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Sony has sent word that from today until December 2, PS3 users can purchase the following games at a discounted price.
- Flower
Regular price: $9.99
Sale price: $4.99
- The Last Guy
Regular price: $9.99
Sale price: $4.99
- Comet Crash
Regular price: $9.99
Sale price: $4.99
- Prince of Persia Classic
Regular price: $9.99
Sale price: $4.99
- Bomberman Ultra
Regular price: $9.99
Sale price: $4.99
- Smash Cars
Regular price: $14.99
Sale price: $7.49
- Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao
Regular price: $14.99
Sale price: $7.49
There’s bound to be something there ya like, so have at it through PSN.
Viewing 48 responses
NoxNoctisUmbra said:
Hmm I wanna get the last guy now.
Dr.Ghettoblaster said:
Flower for $5 is a steal. Great game.
Psychotext said:
Absolutely. Bit of a non game in a way, but definitely worth the money.
Armitage said:
In what way is it a non-game?
Aimless said:
It doesn’t have guns in it.
Armitage said:
Ah shit yeah. Apart from that though.
Psychotext said:
In that there aren’t really any objectives, or enemies, and you can’t lose.
Armitage said:
There are objectives though. You know. Stuff you have to do.
Psychotext said:
I guess. You could play it for the trophies though and it becomes more of what people would generally recognise as a game.
Aimless said:
It isn’t punitive; there’s no fail state. In that sense it’s very unlike the vast majority of games, and I assume that’s the reason that some people see it as a “non-game”.
To me in just highlights that “game” can be something of a misnomer, but we’re pretty much stuck with the terminology now. Besides, ‘interactive entertainment’ just sounds rubbish.
Armitage said:
@Psychotext
Well even doing the basic game though. Imagine handing over the controller to an elderly relative, say, then saying, right, off you go, no help. Still no challenge? To be honest it held as much challenge to me, as a gamer, as most conventional games, you know FPS or TPS, well maybe not quite as much, but not far off, what with infinite replays if you die, ooh I don’t know when I were a lad a game were a game and no mistake proper hard they were in the old days, eh? …
..Eh?
What were I on about again?
Armitage said:
@Aimless
“It isn’t punitive; there’s no fail state. ”
Most modern games you get infinite replays with close checkpoints though.
Dr.Ghettoblaster said:
It’s a game with objectives, come on now. Linger in Shadows, now THAT’S not a game.
Armitage said:
Yeah, now that was a load of bollocks.
Armitage said:
Let me put it this way. I’m currently several hours into AC2, I chose Normal difficulty. I have died a total of one time, a result of jumping back off a wall when I was trying to jump up higher – learning the controls. Since then, in all the combat I have been involved in – including one time when I had yet to get a weapon and was outnumbered by three armed guards – I have not died once. So actually, I think I did probably have more of a challenge with Flower, so far anyway.
Michael O’Connor said:
So if it doesn’t involve a fail state, it’s not a game?
That’s just ridiculous, especially consider that most games “fail states” are checkpoints five seconds before any points where you could die, and allow you infinite changes to pass a section anyway.
Aimless said:
That would be a ridiculous claim. Good thing I didn’t make it, eh?
I said that Flower isn’t punitive, it doesn’t punish you for making mistakes. AC2 is an easy game, but it has very clear fail states. The amount of times you personally are thrown back to a loading screen is irrelevant, the point is that those states exist and are an expected aspect of videogames.
Whilst there’s no reason that player death needs to be present for something to be a game, it is still an expectation. Therefore people find its omission ‘un-gamelike’, even though the term “game” can encompass pretty much anything that runs on a computer and we care to brand as such. The label implies certain things but I doubt you’d be able to find much agreement on universal prerequisites for its use.
Armitage said:
Hmm. Interesting.
But in that way couldn’t everytime you failed to hit a petal, say, in Flower, be considered a fail-state comparable to dying in AC2?
Aimless said:
You aren’t being punished for missing it, though. You might have to circle back around to pick it up, but there isn’t a mechanic in the game that goes, “No, bad player! Do it again!”
To put it another way, if an enemy kills you in Modern Warfare 2 you’re punished for it by being chucked back to the last checkpoint, but if you miss a shot it makes no odds to the game — you aren’t losing a score multiplier or the like. So, whilst missing said shot might lead to your death, the game is punishing you for dying, not for missing the enemy. It’s a subtle distinction but an important one, I think.
For the record Flower is one of my favourite PS3 games. I don’t think I’ve come across anyone who doesn’t like it, so everyone should give it a try if they can.
Armitage said:
OK, but why isn’t circling back round equivalent to having to replay a bit of MW2?
Aimless said:
The game isn’t punishing you, if anything you’re punishing yourself. Flower doesn’t require you to not miss a petal, it simply tasks you with eventually fulfilling the requirement to move on to the next area at your own pace. MW2 doesn’t require you not to miss a shot, it just asks that you don’t die.
If you missed a petal in Flower and the game sent you back to a checkpoint, undoing the progress you made, then it would be punishing you. Likewise if there was some kind of chain/combo scoring system in place that reset. As is it’s just waiting for you to finish, your missing of the petal having no bearing on anything as far as the game is concerned; the player might see it as a failure, from the game’s perspective it’s simply progress not yet made.
Armitage said:
So would it make a difference if everytime you missed a petal the following message would be displayed:
YOU FAILED, OH YOU FAILED, YOU BAD, BAD, BOY
Then maybe the sound of a whip?
Would you be punished enough then? Or do you need more? You naughty boy.
Psychotext said:
/steps slowly away from thread
Armitage said:
Haha. Stay right where you are now. We have you surrounded. Seriously though, is this the difference between game and non-game? Being able to circle back to get that petal as opposed to bringing you back to a checkpoint a few seconds earlier? Must we be punished? How much does that cost nowadays anyway?
Psychotext said:
It wasn’t even so much that. There’s a complete lack of challenge to the title… unless you’re trying to get the trophy for when you’re travelling to the city (avoiding spoilers).
Once you know how to control it, every level is just a case of going from point A, to point B with zero opposition or any sort of puzzle to solve or agility to display. Had their been some sort of bonus to completing each level with a certain number of petals then I guess I may have felt differently… but as long as you can find the hidden flowers (find, not even keep to the end), you unlock everything.
But anyway, it’s still beautiful… it’s just not what I’d define as a game.
Armitage said:
Well OK. To be completely honest though I’m having less challenge with AC2 so far. Seriously.
Anyway. I would define it as a game. It has objectives, it has its own rules. That’s that. You cheapen games as a whole by not allowing Flower as a member. You cheapener.
Psychotext said:
It’s not just that. I’m not a very nice person either.
Armitage said:
And there are people I tried Flower out with, non-gamers, thinking they would easily get into it, but no, they found it all too difficult. These aren’t dimwits either, one had studied at Cambridge.
Psychotext said:
I’d wager getting over the controls could be difficult for some. Oddly I’d have probably been far more accurate with dual stick control than motion controls.
Armitage said:
“I’d wager getting over the controls could be difficult for some.”
Aha! So, some degree of challenge there, then? And therefore a game after all?
And personally, for me, the game would have lost a lot of its appeal if it was dual stick controls, more accurate or not.
Aimless said:
“Seriously though, is this the difference between game and non-game? Being able to circle back to get that petal as opposed to bringing you back to a checkpoint a few seconds earlier?”
That’s not what I was saying at all. I shan’t labour the point any further, though, my previous posts are there for all to read.
Armitage said:
OK. I will love you forever for using the word “shan’t” in a sincere manner on an internet based gaming forum, in any case.
Psychotext said:
“Aha! So, some degree of challenge there, then?”
Only for those that are dumb as a brick, massively arthritic… or as dexterous as a gorilla missing both hands.
Whilst two stick controls would be more precise, I wouldn’t say that the lesser precision of the motion controls added any sort of challenge. Merely a hump for people not used to the controls to get over.
Armitage said:
Only for those as dumb as .. blah blah, I did say that one of my participants went to Cambridge? The other is a member of Mensa – I’m honestly not making this up for the purpose of this argument.
You seem to be judging whether something is a game or not by how difficult it is for you, as a hardcore “gamer”, which to me is odd.
Would you consider the popular, well-known card GAME “snap”, a game?
Psychotext said:
I have to ask… but how does being a Mensa member or Cambridge graduate help with your hand / eye co-ordination, dexterity or ability to handle a game controller?
Armitage said:
In no way at all. But it does I hope show that these people are not “dumb”. And tread carefully, they are dear to me. Well, at least one is. Besides, not having those skills only adds to my argument that some skill is required, no?
Anyway. Answer the question, you cheapener.
Psychotext said:
So just that they’re as dexterous as a no handed gorilla then?
As for snap, yes, it’s a game. It involves both competition and reaction speed. There’s also a clearly defined winning condition… but perhaps more importantly, it’s something you can lose too.
Armitage said:
OK. Well, one of them is. About that dexterous. The other got motion sickness. Anyway, I digress.
/headbutts wall
Would you agree that Flower does require some degree of dexterity? That there are objectives to complete? What is a game if not some challenge with a set objective that requires some degree of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH?
Psychotext said:
I really don’t know. Most people I’ve seen playing it struggled most with the fact that they didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to be doing.
I will say that its status as a game seems more important to you than it is to me though… so at this stage I’ll just concede that it is probably a game, even though for me it was really more of an interactive screensaver (a pretty one at that).
Armitage said:
There’s no such thing as an interactive screensaver. Screensavers are what happens when you don’t interact.. When you do interact it stops the screensaver saving the screen…
Anyway, if there is anything we’ve all learned from this, something we’ve taken away from this whole experience, I hope we can agree that that thing, that precious thing, is that I am right and you are wrong.
That, and we are obviously both bored and I’m guessing insomniac.
Psychotext said:
It was a worthwhile distraction whilst I got some work out of the way.
Armitage said:
You still tuning systems then?
Psychotext said:
No, tonight I’m looking over someone’s code. Possibly even less interesting. I just couldn’t be bothered doing it in the day.
Armitage said:
Now, I don’t want to alarm you, Psychotext.
Armitage said:
Fuck’s sake, man, you’re supposed to reply in a worried manner when someone says something like that.
Psychotext said:
I did have to go to sleep at some point.
Len said:
So will we be getting similar reductions over here in the UK/EU…?
I’d like to get Flower on the cheap…
rrod360lol said:
You boys should lay off the amphetemines