This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.

Who can argue with 93% off nearly $110 worth of games?

https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/fight-shoot-survive-bundle

Shooters. Guess the freebies weren't working for them.

Anyway, I wasn't aware of their "bundles," so now we all are. Someone's
gonna be happy about this.

They're doing a very good job of leaving breadcrumbs to bring people in.
Free, then cheap as dirt, and then maybe you start buying from them. I
respect their marketing team.

--
Zag

West of House
There is a small mailbox here.

>read leaflet
"WELCOME TO USENET!

USENET is a game of adventure, danger,
and low cunning. In it you will
explore some of the most amazing
territory ever seen by mortals. No
computer should be without it!"

On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.
>Who can argue with 93% off nearly $110 worth of games?

>https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/fight-shoot-survive-bundle
>Shooters. Guess the freebies weren't working for them.

>Anyway, I wasn't aware of their "bundles," so now we all are. Someone's
>gonna be happy about this.

>They're doing a very good job of leaving breadcrumbs to bring people in.
>Free, then cheap as dirt, and then maybe you start buying from them. I
>respect their marketing team.

A bit too Indie for me, that bundle (well, with the exception of "Dead
Island", but that wasn't very good either and, anyway, I already own
it). Well, maybe BPM looks a bit interesting...

Still, I get what you're saying. I've used Fanatical (nee BundleStars)
to really bulk up my video-game library over the years, and I've
gotten some really good deals from them. Nonetheless, their recent
offerings aren't a hair on what they used to sell, when you could get
a dozen triple-A published games for $10 USD or less. Nowadays,
there's just too much jank in their bundles for me to buy 'em anymore.

Usually.

I'll still occasionally splurge, though. Gotta build up the XMas
Give-Away list some how. ;-)

On 6/16/2023 4:52 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 Zaghadka wrote:
>> https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/fight-shoot-survive-bundle
>> Shooters. Guess the freebies weren't working for them.
>
>> They're doing a very good job of leaving breadcrumbs to bring people in.
>> Free, then cheap as dirt, and then maybe you start buying from them. I
>> respect their marketing team.
>
> A bit too Indie for me, that bundle (well, with the exception of "Dead
> Island", but that wasn't very good either and, anyway, I already own
> it). Well, maybe BPM looks a bit interesting...

I think Fanatical comes up with decent deals once in a while, I bought
all 3 STALKER games for $7 or so a few months ago. Tried playing Clear
Sky last week but it didn't engage me the way I'd hoped, the first one
is clearly the best of the bunch.

The rest of my library there consists of eBooks, mostly technical stuff
about Linux and Kali. Same with humble, I only ever buy book bundles
from them since I'm mostly a console player nowadays.

--
I STAND WITH TRUMP

...spending the rest of his fucking life in prison.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>They're doing a very good job of leaving breadcrumbs to bring people in.
>Free, then cheap as dirt, and then maybe you start buying from them. I
>respect their marketing team.

They did a bundle like this one before, but with RPGs instead.
Something like 92 or 93 percent off of a bunch of games. It was an
incredible deal which I took.

They do have very good deals once in awhile on individual games too. I
purchased one of the Titan Quest expansion packs on Fanatical for
something like $3.74 when it was selling for the full $20 on Steam,
Humble Bundle and Green Man Gaming.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.
>
Here's another Fanatical bundle.
https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/diamond-collection-build-your-own-bundle

Personally, I think it's a bit more exciting, even if the savings
aren't quite as massive (3 games for $15 USD, 5 for $23 USD) and you
don't get the full selection but have to pick-n-choose

Select from:
The Surge 2 / Dishonored 2 / Call of Cthulhu / Fallout 4 /
Dungeons 3 Complete / Vampyr / Dice Legacy / Encased /
Road 96 / Encased / Elderand / Roadwarden / Shotgun King /
Soundfall / Dungeons of Sundaria / GardenPaws / Sucker for Love /

Honestly, I think the first three alone are probably worth the price,
and you can probably find one or two others in the list that fit your
tastes (I'm somewhat tempted by Road 96, Dice Legacy and Encased)

On 6/19/2023 3:29 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.
>>
> Here's another Fanatical bundle.
> Select from:
> The Surge 2 / Dishonored 2 / Call of Cthulhu / Fallout 4 /
> Dungeons 3 Complete / Vampyr / Dice Legacy / Encased /
> Road 96 / Encased / Elderand / Roadwarden / Shotgun King /
> Soundfall / Dungeons of Sundaria / GardenPaws / Sucker for Love /
>
> Honestly, I think the first three alone are probably worth the price,
> and you can probably find one or two others in the list that fit your
> tastes (I'm somewhat tempted by Road 96, Dice Legacy and Encased)

Check you Epic game library, I have it there so it must have been given
away at some point. I know that because the only game I've ever
purchased from the EGS was Disco Elysium - I had a coupon and it was
also on sale, which brought the price down to $10 or so.

If you like Dishonored the second one is better in every way imaginable,
I enjoyed it very much. Death of the Outsider, on the other hand, was
just more of the same.

Vampyr was clunky as heck, although the setting and atmosphere were
mint. Fallout 4 is garbage, then again I don't like Bethesda games for
some reason. Starfield might change that, we'll see :)

The Surge 2 might appeal to Souls fans but I'm not one of them. Tried
playing the first one recently (it was 'free' with PS+) but found the
world and setting boring as heck and the combat frustrating.

IMHO, YMMV and all that :/

--
And the Lord said unto John 'Come forth and receive Eternal Life' but
John came fifth and got a toaster.

On 6/19/2023 4:54 PM, Metal Guru wrote:
> On 6/19/2023 3:29 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.
>>>
>> Here's another Fanatical bundle.
>> Select from:
>>      The Surge 2 / Dishonored 2 / Call of Cthulhu / Fallout 4 /
>>      Dungeons 3 Complete / Vampyr / Dice Legacy / Encased /
>>      Road 96 / Encased / Elderand / Roadwarden / Shotgun King /
>>      Soundfall / Dungeons of Sundaria /  GardenPaws / Sucker for Love /
>>
>> Honestly, I think the first three alone are probably worth the price,
>> and you can probably find one or two others in the list that fit your
>> tastes (I'm somewhat tempted by Road 96, Dice Legacy and Encased)
>
> Check you Epic game library, I have it there so it must have been given
> away at some point.

Sorry, I was talking about Encased in case that wasn't clear.

On Mon, 19 Jun 2023 16:54:29 -0400, Metal Guru <MetalGuru@IsItYou.com>
wrote:

>On 6/19/2023 3:29 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:34:49 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This is cheap enough to be of interest for the group, I think.
>>>
>> Here's another Fanatical bundle.
>> Select from:
>> The Surge 2 / Dishonored 2 / Call of Cthulhu / Fallout 4 /
>> Dungeons 3 Complete / Vampyr / Dice Legacy / Encased /
>> Road 96 / Encased / Elderand / Roadwarden / Shotgun King /
>> Soundfall / Dungeons of Sundaria / GardenPaws / Sucker for Love /
>>
>> Honestly, I think the first three alone are probably worth the price,
>> and you can probably find one or two others in the list that fit your
>> tastes (I'm somewhat tempted by Road 96, Dice Legacy and Encased)
>
>Check you Epic game library, I have it there so it must have been given
>away at some point. I know that because the only game I've ever
>purchased from the EGS was Disco Elysium - I had a coupon and it was
>also on sale, which brought the price down to $10 or so.

Indeed, some of the games were released for free on Epic
(in my library: Dungeons 3, Vampyr, and Encased). The Fanatical games
are for the Steam versions, which may be preferable.

>If you like Dishonored the second one is better in every way imaginable,
>I enjoyed it very much. Death of the Outsider, on the other hand, was
>just more of the same.

Arkane Studio games - of which Dishonored is one - are the sort of
games I can 'appreciate' more than enjoy. Be it "Arx Fatalis",
"Dishonorer", "Prey" or "Deathloop", neither the gameplay, narrative
nor settings have ever really engaged me. They're well made games
all... just not to me.

>Vampyr was clunky as heck, although the setting and atmosphere were
>mint. Fallout 4 is garbage, then again I don't like Bethesda games for
>some reason. Starfield might change that, we'll see :)

"Vampyr" wasn't well received, and deservedly so. It's just too
shallow a game, despite pretensions of being a deeper RPG, and it's
mechanics are - as you say - quite clunky. I wouldn't go so far as to
call "Fallout 4" 'garbage', but it was definitely a step in the wrong
direction, adding to many unnecessary features and weakening the
franchise's stronger aspects.

("Starfield" isn't looking much better)

>The Surge 2 might appeal to Souls fans but I'm not one of them. Tried
>playing the first one recently (it was 'free' with PS+) but found the
>world and setting boring as heck and the combat frustrating.

I liked "The Surge", but it definitely plays off of the Souls
franchise. "The Surge 2", unfortunately, felt a necessity to add in a
huge open world for no purpose except because it's the 'in' thing, and
it weakened the pacing and narrative.

On 6/21/2023 11:06 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Indeed, some of the games were released for free on Epic
> (in my library: Dungeons 3, Vampyr, and Encased). The Fanatical games
> are for the Steam versions, which may be preferable.

Thought I'd claimed every Epic game ever offered but apparently I've
missed out on a couple, only have Vampyr on PS+ and no D3 anywhere :(

> Arkane Studio games - of which Dishonored is one - are the sort of
> games I can 'appreciate' more than enjoy. Be it "Arx Fatalis",
> "Dishonorer", "Prey" or "Deathloop", neither the gameplay, narrative
> nor settings have ever really engaged me. They're well made games
> all... just not to me.

I like their games well enough, the writing is always decent and
gameplay mechanics are fun to engage in. Arx Fatalis was amazing at the
time, but it should have been named Ultima Underworld 3 instead :) Dark
Messiah and the Dishonored's were also solid but Prey is my absolute
favorite of the bunch, despite the fact that it took me a few tries
before I finally warmed up to it. Deathloop and Redfall will have to
wait until they're free or $10 tops somewhere, which shouldn't take too
long by the look of things.

> "Vampyr" wasn't well received, and deservedly so. It's just too
> shallow a game, despite pretensions of being a deeper RPG, and it's
> mechanics are - as you say - quite clunky. I wouldn't go so far as to
> call "Fallout 4" 'garbage', but it was definitely a step in the wrong
> direction, adding to many unnecessary features and weakening the
> franchise's stronger aspects.
>
> ("Starfield" isn't looking much better)

We'll just have to agree to disagree on Fallout 4, it's the game that
made me realize Bethesda games just aren't for me. I'd much rather play
a Piranha Bytes title instead, by far, despite their clunkiness and
jank. I'm cautiously optimistic about Starfield after watching their
latest event, though - at least it's not yet another dragon / magic /
troll / fantasy fest that I loathe so much. In fact there are so many
new intriguing titles coming to PC/Xbox Game Pass on day one that I'm
seriously considering getting a Series X instead of a Steam Deck this
summer :D

> I liked "The Surge", but it definitely plays off of the Souls
> franchise. "The Surge 2", unfortunately, felt a necessity to add in a
> huge open world for no purpose except because it's the 'in' thing, and
> it weakened the pacing and narrative.

Souls games are just too demanding for me, played a bit of Bloodborne
and Sekiro but I don't have what it takes to 'git gud' anymore :( Tried
'The Lies of P' demo recently out of (morbid?) curiosity but had to give
up on the very first boss. Elden Ring might be doable but a big open
world doesn't attract me the way it used to anymore.

--
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.