The Steam Thread - Page 33

Empire's a great game. If you like naval power, Shogun 2's Fall of the Samurai allows for naval bombardment during land battles if ships are in range.

Is Withcher 1 any good? I picked it up for $2.50 and figured if I like it then I can wait till the next sale and probably get Witcher 2 for $5-$10.

I've always been a fan of history and historical film/games/documentary and also strategy games so it falls right into my kind. I bought the game when it was released for my dad (he's also a big strategy game fan) and never got to borrow it from him

I picked up The Witcher 1 a long time ago and only played it for ~6 hours. It was fun but didn't get hooked and played other games in-between so I stopped playing it. Didn't touch it for roughly 1 year. My dad loved it and replayed it 3 times I think. I know I'll love the game once I kick myself into playing it and concentrate on one game at the time and not 10

If you haven't bought Bastion yet, for $3.74 it's a must-have.

Agreed.

Was hoping for X3 TC to go on sale again. Oh, well.

PIcked up a bunch of games to play anyways!

Doesn't The Witcher 2 have gamepad support, considering the Enhanced edition was made with the 360 in mind?

I just got Lost Planet: Colonies edition on sale since it is sadly one of the few cross platform games to play with 360 and PC, and that my 360 is fried.

Yes, you can use a 360 controller for Witcher 2. I am currently using my Wireless 360 Controller. This game is without a doubt the Best looking game I have ever played. The game is Awesome too.

I was tempted by W2 and Saints Row but i know they will be there even cheaper at the next sale, plenty of games until then :cool:I also need to upgrade my CPU.

BWAHAHHAHAAHAAHHAHAHA pc in the living room hahahhahhahaaa....

Heh...had just played with my laptop hooked up to my 100" screen yesterday to play some games. Love it.

I don't have to "pretend otherwise" at all. I actually prefer the Windows environment to any form of over simplifed down grade of any OS interface. Even Xbox 360. *shudders* You're entitled to your opinion, James and I respect it but don't play it off like everyone else is in some form of denial because PC users don't/won't use some special interface on their HTPC's.

Yeah my G73JW handles home theater gaming just fine - hook it up to projector/receiver via HDMI, use a USB mouse and USB keyboard if needed. USB xbox 360 controller if possible. Very nice!

Yup. I was using the same laptop.

Wireless keyboard, USB extender for the gaming mouse and a Bluetooth PS3 gaming pad allows me to comfortably play nearly any PC title in existence from my comfy couch on my beautiful 60" 3DTV. I'll never go back to mini-monitors again.

Yeah dude we are all pretending. I guess since you ripped your PC out of your living room because Windows/Steam at 10 feet sucks balls, and a keyboard and mouse is unacceptable in the living room, and gaming on a PC in your living room is a vile experience we will no longer see you commenting in the HTPC gaming forums or in your own thread for that matter. Cool



I have a Shuttle HTPC hooked up to a 60" plasma with Ascend speakers all around and an SVS sub-woofer. Contrary to darklordjames' comments, gaming on it is a thing of beauty. I could give a crap less about Steam not supporting a gamepad. Most of the games I play I specifically use the mouse and keyboard. This is the main reason I have an HTPC, because I prefer the mouse and keyboard with the types of games I play. And yes, I have a PS3 and an XBOX 360.

So in summary, my experience is total opposite of darklordjames. Steam and Windows on my HTPC works/looks great, and PC gaming in the living room is a blast. And no, I am not pretending.

I use this http://shop.lenovo.com/us/itemdetails/57Y6678/460/4C2830F486C64CF7A8A1E619AB6729AA to control windows, and a wireless 360 controller for games.

Xerox lost tons of money with that line of thought.

We are the defensive ones? You already proclaimed your unsatisfaction with HTPC gaming, yet you continue to post on this topic - in the HTPC gaming forum and tell us how wrong we are and how right you and rest of the world are. Go on ahead and post in the much more populated parts of the forum from now on. We will stay in our ghost town. And we lost an argument 7 years ago, yet here we are still gaming on our home theaters with our windows based machines, and there continues to be a market for this niche which itself continues to grow. Of course Valve and Microsoft will continue to make this better. Just because they are trying to improve it doesn't mean it doesn't work. You want your HTPC for the masses then get an Xbox or a PS3. Most people can't afford a powerful PC, a big 1080P display and set of nice speakers/sub/av receiver. So for that HTPC gaming will probably always be in the minority.

darklordjames you keep coming on here like your word is gospel with comments like "HTPC gaming works poorly", "the desktop metaphor is an extremely poor fit for the living room", "Windows/Steam at 10 feet suck balls, and a mouse and keyboard is unacceptable in the living room no matter how much people around here try to pretend otherwise". Just because you don't like it , it isn't good for anyone and they are just "pretending". And you do this in the HTPC gaming forum! And then you boohoo about how everyone is getting defensive when 'the five guys in the AVS PC Gaming forum that actually have a PC hooked up to the TV' disagree with your condescending statements. Sheesh

And WTF are you talking about a dashboard? What is your argument? You want things to have a dashboard or not? Are you arguing that, or the mouse and keyboard interface, or both? When you say desktop are you strictly talking about mouse and keyboard interface? Are you using all of these things to mean the same thing?

I see now that you are starting to use Apple as an example. Why don't you just go buy yourself one of those nice Apple computers and use it as your gaming HTPC?

Or teach your g/f how to use Windows.

Most of the masses don't have a 60"+ display. Most of the masses don't have surround sound with a booming subwoofer. Most of the masses don't have a DX11 video card. I don't necessarily want to be like the masses.

If HTPC improvements come, fantastic. In the meantime, I have no major complaints regarding what is currently possible with comfy couch PC gaming.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I have no problem using my remote to navigate for PC gaming.

I have WMC set up to launch Steam from a shortcut within the "Tasks" subheading, which automatically launches Steam to the same window configuration I had it in. That means that the window is automatically maximized and in the "Game List" display. I can then use the remote to scroll through the list of games and launch the game of my choice. Then I play the game with a 360 controller, and after exiting the game, hitting the "Back" button on the remote will kill the Steam process and jump back to my Windows Media Center start screen.

It's definitely not perfect or anything, and it'd work even better if the "Grid View" worked with a remote because that looks better. I'm hopeful for improvements as well.

That being said, for me it's definitely not the big deal that you're making it out to be, and I only pull out the keyboard (which has a built-in touchpad) when I want to install a new game in Steam. It's actually a pretty seamless process though, except for the 10 seconds or so when Steam is connecting that I can see the desktop wallpaper.

To the point of the keyboard and mouse, at one point I bought a mini-keyboard "gamepad" that is basically a larger version of the left half of a keyboard, as well as a wired mouse for more accuracy, but I soon found myself preferring the convenience of the 360 controller to the accuracy of the mouse, and find myself mostly avoiding games that don't support a controller these days. But then, I'm not a big FPS guy anyway.

I can see where DLJ is going, although a much less cynical approach would have been better. It's really hard to use windows and steam on a normal television set. Not everyone uses a 100 inch screen and sits 7 feet in front of the screen for HTPC (Like I would). I tend to choose between both gamepad and mouse & keyboard depending on game, and I found out I'm on equal ground on both of them, except in multiplayer (Where response times are must), but there is a good convenience factor when using a gamepad. I kind of wished Witcher 1 had gamepad controls like it's sequel does. Just started playing it, and figured a lock on feature would have been very easy to add to that game without gimping it.

Damn Grimrock, I walked into a room with 4 knights on each wall. I think I have a mushroom and a rock to fight with.

Ironically, right after posting about never using a keyboard and mouse anymore, I just decided to give the DayZ mod (for Arma 2 and its expansion), it's pretty awesome.

Heh. Yeah, good luck with ARMA2 + gamepad. Lol.