run STALKER on a laptop graphic card. Will it run well though? Can't be had with all this slowdown and things with 3D PC games. Haven't bought one in years.

That Torchlight game doesn't look too demanding though.

Hmm.

I've never been able to play STALKER at an acceptable level despite owning different PCs and GFX cards.

Fallout 3: a-ok.

Crysis: Acceptable.

STALKER: Pausing all over the shop generally running like a dog.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Stalker ran a lot better on my old PC than it does on my new one. It's just quite shoddily coded rather than having high requirements.

Apparently the new game, Call of Pripyat, finally polishes up the code.

[Masu]

Dead Space, £5.09.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Definitely grabbing that.

Word of advice, don't get Hearts of Iron 3 even if you think it's the kind of game you'd like. It's poor and also broken to fuck. Get HoI2, or Europa Universalis 3.

[Guest nikolai]

Dead Space, £5.09.

Carefull, unless they fixed it the controls are fucked in the PC version.

I think it's ok if you use a 360 pad.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/42406/De...t-Controls-Ever

[Masu]

Ah, thanks for the heads up, I have a 360 pad but my GFX card is poor, basically buyin bargs knowing ill upgrade it in a few months

The beauty of steam.. when its cheap!

[Chopsocky]

Its fine, I completed it on the PC using the mouse. Just turn Vsync off, that will kill the cursor lag.

[daveodeth]

Turn off the vsync and turn the sensitivity up alot and the game is more than playable. Menu navigation can be a cunt but it's never a problem in game, the asteroid shooty bits are a breeze to which more than makes up for trouble when you want to change options.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Zombie Driver bought. I'm limiting myself to £5 max per game unless it's something daft like MW2 for a tenner (obviously not gonna happen, that one though.)

I don't mind risking a couple of bob on something like that.