Posts Tagged ‘deals’

Games you missed: The Witcher

August 3rd, 2010 •
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The Witcher is a PC RPG. It was developed in Eastern Europe. Those two traits taken together have a pronounced stigma. Games developed in this part of the world (particularly PC games) are thought to be buggy, unfinished, or broken despite some inevitable interesting ideas. Spoken dialog will, most likely, be awkward and poorly done. Crashes are expected. The Witcher is often lumped with other games and scoffed at by most gamers. There are always players willing to put up with the problems of any game to find the deeply buried redeeming qualities. Developers of these types of games have their own band of cheerleaders willing to overlook or downplay almost any faults. Therefore, it’s easy for the average gamer to write off the praise The Witcher has garnered as the same sort of sentiment some players feel for other seriously flawed games. The Witcher needs none of that. The Witcher is a gem of a game combining the polish of big-budget US developed RPGs (I’m looking at you, BioWare.) while presenting a slightly darker, more mature story than those counterparts.

Geralt is a witcher, a phenomenon described best by someone else (I don’t recall who.) as a dark medieval version of a Jedi. He has the strength of many mortal men and commands magical powers. Geralt is a very nuanced character and much of that nuance is up to the player with a refreshing lack of contrivance like the prescribed morality of recent games like inFAMOUS, and, to a lesser extent, Mass Effect 2. What I mean is this: those games give you choices, but the game already knows which choice is the good choice and which is the bad choice. This allows the game to shape outcomes of events based on whether you are basically good or basically evil. It makes sense in the context of a game. The Witcher, however, emulates the Dragon Age approach giving you multiple choices, each with consequences, none being clearly “good” or “evil.” In fact, the word “emulates” is a terrible choice here as the game pre-dates BioWare’s epic by more than two years.

Just as I claim this game doesn’t have the caveats of those other wacky PC games, I must say the game does have its own caveats although they are few and minor. The edition you will be buying if you should buy today is the enhanced edition which includes additional animation and corrected translations. This edition fixed some problems people had with the dialog in the original version. In its current incarnation, the dialog is not up to the standard of something like Uncharted 2, but it is more than serviceable. The voice actor playing the part of Geralt is excellent and has an appropriate soft-spoken gravelly quality befitting to his appearance. The biggest problem I have had with the game is the opening sequence. It is something of a tutorial in a confined area which is a very poor representation of the game which lies ahead. After an hour or two of being stuck in this small area, having your hand held everywhere you go leading you from one quest into another, the game sets you free into a much larger play area. The entire world is not open a la the Bethesda games, but describing the area as “open” is not inaccurate. You will receive both story quests and side-quests which you may complete at your leisure while within that area. Later, the game will move you into another large area. The game has proceeded like that through the first three chapters and appears to be continuing along that path. I am currently about to move on and have been told by an NPC that I should finish anything I want in this area before moving on as I may be unable to return.

Having played Dragon Age, the game is quite refreshing. It doesn’t need to maintain a strict battle/story rhythm. It’s content to let me spend half an hour talking with town bigwigs trying to feel my way through the political climate of the area. The story is excellent making this approach very successful. When combat does occur, it feels gimmicky early. The physical attacks are based on a rhythm. If you initiate each attack in the sequence with proper timing, you will continue the combo allowing you to perform the bigger hits later in the combo. Later, you’ll start picking up new “signs” (the game’s spells) and recipes to make the battles a bit more interesting. For the most part, combat is quick and doesn’t get in the way of the real meat of the game.

I have logged 30 hours in the game right now and have no plans of slowing down. The game is paced perfectly for a working person like myself. I can sit down with the game for 30 minutes to an hour a couple of nights a week and have an intensely satisfying experience in which I have advanced my character and some sub-plots by doing a couple of side missions in addition to advancing the main story of the game slightly. The pacing complements that nicely.

What can I write about The Witcher which hasn’t been written, and why would I write it now? This is simply stale, right? That might be true if not for a fantastic sale at GamersGate where the game is on offer for $6.78! This is no sponsored post nor am I earning any sort of commission. I picked the game back up a couple of months back after two false starts where I quit before finishing the tutorial and thought this the perfect opportunity to pass this gem on to you, dear reader. If you buy the game and enjoy it, please keep your eyes peeled because information has been trickling out about The Witcher 2 since the big reveal at E3. The developer has coded their own engine rather than repurposing an old BioWare engine as they did for the first game. Even though the repurposing worked remarkably well, this should allow them to edge closer to their vision.

Video: Automated online bargain hunting

March 20th, 2009 •
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Grab the savingsOnline shopping has opened up for many of us a shopping world that was totally alien before it. Online retailers are competing with every other store you can think of which makes the competition fierce. They also sell large quantities of items which opens up room for deep discounts never before imagine by B&M retailers. Computers and the Internet also make it easier to shop. Here is a technique that automates the entire bargain hunting process. If you want something and a have a few weeks to wait, use this procedure, and there’s a good chance you’ll find a deal you never thought possible.

First, you’ll need a Gmail account. If you already have one, you’ll probably need an additional one. Second, you will need a Yahoo account for use with Yahoo Alerts.

Use the procedure described in the video, sit back, and watch the deals roll in!

 

Here are some great feeds to subscribe to in order to get the most out of this system:

That should get you started. If you find other feeds I may have missed, please post them in the comments. Thanks for watching. I’ll have a new episode on April 3rd.

Download the podcast

Recession relief: Getting geek on the cheap

February 23rd, 2009 •
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As an Internet user, you should know you never have to pay retail for almost any gadget you might want. Internet retailers can sell much cheaper and they discount much more aggressively than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Here are some of my favorite sites for getting great deals on geek sustenance—games and gadgets.

Games

Cheap Ass GamerCheapassgamer.com- Maybe you want to save $5 or $10 on a game that’s launching soon. Maybe you want to find a heavy discount on a game that’s been out for a few months. Maybe you want the details on an upcoming game clearance at a retail chain. Cheapy D and the forum folks at CAG will hunt down the craziest deals and provide you with all the details. This site has been around for a while, and I don’t think they ever really miss. If there’s a deal, check out these forums and you will find it.

Cheap College GamersCheapCollegeGamers- Another forum for gaming deals. I only discovered this one recently. My favorite thing about it: the RSS feed is updated more frequently than that of Cheapassgamer and hits more of the deals where CAG only includes maybe one stellar deal per week. This feed has multiple deals every day. A great candidate for your Google Reader.

half.comHalf.com- eBay bought this site a few years ago. Almost yearly, eBay announces the site will be shut down, but the users just aren’t having it. So, the site survives. It is a marketplace for games, movies, books, and music. It’s sorta like eBay, but everything is Buy-it-now. All the auction foreplay is dispensed with. One really nice feature is the pre-order feature (now called Match My Price). Go to an item page, click Match My Price, and enter your desired price. When a seller lists an item, they will see they can sell it immediately for your requested price. If they choose to do so, it’s over. The item is yours and they are paid. You can set expiration for your pre-order for as little as two weeks, and you will receive e-mail updates to remind you that the pre-order is active. You can also manually cancel it at any time.

Gadgets and Gear

woot!Woot- I’ve covered this one before, but this article cannot pass without mentioning it. Woot will give you one daily deal on a product. Most products are geek-friendly although there is the occasional golf club or espresso machine.

slickdealsSlickdeals.net- The site has deals on all types of items, but much of what is posted is tech related. The RSS feed is great, but I find the deals are sometimes expired by the time they hit my reader. I guess if you really want to be thorough, you will have to keep the site open and spam refresh.

hardforum[H]ard|Forum- These are the forums of an excellent computer hardware site HardOCP. Check out the Hot Deals and the For Sale/Trade forums for nice prices on computer hardware and gadgets. You may find some gaming stuff here too. I actually came away with a 3DO console for practically nothing.

I know there are many more sites I may have missed. That’s where you come in! Post in the comments your favorite deals sites or even techniques for getting great prices on your geek gear. You may see an episode of the podcast in the coming weeks with some advanced online shopping techniques that will completely automate the process of finding deals online! Subscribe to the site feed or the podcast (iTunes) to stay informed.

Titan Quest digital download only $3.99

February 6th, 2009 •
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Titan Quest

Many gamers had nearly forgotten about the Diablo series until the recent hype over the third installment in the series. However, in the heyday of the first two games, there were quite a few knock-offs and imitators. Of course, they had varying levels of success. One of the more successful series was Titan Quest. For today and this weekend, a non-Steam digital game download service has the game marked down from $15 to $4. I played the game myself when it was released, and it really is a lot of fun… if you’re willing to depart from the gothic setting of the Diablo franchise. Certainly well worth the pocket change.

Titan Quest only $3.99 on Impulse This Weekend (via Co-Optimus)

Mind-boggling deal on Creative Vado HD camcorder ($130 @ Amazon)

February 3rd, 2009 •
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Vado HDIf you’re familiar with the Flip line of camcorders, the Vado is Creative’s answer to the Flip. The Vado HD bests Flip’s Mino HD in a couple of key areas. It has an HDMI output and comes with an HDMI cable for easy connection to an HDTV; the Mino HD does not have HDMI. It also doubles the storage of the Mino HD from 4GB to 8GB giving you two hours at 720p resolution. I bought one of these camcorders just before Christmas, and I have been really impressed with it. It takes fantastic video for the price.

Chris Pirillo wrote a roundup of the three hottest cameras in this space: the Mino HD, the Kodak Zi6, and the Vado HD. He favored the Vado over the others.

This week’s upcoming episode of raddevon video was shot with the camcorder. That will be released on Friday, but, until then, there are video samples available elsewhere.

Amazon.com is now offering the camcorder for $130!  Use this link and enter the $100-off coupon code MY88J7DV when checking out.

If you aren’t wooting, our relationship is over

January 31st, 2009 •
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woot
Image by sensesmaybenumbed via Flickr

wootI’ve enjoyed these last couple of weeks. I really have. We really have a lot in common. I assume we have at least a little in common too; otherwise, why would you be here? But, there’s a problem: you’ll never understand my daily pilgrimage to the various woot sites to find today’s insane deal. You can’t understand because you just aren’t wooting yourself! You won’t know what it means to wake up and see the lights on the page meaning two things:

  1. It’s a woot-off.
  2. You’re not going to get anything accomplished today.

I feel your pain. I once was an innocent babe with no concept of what woot was. Luckily, there is something you can do to salvage our relationship. Check out woot.com, sellout.woot, wine.woot, and shirt.woot today to see what the deals are. You may not see anything you like so keep checking throughout the upcoming week. If you’re a geek (and you must be) you are bound to find something within a week’s time that you absolutely must have and is 30% cheaper than any other online retailer.

If you can’t learn and come to understand my relationship with woot, I’m afraid we will have to cut this whole thing off right here. That’s right, you’re going to need to find another blog. I just can’t think of another way out of this!

Actually, you’re welcome to stick around, woot-fan or not, but you should really check it out. I can’t think of anyone I’ve told about it who didn’t immediately become addicted. Enjoy!

Weekend PC gaming deals 1/31/09

January 31st, 2009 •
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Photo by TW Collins on flickr

Photo by TW Collins of flickr

This weekend has brought with it a couple of cool deals on PC games. The first is GoGamer.com‘s 48-hour Madness Sale that brings a buttload of first-person shooter deals. My pick is Unreal Tournament 3 for $9.90, but there are a number of other great titles like F.E.A.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and P.A.I.N.K.I.L.L.E.R. Hmm. Maybe that last one isn’t an acronym after all…

The next deal comes to us via Steam. This weekend, the Rockstar library is 30%. If you haven’t tried GTA IV, this is your chance to get it for $35. It’s also a great opportunity to go back a few years and get both of the Max Payne games (which are fantastic) for $10.50.

Nice deal on a Garmin StreetPilot c510 GPS

January 27th, 2009 •
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Garmin GPS on Woot todayI was tipped off by a friend that sellout.woot has an awesome deal on this Garmin StreetPilot c510 GPS with 2009 maps. The GPS is $69.99 with woot-customary $5 shipping. It does not natively have text-to-speech capability, but Engadget has a hack to add the feature.

In case you don’t know about woot.com, this deal is for today only and only until it’s sold out. Get in quick if you want one. This one is refurbished, but even refurbs are going for $100 elsewhere online.

Jets’n'Guns Gold promo pricing

January 23rd, 2009 •
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Jets'n'Guns GoldToday’s MacUpdate Promo deal is the critically acclaimed shooter Jets’n'Guns Gold. The game is normally $30, but today it can be yours for $10! Mac gamers and shooter fans rejoice. If you happen to be both a Mac user and a shooter fan, you are probably already in some kind of shock coma due to rapture.

iPhone games: Rolondo price drop

January 21st, 2009 • 2 comments
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Rolondo

Easily $6 worth of cute

Take note iPhone gamers: ngmoco’s spectacular iPhone platformer Rolondo has been reduced from $9.99 to $5.99. It was well worth the $10 price and is certainly worth it at $6. Enjoy!

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