toxicitizen

Yeah, I'm also waiting for the steam sale. I know what I'll be getting my target but it would be silly to pay its current full price.

But you got me instead, it seems! Big thanks to W&S for getting me Mark of the Ninja and Containment: The Zombie Puzzler!

Yeah, I didn't go guns blazing a single time in the entire campaign. I mean, I did do it for fun a few times after screwing up but I'd always reload to a previous checkpoint afterwards.

I'm tempted to get this as well, if only to finally have the entire trilogy on a single platform.

Even better: write "Hitman" on a piece of paper which you then wrap around the rock, then on christmas morning you throw it through his bedroom window. Also, a few things worth pointing out. If you're only going to be sending him the game on christmas, then don't buy it right away as you could potentially save a few bucks once the Steam holiday sale starts. But if you do buy it early, then make sure to make your inventory private, otherwise it's going to be sitting there in plain view.

You can just gift him the game through Steam. Not the same as giving him a physical copy but it's less boring than handing him a giftcard.

Sleeping Dogs. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's standard open-world fare with a melee combat system straight out of Arkham City. The Hong Kong setting added a nice bit of flavor to differentiate it from other games in the genre and the story is actually quite good. It's a bit lacking in the side-missions department, though. Not as barren as L.A. Noire but nowhere near as much stuff to do as in something like GTA.

Yeah, an ugly cover is usually no more than just that. I don't think it really implies anything about the game itself. Seems like jumping to conclusions a bit.

Yeah, exactly. The original Bioshock might have a similar cover superficially, but the Big Daddy was a completely original character and is iconic as fuck. They could've just as easily used Songbird for the cover of Infinite, or even this guy and it would've been much better. But as it stands, it actually kinda feels like they made a conscious effort to have shitty box art when they had plenty of better alternatives without straying too far from the norm.

All five packs. I've always been tempted to get them because of nostalgia but have felt that at 3$ a piece/7,50$ per pack, it kind of added up pretty fast. Well, the entire thing is currently on sale for 5$ over on Amazon.com downloads. There's even a Steam DRM option.

Agreed. That's my current desktop wallpaper.

Man, I'm not one to be usually too bothered by crappy box art, but that is one ugly-ass cover. I guess they're trying to make Booker more iconic/give him more personality than Jack?

Oh man, I love the Dustforce soundtrack so much. I haven't played the game as much as I would've liked because I am absolutely terrible at it but I've been listening to the soundtrack a lot.

Perhaps it was motion sickness of some kind? At first I thought maybe you meant it was awkward switching between guns and plasmids but you mentioned 360 and I thought that wasn't so bad on the dualshock 3. But then you mentioned the aiming and movement. I remember back when I was playing Killzone 2, one afternoon I was playing and started getting a headache and just... it's hard to describe. It felt kind of claustrophobic, I guess. At the time I thought I was just tired and shrugged it off. But now I realize it was motion sickness and the claustrophobic feeling was probably due to the narrow FOV, which would be fine for a TV across the room but my PS3 is hooked up to my computer monitor so I was sitting less than three feet away. I had no idea what was going on at the time because I'd never experienced motion sickness while playing a game before. Haven't had it again since, either.

I disagree that Max Payne 3 was mediocre. But yeah, the soundtrack was perfect for it. The game might not have had the same kind of atmosphere as the previous two but it pulled off the new one quite well and the soundtrack was a big part of that. Also, nice pick with Dishonored. Made me realize I never really noticed the soundtrack while I was playing the game. I should probably give it a proper listen. In the meantime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ILqWcd214

The London Philharmonic Orchestra recently released the follow-up to their Greatest Video Game Music album, very originally titled Greatest Video Game Music 2. I've been listening to it a lot this past week and remembered we had a games music thread. So I dug it up and turns out it was strictly about 2011 games, so I decided it's time to make a new one! I think I liked the selection of the first album more than I did this one, but there are still a few standout pieces on it. This one was already great to begin with but the orchestral version is much better than I expected. The human voice really adds something the original didn't quite have. Not the most original choice but still a classic. This one is just amazing. And last but not least, motherfucking Chrono Trigger Those are my personal favorites. A few of the choices are kind of underwhelming, I think. Still Alive was kind of unnecessary. Also, they did the Arkham City main theme and while it's a great theme, it was already orchestrated so... it sounds pretty much the same. That being said, the Diablo III Overture also sounds identical but for some reason I didn't mind that one. Other than that, the tracks they picked from Mass Effect and Halo aren't as good as the ones they had on the first album. Here's the entire playlist if anyone wants to give it a listen: So, what were your favorite game soundtracks of 2012?

Steam profile Steam wishlist Country: Canada Steam is my platform of choice. I have pretty wide-ranging tastes, so anything from big AAA FPS and RPGs to weird indie stuff, really. Some of my all-time favorites include the Deus Ex and Thief series, so I'm obviously a big fan of stealth games. Not too sure what else to add. I use my wishlist as kind of a shopping list/reminder so there's a bunch of stuff to choose from on it. Pretty much anything I see that I want but am not going to buy immediately goes on it. It's also mostly sorted by order of preference, so there. I've already done most of the work for you.

Which platform did you play them on? I don't remember either game having weird controls.

Ended up getting it but initially I figured it would be cheaper to just wait for the christmas sale and get the Full Package edition with all the DLC. Metro 2033 is awesome. It's a bit rough around the edges and will make your computer cry but the atmosphere is incredible. Definitely one of my favorite new IP this gen. One of the main reasons I really don't want THQ to go out of business is that I want the sequel to actually come out.

Humble THQ Bundle. At first I thought I'd skip it since the only game I don't already have is Saints Row and I was already planning on getting the Full Package edition in the christmas sale and it would probably be cheaper than buying the DLC separately. But I figured what the hell, I like THQ. They publish great games and I don't want them to go under. So I might as well show some support and pay a bit more. Even paid 10 bucks for the bundle, all of it to THQ. Pretty sure that's the most I've spent on one of these.

Yeah, the research boost provided by labs is really useful on harder difficulties but you really don't need it on normal. You might need to build workshops if you're low on engineers, though. So keep an eye on that. Sucks to save up for something only to find out you can't build it because you're 3 engineers short.

Holy shit! There were rumors when steam registry entries were found a few weeks ago, but now the Humble THQ Bundle is live. That's fucking insane. Pay what you want for all three Company of Heroes games, Red Faction Armageddon, Metro 2033, Darksiders and, if you beat the average, Saints Row The Third. I already own them all except for Saints Row so I think I'll skip this one. But if for some reason you still haven't played Darksiders or Metro 2033, then this is an amazing one.

If you're playing on normal,labs and workshops aren't really necessary. Focus on getting all the squad upgrades as fast as you can, and try to get satellites above every territory asap. Also, you can take your sweet ass time to build story-related facilities so don't feel rushed when the game stamps a big PRIORITY warning on stuff. Other than that, just enjoy the game and take your time exploring the tech three and learning everything. Then once you're done you can move up to Ironman mode and that's where the fun really begins.

Hitman: Absolution It's not the perfect Hitman game many were hoping it would be and it's certainly no Blood Money, but it's still a damn good game. All the pre-release internet/reddit butthurt over the series being ruined was a bunch of bullshit whining, imho. While I love the idea of a more story-driven Hitman game, it's undeniable that some parts of the campaign are weaker as a direct result of that design decison. A small portion of the campaign really feels more like a standard stealth-action game than a Hitman game. I'd say about a third of it but the campaign is actually pretty long so it didn't seem like that much of an issue to me. It took me a little over 20 hours to beat but I did a lot of restarting whenever I screwed up to get better ratings, so I'd say 15 hours would be a good average for most people. Overall, the improvement-to-sacrifice ratio is pretty even. It disappoints in some key areas but it's absolutely fantastic in just as many. Unless you're one of those gamers who seems to have more fun finding reasons to hate things rather than just trying to enjoy them for what they are, I'd say give it a shot. Especially if you're a Hitman fan.