Well as I said, I don't really play the single player, so I won't comment on that. The multiplayer, however, is quite unique and requires a ton of skill to be played at it's full potential. For anyone that isn't familiar with how it works, I'll try to summarize here: There are many gametypes, but I will go over the basic mode, Wanted. In Wanted, 8 people are matched against each other, and they each choose their character. When the game starts, everyone is assigned a target player out of their 7 opponents. You hunt down your target and kill them, or die in the process, and here's what makes it tricky: the map you're playing on is populated with tons of NPCs that look like the 8 characters that were chosen for the match. So you'll see a bunch of NPCs around that look like you, and a bunch that look like your target. So you have to rely on watching for movements (running) and actions (climbing) to identify your target, or, more importantly, use the compass that they provide, which points in the direction of your target. This compass becomes less and less accurate as you approach your target, so they can easily hide among a crowd of NPCs that look like them to fool you. So, the matches become these great cat and mouse games, where you have to hunt down your target while trying to hide from your pursuer. Not only that, but you get more points for kills using stealth and trickery than you do for using brute force.
I have played the first games single player and got bored very quickly. I only made it less than 5 missions in, maybe even only 2 or 3, before I got too bored to continue. The game seemed like I would like it when I purchased it a long time ago, but the single player just didn't live up to the hype. Most likely, most of the hype was about multiplayer and since I don't care for that aspect of my games I never tried it or wanted to.
The first game only had singleplayer, and the singleplayer missions were extremely repetitive. The general storyline has always been interesting to me, and thankfully the gameplay was unique at the time so I chugged through it. These days, I highly recommend starting with AC2 and not 1. They fixed all the major issues with the first game, such as no two alike missions and tighter gameplay. Sadly, the protagonist and setting in the first game (Jerusalem, Acre and hmmm what was the third city? I forget) were more interesting than AC2's Italy to me. So really, play AC2, if you liked it, maybe try AC1 for the story and setting, if you can't stand the shitty missions just follow the series. Brotherhoods is good, Revelations is even better IMO.
Damascus? I've not played AC1 for years (and even then it was just a couple of hours before I got bored). I can't say I've really thought about playing the newer games, either. They... just don't hold much interest for me. As for the Steam sale itself? Oh, I'm so, so lucky. Why? The sale ends almost a week before I'm paid and I have basically no money in my account. This means I can't impulse buy and make mistakes. It also means I'll have to pass up the very few games I want, but then there's always the Winter sale later this year. Little disappointed that Valve haven't done any meta stuff, though. For me that was always infinitely more interesting than the sale itself, plus the vouchers from the Winter sale theoretically were a good idea (they weren't in practice as everyone drowned in -X% Off Valve coupons, which were basically useless for the majority of Steam users). It allowed some people to participate in the sale system and perhaps even benefit from it by trading coupons or free games, and I thought that was great.
That sounds right. And yeah, I think this sale's "feature" is being able to vote on some of the sales.
I'm pretty sure it is, yeah, but I do it for the sake of it, not because I actually want any of the deals. Seems a bit silly for Steam/Valve to start it in the middle of the month, though. Most people don't get paid until the end of the month, right?
There are also achievements for the sale as well. Just check the little box under the voting area for a link.
Yeah, but as far as anyone can tell all that does is give you a little shiny thing on your profile. ...yeah, I'm totally going for all of the points for the shiny thing on my profile. I mean, come on, it's shiny. In other news: One of the flash deals right now is Alice: Madness Returns. Metacritic reviews for this thing are quite favorable and very interesting.
Tropico 4 is a daily deal. $50-worth of the game and all DLC's for $16 and some change. If you like city builders and some irreverent humor, you owe it to yourself to give it a try, at least.
Yeah, Tropico is a fun series. I won't buy that one as I don't have enough time to play city builders nowadays, but if anyone has time for that, it will be a good buy.
I have Tropico 3. I couldn't work out what it wanted me to do at one point and I tried and tried and then gave up and uninstalled
I haven't played either AC1 or ACR (I have a Mac, cough cough), but I loved AC2 and Brotherhood. I enjoyed the story, and as a casual gamer, thought that the difficulty level was pitched pretty well. And as a classicist who lived for a couple of years in Rome, I really dug how they recreated the Renaissance cities- not that they didn't get stuff wrong, but there was enough right about it that parts felt right. Not something you see in video games very often.
Day 3. I'm running low on supplies. Table Tennis EM posed just a short distraction. So far, I only had to let Terraria and SR 3 in. Evidently, they are tired, their incessant pounding on my wallet has not stopped, but lessened somewhat. I fear that this is just the calm before the storm though. I will try to hold out as long as I can, but I fear that soon they will get me. This might be my last message before they get in and consume me for the next few weeks. If you find this, tell my wallet that I love it.
Wait, Tropico's a city builder? Oh, I'm so buying. I loved the Impressions series when I was a kid. Speaking of city builders, Children of the Nile is half-off atm, though it could end up being discounted more later on.
