It isn't so much that I dislike the price - I mean I'd probably buy it anyway. I just don't get why it costs £20 more then any other game they have made. Also I would be amazed if a Gee-Dub game gets a mark up in price in England - I mean I wouldn't be surprised but it it would be hilarious.

The Chaos thing is pretty new but annoying as crap, especially when combined with the price hike from all previous games. Because if you don't pre-order I guarantee you have to pay an extra £5 to get Chaos as a faction later - which is BS for a faction that is already a major faction in the damned game. Fun times.

I actually fully believe the anti-violence heavy handedness was entirely intentional vis-a-vis the game's thesis of the problematized nature of the narrative contract between videogame player and storyteller. I think the dissonance is entirely intentional. And I love it for it.

My worst impression of Undertale comes from the buildup to the Undyne fight:



As a player I feel bad when the game tells me certain decisions have certain consequences, I make those decisions, and then it turns around and says oh snap, no, you're a bad person for doing that and the consequences are actually different. I don't believe the game should be dishonest and unfair for the sake of making its point.

Unreliable narration is a technique nearly as old as storytelling itself. Videogames are games (or less charitably, toys), but they're stories too--and Undertale is definitely more interested in being a story than a straightforward entertainment pleasure-loop. That loop DOES exist ... but again, I think it's no accident that you have to come to it on the game's own terms. I don't think that's necessarily a flaw. I think that's by design. Of course that might mean that you don't like it--which is perfectly fair. No one's obligated to like anything

Fair enough. I would be a lot more accepting of the twist if I saw Undertale as an interactive story and I had a degree of separation from my character.

I saw there was a sale on Steam, so I took a look at what was marked down.

First impression: If I click on a banner that says "Halloween sale: click here to view games" I do NOT want to be taken to a page listing literally every game on Steam.

Second impression: the #&$%ing list of games on sale literally shuffles the games as you go through the pages, making it an absolute random crapshoot as to whether you even see games that you might be interested in.

Third impression: Oh wow the original Binding of Isaac is literally $0.49. Might as well get it so I can experience it at least once.

Final impression: **** like this is why I avoid Steam when possible.

I like steam

I like Steam too. It's a game-changing entertainment distribution platform that lets small game companies get a foot in the door, which is great for innovation in the industry.

Thank you for the pun.

But I don't entirely disagree with you that Steam was a great stride forward and allowed an entirely different gaming culture on PC, but that was before Clans and before Guise of the Wolf and before Bloodbath Kavkaz and before mobile ports and before Earth 2066 and before there was a bunch of stupid 15-year-old games released over last year's summer, and before Skateman Intense Rescue and before everything Digital Homocide has been doing.

Hell, even the Steam Refunds system has been needed for years and years.

The point is that Steam is now an inferior platform for lack of quality control and costumer service in comparison to platforms such as GOG and Humble Bundle. Even Itch.io is starting to look better.

Agreed. Steam has a lot of good points going for it but the way it's handled Green Light in general is a bloody joke. For every decent game that's pulled itself from that mire and onto the Steam front page their are a hundred more asset-flipped, zero effort just plain bad games festering in the waters (or indeed pulling themselves up on the main shop on the backs of 'joke' voters'. They've already gone to great lengths to hide the things existence on Steam now (remember when there used to be banners everywhere for it? Not anymore!) it really is beyond the point the system should just close it's doors - ideally to be replaced with something a little more fit for purpose.

While it was before my time, I understood that Steam once had a manner of quality control in its stricter publishing methods (publishing might not be the right word here), that years ago, going through the process to get on Steam was a badge of honor among indie devs. This was, again, years ago, though.

A part of me thinks it's nice to have a place where you can get all sorts of games, no matter the quality.

Try Itch.io. Try GOG. Try Humble Bundle.

You just said that GOG and HB has better quality control than Steam.

GOG has a ton of horrible games, they are always emailing me about games I've never heard of from 15 years ago being super cheap.

This.

You can have low quality games without allowing things that are undefendable horse hockey and without actual scams in your library.

I still prefer steam though because it's a lot easier to buy and download, and I like letting my friends know what I am playing, especially when it's not a steam game, and steam streaming to only a couple friends is nice.

I can understand all that (even if the knowledge that everyone on my friends list will know when I log on and what games I'm playing almost cripples me with apprehension). I mean, the last four games I've bought (SHOWER WITH YOUR DAD SIMULATOR 2015: DO YOU STILL SHOWER WITH YOUR DAD?, Awesomenauts, Duck Game, and Binding of Isaac), have all been simple and painless digital buys using a $20 gift card a friend sent me, with no worries about my card information being used for purchases.

Use PayPal and never worry.

so,the new hip thing is to hate on steam....