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I want to like The Last Spell a whole lot more than I do but there are two big complaints I have that makes it fall flat for me: 1) the random level up system sucks, I feel no attachment to most of my units because they're just frankly bad compared to other units, purely due to what random stats were available to them during level up. I have a hard time remembering who is good at what or what differentiates one unit from another when they have to spend a bunch of levelups on useless stats And 2) with all the weapon diversity and weapon-based builds it's a gigantic shame that each weapon essentially has one attack worth using and maybe one situational skill you'll use sometimes. It leans heavily into utility and movement type skills and then makes every single encounter a pure dps check, railroading you into only using the high dps attacks. It ends up feeling more like a puzzle game than a tactics game. I played it far enough to beat all the available content a long time ago but not since they added more than 2 maps, and I guess I'll give it another shot because hey, full release. But  e: Ugh, old saves don't carry over and it reset all my metaprogression 
deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 18:09
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deep dish peat moss posted:I want to like The Last Spell a whole lot more than I do but there are two big complaints I have that makes it fall flat for me: You have a reroll available every time you level up a character. I don't understand how you're managing to be stuck with only useless stat options when a good third of them are very important for upgrading either defense or offense. Can you name some of the weapon skills that are "not worth using"? Because they're very much all designed to be complimentary to each other, plus even if you wanted to you can't repeat one skill enough times to spend your full turn with most weapons.
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Mar 14, 2023 18:30
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I just played through the first night but quit when I got to the levelup screen and remembered how much it sucks: My mage gets a choice of 5% damage, a small amount of daily health regen, a small amount of damage resistance, a small amount of move points, a medium amount of health... these are all useless outside of 5% damage because this is a wizard that will never take damage and has ranged attacks. So I reroll, and I get... the same options, except one less. So I reroll again and again 5% damage is the only worthwhile stat, so I settle for the lovely 5% damage. The same thing happens on my archer, and then my Warrior gets +AP and hey look at that, suddenly this character is significantly more powerful than the others. It's the same deal when you get like, a mage or archer that gets +skill range a few times - they suddenly vastly outclass every other character you have.Jack Trades posted:Can you name some of the weapon skills that are "not worth using"? Because they're very much all designed to be complimentary to each other, plus even if you wanted to you can't repeat one skill enough times to spend your full turn with most weapons. 2h hammer's attacks: 9-target 100% damage AoE that stuns, 1AP, can be used 3x per turn 5-target 110% damage AoE, 2AP, can be used 1x per turn, oh and also it costs mana 6-target 100% damage AoE that debuffs enemy damage by 33%, can be used once per turn for 2ap, oh and also it costs mana Single-target 70% damage attack. 1AP, can be used 2x per turn. With the 2h hammer and the default 4 AP, there's virtually no reason that your combo on any turn should be anything other than "9 target stun 3 times, single-target attack once, move out of range". Because why would you spend 2AP on dealing 110% damage to 6 targets and debuffing their damage, or dealing 110% damage to 5 targets,, when you could spend that same 2AP doing 200% damage to even more targets and stunning them, making them entirely unable to deal damage? It's not like enemies in this game survive more than 1-2 turns anyway. Since the other skills don't stun, they're much more dangerous to use, and frankly when using a 2h hammer it's often worth it to just stun once then get out of range. Pretty much all the weapons operate the same way: with the 2h book you cast Lightning Strike then dump the rest of your AP into Shadow Bolt, with the Wand you spam Magic Missile until you're out of mana then you spam Sword of Damoclese, etc. The 1h axe has a ranged 140% damage crescent-shaped aoe attack that's awkward to use for 2AP and can hit a maximum of 7 targets in 100% ideal situations, which is 980% damage for 2AP if it hits all 7 targets. It has to hit at least six targets to not be mathematically worse than the 3-target 1-ap 100% damage horizontal swing, and it's rare that you'll have it lined up to hit 6+ targets without putting yourself in a bad position. That axe also has a 0 damage AoE damage debuff that you would be absolutely insane to ever use because again, why debuff enemies' damage in a game where the entire goal is puzzling out how to kill enemies in a way that makes it impossible for them to damage you? Which also brings me to how, outside of a few later game encounters, melee characters at all are just flat-out worse than ranged characters, because the game gives me all of the information I need to position my ranged characters in a way that makes them 100% immune to enemy damage while still doing full damage themselves  Not to mention the added benefits of hiding behind ballistas and walls, up towers, etc.It's a game I want to like because it should be right up my alley (I love SRPGs, roguelikes, and permadeath) but this stuff just kills it for me. It reminds me a lot of Into the Breach or Valkyria Chronicles in this regard - It gives you way too much plainly-telegraphed information to the point where it becomes a puzzle about how to use that information to create the optimal turn, rather than a game about reacting to the unexpected and adjusting your strategy/tactics accordingly (which is the kind of SRPG I like). deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 18:59
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Damage numbers stack additively and are very good. Movement is super useful on like 99% of all builds, Longbow maybe being the sole exception and even then they still have to reposition occasionally, and Resistance will make it so that your units don't die. 2H Hammer's "9 target" AoE only damages one target. The single-target 70% attack has an inherent Opportunism bonus, meaning that it does the most damage against debuffed targets, even more so if you have Opportunism leveled on the character. The "6 target AoE" and "5 target AoE" are the only 2H Hammer skills that actually hits multiple targets, one of them propagates from unit to unit, and the other is + shaped and is undodgeable, which is a must for enemies with high dodge stat. I don't think I even need to continue at this point. 
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Mar 14, 2023 19:26
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Jack Trades posted:The single-target 70% attack has an inherent Opportunism bonus, meaning that it does the most damage against debuffed targets, even more so if you have Opportunism leveled on the character. Oh god this is really getting into the bullshit of the levelup system now and reminded me what I really hate about it  There are so many situational stats like "deal extra damage to debuffed enemies", but as is always the case in games like this, a generalist "deal more damage all the time to everything" character is way-the-gently caress better than one relying on things like Opportunism and Followthrough and blah blah blah and it just turns into a clusterfuck of mediocre stats, meanwhile your one character that just got a few good damage/range/crit rolls is infinitely better at their job.The game is just very much not for me but I'm just gonna uninstall and stop posting about it. e: vvv having beaten the game at an earlier (allegedly more difficult from what I've read?) point in beta, I'm going to disagree If it's changed in the full release that's cool but I'm done with this game either way
deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 19:28
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deep dish peat moss posted:a generalist "deal more damage all the time to everything" character is way-the-gently caress better than one relying on things like Opportunism and Followthrough and blah blah blah. It's not.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:29
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Yea, it's really not. You can get the Staff with the Poison ability that propagates like a Dozen times (and even equip it on the same guy!) and be virtually guaranteed to always be capitalizing on your Opportunism bonuses. Or the Tome also has a propagating debuff too. Could the numbers on the Level Up bonuses be bigger? Sure. But you also have the Perks to choose from as well, which adds a lot more flavor to your builds IMO. And you actually get 2 re-rolls of the Level Up bonuses, not just one. Sometimes there are duds, that's part of why Roguelites are crappy IMO, but there's almost always something that's at least decent.
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Mar 14, 2023 20:27
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deep dish peat moss posted:Oh god this is really getting into the bullshit of the levelup system now and reminded me what I really hate about it did you beat lakeburg or just the first town? i'll echo everyone else saying this doesn't sound right, specialist builds are much better than generic damage % builds if you know what you're doing. just the fact that specific damage types get bigger numbers on level ups than general damage makes that true, never mind the ten million perks and things you can stack.
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Mar 14, 2023 21:03
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I have a lot of hours in The Last Spell and yeah, I don't understand deep dish peat moss' criticism either... Both weapon, perk and level up flexibility are better than you'd think at first, even on high difficulty.
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Mar 14, 2023 21:17
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Battlefield 2042 was doing a free week...days and since I have a beefy computer now and have seen a couple of things saying "it's good now! Classes!" I decided to give it a go. While actually being able to run the drat thing does help, the game's still kind of naff. It just feels like it's completely lacking an identity, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of its visual style. Everything still feels too random and not enough like you're fighting a war thanks to the map design, no factional aesthetics, and the fact that there seems to be almost no destructability now. The big weather events (event? I only ever saw the tornado) have laughably little effect on the battlefield and pale in the face of BF4's LEVELUTIONS(tm) which could actually change large parts of the map. As for the shooting and movement, while I understand that they wanted a faster pace than previous games in the series, it just feels comparatively weightless, lacking the physicality of something like BF1. I also maintain that modern(ish) warfare is the most boring setting for an FPS because all the guns function more or less the same. You don't have the varied arsenal that a sci-fi game has (eg Titanfall 2, Halo Infinite) and you don't have the interesting limitations an older period puts on you, such as the way BF1's automatic weapons were all pretty close-ranged and its long distance rifles were all pretty clunky. When it comes to art style--it's got none. BF1's sound and visuals were definitely the pinnacle of the franchise and this game just kinda looks worse, even technically speaking. I dunno, I was running on max and everything just had a sort of blur to it. To say nothing of the fact that the design is all fairly bland. I actually came into the free trial thinking I'd pick up the game since it's on a 70% discount but I think I'll just keep playing Halo instead. Maybe reinstall BF1 and run around with my Martini Henry, its population is practically the same as this newest title. Please Vince, save the franchise for me!
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Mar 15, 2023 00:49
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this weekend will mark 1 year since stranger of paradise released on EGS and if it doesn't appear on steam I will be sad.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:43
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Epic exclusives occupy a bizarre attention void that doesn’t seem like should exist in the internet age
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Mar 15, 2023 01:44
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I did all the achievements in like four? five? saints row games and keep forgetting the latest one even exists
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Mar 15, 2023 01:46
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Fell down a rabbit hole with Limbus Company for the last few days, and it's very good if you like its very specific gacha niche/Project Moon universe. I loved the story but bounced off the other games, so I'm glad that I found one which I liked. Now that I got past the starter bit, it also leaves me in the surprising position of being able to flex being a grindhard or just leave it alone after doing 3 quick re-runthroughs of the tutorial fight and a dungeon a day, which is much appreciated. Back to buying random games and returning them after thirty minutes, I guess.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:44
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Me and a friend are very much mecha fans, both of us were intrigued by the trailer for Phantom Brigade, neither of us realized it had been out on Epic in early access for like a year already. Don't worry though, Epic is busy claiming the NFT games on their platform are actually doing...pretty good! And that Gaben is of course a greedy money grubbing fucker for banning them, because obviously the core issue is that Valve can't take their 30% cut from them. Please ignore that you can right now go claim money from the FTC because they slapped Epic over their aggressive microtransaction stuff.
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Mar 15, 2023 03:16
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I don't mind the epic store so I was gonna buy Strangers on there but now so much of my gaming is on the deck I'd rather not screw around with non steam games. Gabe trapped me with his clever hardware
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Mar 15, 2023 08:44
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I'll still buy on GOG if there's a good sale, but I was never going to spend a cent on the EGS, tbh. I haven't really heard many good things about their launcher. I've been claiming their free games since about the time I got my Deck, but I'm going to continue to be one of those customers they lose money on and if they ever decide to stop giving away games, well I guess I can remove a bookmark from my browser.
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Mar 15, 2023 09:29
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I've bought both Axiom Verge 2 and Salt & Sacrifice from Epic store since they were exclusives. Not much else, though. I think we had GTA V from there when it was suddenly free and everyone in my gaming group wanted in on that. Next one I'm probably gonna pick up will be the Return to Moria. I mean, a survival crafting game featuring LoTR lore and dwarves is like made for me, no matter how jank it is.
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Mar 15, 2023 09:45
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Tiny Timbs posted:Epic exclusives occupy a bizarre attention void that doesn’t seem like should exist in the internet age They made a deal with the devil and are punished accordingly for it.
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Mar 15, 2023 10:09
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Owl Inspector posted:this weekend will mark 1 year since stranger of paradise released on EGS and if it doesn't appear on steam I will be sad. Still waiting for Tony Hawks to be released from Epic's shackles and that games year of exclusivity ended ages ago. The lack of clarity or communication on these things is just really odd.
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Mar 15, 2023 10:42
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TeaJay posted:Next one I'm probably gonna pick up will be the Return to Moria. I mean, a survival crafting game featuring LoTR lore and dwarves is like made for me, no matter how jank it is. Looked this up and I know I have a friend who would love to co-op it. Does it have an eventual Steam release planned or is it EGS forever?
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Mar 15, 2023 10:54
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KazigluBey posted:Looked this up and I know I have a friend who would love to co-op it. Does it have an eventual Steam release planned or is it EGS forever? No idea at this point, last I saw was the release set for "spring 2023" but so far at least I haven't seen any gameplay videos yet, which makes me think the estimate might be a bit optimistic. But I would imagine it'll eventually come to Steam too, has there been any EGS exclusives that haven't even after a year?
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Mar 15, 2023 10:55
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Tiny Timbs posted:Epic exclusives occupy a bizarre attention void that doesn’t seem like should exist in the internet age the ceo of new blood interactive said that he once heard someone call the EGS a marketing black hole and that it was the perfect description of it
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Mar 15, 2023 10:57
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Bumhead posted:Still waiting for Tony Hawks to be released from Epic's shackles and that games year of exclusivity ended ages ago. This is the one I've fully given up hope on given all the stories of Activision just going "gently caress this, gently caress this team, gently caress this game, gently caress this license" and scuttling everything about it. Oh, we could have had a 3+4 remaster or DLC or something? Oh, no, we sentenced everyone on this labor of love to the WoW mines? loving christ.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:02
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It is kinda weird how some games just never make it out of the Epic ecosystem. I guess it must pay well for the studios though, since they are still signing more exclusives. There's so many cool games being released that I've never really had to consider whether creating another account on a new platform is worth the minimal effort. Would have been a different story if Epic existed back when I was a broke-rear end college student though.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:22
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I was sad that Hitman 3 spent a year in Epic jail but given the lifeline they were on after Square cut them loose (but let them keep the IP at least) I absolutely could not blame them or be mad that they took the guaranteed money to give them some stability, and it seems to have worked out pretty well because once they were released from their sentence, Hitman 3 on Steam has been great and the Freelancer add-on has been an amazing shot-in-the-arm that has got me back spending most of my free game-time playing only that. Just wish they (IOI) didn't have such a terrible system for actually purchasing the game and DLC!
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Mar 15, 2023 11:32
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I didn't realize Dead Cells had difficulty adjustments. I enjoyed my time with the game ages ago but I'm old and bad at these things and got bored with dying in the first few areas. I tweaked a few options and now I'm having a blast in the later stuff and unlocks don't seem so absurdly far away.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:37
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It's a more recent addition. The game looks almost nothing like it did at launch, heck it feels different every year almost. edit: Dead Cells, that is. edit2: I still have the impression that the designer came up with a snappy platformer, and everything, literally everything, has been ad-hoc since.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:39
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Serephina posted:I still have the impression that the designer came up with a snappy platformer, and everything, literally everything, has been ad-hoc since. That would line up with how every time I try to watch somebody else play Dead Cells it's a very...underwhelming experience. The raw gameplay looks pretty fun and snappy, but there seems to be a shocking lack of...basically anything beyond murdering enemies good.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:59
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secretly best girl posted:This is the one I've fully given up hope on given all the stories of Activision just going "gently caress this, gently caress this team, gently caress this game, gently caress this license" and scuttling everything about it. Oh, we could have had a 3+4 remaster or DLC or something? Oh, no, we sentenced everyone on this labor of love to the WoW mines? loving christ. Activision have established a policy of baffling, arbitrary bullshit as a tentpole of their business model. We keep hearing about their financial struggles if the Microsoft acquisition doesn't go through, yet they're sat on what seem like fairly slam dunk ROI opportunities like getting THPS on Steam, 3+4 DLC, getting Crash Team Racing on PC etc without doing anything with them. There just doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to which ActiBlizz games are exclusive where or why or for how long. I mean just last week we got a dump of fairly recent COD games on Steam out of nowhere. Crash 4 was Epic exclusive for a bit (IIRC?) but is now on Steam yet THPS still isn't.. ugh. My hope is that this type of bollocks is a real week 1, quick win thing for Phil to look at - assuming the acquisition passes. Fruits of the sea posted:There's so many cool games being released that I've never really had to consider whether creating another account on a new platform is worth the minimal effort. Would have been a different story if Epic existed back when I was a broke-rear end college student though. Owning a Steam Deck just hammers this home even more. On a desktop PC it's just.. mildly annoying having all these different launchers. Steam Deck just makes it loving suck when PC games exist exclusively anywhere else.
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Mar 15, 2023 12:07
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Jerusalem posted:Just wish they (IOI) didn't have such a terrible system for actually purchasing the game and DLC! There's a whole thread on the Steam forums dedicated to explaining to people what to buy. What the gently caress. I almost re-bought Hitman 3 on PC two times now but every time I got so utterly bored trying to figure it out (without buying something that I already have, natch) that I always gave up. And last time I looked, rolling everything into the trilogy SKU did not, in fact, resolve all of the questions 
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Mar 15, 2023 12:26
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That's the most bizarre thing, they literally rolled everything into one package which you'd think would make things easy now, but people show up in the Hitman thread all the time saying,"I wanted to buy the full trilogy but apparently that's NOT the full trilogy!?!" and there are still a number of extras that are including piecemeal in various other "editions", and I can't understand how they can be so good at making a game and yet so bad about allowing people to purchase it in a sensible way!
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Mar 15, 2023 12:32
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The painful thing is that there’s actually an altruistic reason for all that nonsense at the core: they wanted to let you play the previous games’ content inside of the newer versions, which is very cool! But they use Steam as the middleman for everything and it’s just a mess.
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Mar 15, 2023 16:12
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Jerusalem posted:I can't understand how they can be so good at making a game and yet so bad about allowing people to purchase it in a sensible way! the rights for the trilogy being split between three different publishers probably makes it much harder for them to navigate than it would be in a perfect world the first game was published by squeenix, then 2 was published by warner, then 3 was self published by IO
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Mar 15, 2023 16:15
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https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-triple-pack 3 for $2.99 quote:Pathologic 2
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Mar 15, 2023 17:01
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Mar 15, 2023 19:02
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fit em all up in there posted:https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-triple-pack 3 bux for Rebel Galaxy Outlaw alone sounds like a steal, was it ultimately any decent as a Freelancer or Privateer fix?
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Mar 15, 2023 19:18
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https://www.humblebundle.com/games/kart-racers-games-bundle?partner=nintendeal $20 for: quote:Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 Slime Speedway
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Mar 15, 2023 20:20
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they didnt even get the good sonic one
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Mar 15, 2023 20:26
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Still mad they never made a PC version of the Crash Team Racing remake.
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