Free PC game and free weekend notification thread

Oh, I remember. I was there!

Today on Epic:

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

The Bridge

Coming March 21:

Call of the Wild: The Angler

Invincible Presents: Atom Eve

hmmm, the bridge is a repeat…

Today on GOG

Book of Demons

Epic’s freebie for this week is Islets.

armor games has come so far since they started on Kongregate…

Content Warning, a new game (as of about 13 hours ago) from Landfall , is free on Steam for roughly 11 more hours. It seems to be Lethal Company with social media influencers – but it’s free, so it’s got that going for it.

Epic’s freebies for this week:

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition

Thief

Outer Worlds is a heck of a game. I played it on Game Pass so it’s a definite grab for me.

I liked it a lot, too. At the time, I said it was nearly as good as a Fallout game, but as I look back, it was not. But it was certainly a great attempt. I know they are working on a sequel; I hope it is more like the New Vegas game they actually made.

I love Outer Worlds, but it showed a lot of signs of being… streamlined? Overpolished? They, IMHO ended up cutting out a lot of more open world content to release a complete game that felt like it had been much more ambitious than what they finally decided on.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t feel unfinished, but a lot of elements, feel like more was intended, although that may just be the world/universe building of a game they feel is/was destined for many sequels.

Question though, did they EVER fix the massive issues with the Spacer’s choice edition? I have the game and the DLC on steam, but the higher level cap and better visuals (I have a better rig and video card than the last time I played) are tempting, but other than a few updates and patches after the Spacer’s Choice edition screwed the pooch (which Obsidian ended up apologizing for even if it wasn’t their work) I haven’t seen much - it felt like the upgrade team felt “meh, good enough” and are done with it.

Which might be a sign of WHY it’s in the free bin for now.

Outer Worlds was free for a day during the holidays giveaway in December.

And this is the far more recent Thief that’s nowhere near as good as the originals, right? I used to be a huge Thief fan (hence my username), and ISTR the new one was dull as dishwater.

What’s wrong with the Spacer’s Choice edition? I’ve been playing it for a few weeks, just started some Byzantium side missions, no problems yet. Haven’t started either DLC though.

When launched, the joke about it borrowed from the title: It’s not the best choice, it’s Spacer’s choice.

Implying that Spacer’s Choice Corporate materials (well everything) wasn’t any good. Which was true in game, and very meta.

It’s a remaster where they improved some features slightly, raised the level cap, all to the good - but on release it ran like absolute garbage. To compare, Cyberpunk 2077 on release was, in the words of Top Gear, “ambitious, but rubbish.”

Spacer’s Choice was more like “Mild hopes, but far from achieving even that!”. So modest increase in visual fidelity with fucktons of bugs and crippling the systems it ran on despite said modest increase.

Is a good summary from the early days of the release. Basically, the party doing the port and upgrade may or may not have just botched it, certainly over-priced it, and almost everyone felt that it was a half done effort out of greed. The only good thing about it was IF you already owned the game and dlc, you could previously get an “upgrade” to the SCE for only $10 on steam for example.

So yeah, 2K developed a metric ton of hate for the condition, Obsidian stepped in and APOLOGIZED to the fans for it, and apparently was helping 2k get it into a more workable version.

It does look like the new version. I had no idea that they ruined the original to make this. That should actually be a crime. The original was brilliant (especially for its time).

I read the review, the only problem they describe that I’ve seen is the weird color effects. And I’ve been writing them off as a design choice referring to the old pulps that they were clearly using as an inspiration for the design. No stuttering, combat was fine, everything else seems OK.

Quoting the representative article above:

While the graphics in the console version of Spacer’s Choice are a significant step up in terms of effects, the framerate is absolutely dreadful on PS5. There are two graphical options — quality mode targets 4K and 30FPS, and performance mode (I almost put that one in quotes) targets 1800p-ish resolution and 60FPS. Neither are particularly successful, but the performance mode has quite possibly the worst framerate I have encountered recently. It’s a stuttering mess that only reaches 60FPS while talking to characters in dialogue, and while the quality mode isn’t as ghastly as the performance mode, it certainly isn’t what anyone would classify as consistent.

IE, it isn’t capable of performing to the degree it claims it should in a version specifically built for the hardware in question. Something that was somewhat improved in later updates. Similar issues were reported for the PC version as well. Really I don’t think it’s worth anyone’s time to go and spent the hours it would take reading the Steam reviews (for the PC version again) of how badly it did, or the apologies by Obsidian, for a -free- game. We have an OuterWorlds thread that should have touched on it anyway. :slight_smile:

Starting April 11, Fallout 76 will be free for Prime members.

I assume that means the game itself, but not the optional subscription.

Is it subscription based? I thought it was free.

As a casual Fallout 76 player (about 2 months ago it was on sale for under ten bucks and I picked it up then), it is free-ish for ongoing play.

There is a pay-to-be-substantially less CRAPPY option, to the tune of $15 per month (discount for a year) that lets you play it a lot more like a classic fallout game: semi-private servers so you don’t have other people camping your looting spots, griefing you, or other issues, and unlimited storage, as well a metric ton of monthly ‘atoms’ currency which include quite a lot of things that while not absolutely pay to win, do give you substantial advantages.

Without Fallout 1st, you can play, and have fun, but you will absolutely be made to feel like a second-class citizen.

ETA - if anyone is really curious about a detailed hot-take on the game in question, let me know and I’ll do a dedicated thread, don’t want to head towards a hijack like I nearly did with OuterWorlds.