Anybody can tell me more about Etherlords? Are they worth it? They look very similar to King's Bounty.

Any sale that features System Shock, is great by default. If you haven't played them, what are you waiting for? Truly, both System Shocks are among the finest video games ever made. ;)

Hmmm, still only 50% off for Rage of Mages and Evil Islands. Should I or should I not.

This time some nice classics I'm still missing in my collection. If GOG will not drain my wallet with some Sierra adventures this week - I'll bite sth from promo for sure. Cool :-D

Finally some decent discount for Turok. Thanks GOG and publisher!

Evil *godamn* Islands, you say? ;) Dude... DUDE! Go get it!

Turok has an attractive price, but the developer still after all this time hasn't made a linux version available.

Whenever I see one of hidden gems on sale:

Ghorpm’s "don’t miss this hidden gem" recommendation

Etherlords series

This is one of the best strategy games with card-based combat I’ve ever played. It can be enjoyed by both novice and hardcore players. On easier difficulties you don’t have to bother about building your deck too much. Just add some strong cards when you acquire them, make a few adjustments here and there and you should be fine. Don’t get me wrong though - the game will still be quite challenging as the combat is complex and you should use your cards wisely.

For more experienced players (and you can become one relatively fast by choosing auto battles and thus learning a lot of useful tricks!) rearranging your deck before every fight is the best fun you can imagine. Does your enemy come with a lot of weak and aggressive enemies? Invest heavily in defense and prepare for a war of attrition. Do you expect to see a rare but ultra-powerful monster on the field? Remember to take a few spells that can neutralize it. Is your opponent heavily guarded? Take a few spells that can bypass his defenses and directly hurt him. Does your enemy rely on monsters that get bonuses based on the number of a specific monster that are present on the battlefield? Take a lot of weak monsters to kill them before they get a chance to multiply their stats! Or you know what? Take similar monsters yourself and be first to accumulate a huge number of them! Individually they might be weak but if you manage to summon at least five of them they will be unstoppable!

Believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg! There are more valid strategies waiting for you to be discovered! And don’t get overwhelmed - it may seem to be complicated and for a few battles it will probably be (and as a result you’ll get crushed) but after some short time you will start to understand how the things go. I can assure you the satisfaction is just enormous! Trying new techniques is extremely rewarding!

So what’s the difference between these two games? The first one plays more like a standard TBS game. You have a castle, hire heroes, capture resource producing sites, fight stationary monsters and enemy’s heroes. The second one is more story oriented - you have a single hero to control and you roam the map to gain experience, find new clues about your quest etc. Some prefer the former, others the latter. At that price I think you should really buy and play both of them. It’s not necessary to know the story of the first game to enjoy the second but it’s still beneficial.

TL;DR buy both Etherlords games ping

Yeah, but are they still playable to this day? Maybe they haven't aged well in regards to interface and user friendliness?

Got SC2, need to get into it. :P

Great post Ghorpm, thank you!

Speaking of Space Rogue, the 'new' game with the same name is a few months out of date. Just gonna sweep it under? :3

Can anybody enlighten me about Timelapse? (I have the original retail version in my collection but never actually found the time to play it :) ) IIRC it came out around the same time as Atlantis (the 1st one). Is it similar to the Atlantis series gameplay-wise (node-based 360-degree view) or more like Myst (snapshot navigation)? (By the way, I thought Atlantis 1 was OK-ish, 2 was nonsense, 3 was nice)
Also, GOG, what sacrifices need be done in order to get Shivers in store??

I've forgotten what Etherlords plays like, but here are my thoughts on E2: The story is thin and on rails, the voice acting is fair to horrible, the music is forgettable, and the online servers have been taken down; yet, I cannot pull myself away from Etherlords 2, and find myself chanting "just...one...more...battle" like a mantra.

While there isn't all that much of a plot (different factions across the world are in different skirmishes at all times, and you must get involved) the campaigns are of a decent length, and there is a lot of variety, thanks to varied cards, enemies, and a goodly amount of luck. It is this latter quality that will have you either cheering with victorious glee, or banging your head against the wall in defeated frustration.

Gameplay consists of the player character traversing a map (similar in style to Diablo or the older Warcraft games) over land and sea (methods of transportation include a player mount, ship, and teleporters) while encountering non-random battles. These battles are the core of the game, and switch the player into a Trading Card Game (TCG) of sorts.

You will accumulate hundreds of cards through the game, but can only bring sixteen into battle at any one time. Cards can be purchased, found, or won. In a twist from other TCGs, resources are not used to play a card; rather they're collected in the environment and used to purchase cards. Rare cards, of course, require greater amounts of hard to get resource materials, but once purchased they're yours forever. Because of this, exploration is not only advised, it's pretty much mandatory if you want to succeed.

At the start of a campaign (there are five of them, although only two are initially available) you are on a linear path but, as the game progresses, the map will open up to give you many more choices as to where you want to travel.

The Good:
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The amount of variables that can affect a battle's outcome is mind-numbing: Specializations, Offense cards, Support cards, order in which cards are drawn and played, Skills, Creature Abilities, Spells, Enchantments / Sorceries, Creature Power/ Toughness levels, Artifacts, and environmental factors (such as toxic areas or nearby Shrines) can all play a role. Moreover, the actual gameplay is not nearly as complicated as all this makes it sound. Two decent tutorials will have you up and running in about 15 to 20 minutes. Balance is, overall, pretty good, although...

The Bad:
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1) ...there is at least one combination (that I have found) of a character card and specialization that is way overpowered, so there are probably more such combinations.
2) Battles can take quite a long time, mostly due to repetition, camera sweeps (where you'll most likely have to stop playing until it stops moving), and the lack of a “Repeat Last Command” button, which would have been very handy during long battles.

The Ugly:
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The camera sweeps across the battlefield many, many times during combat which, if you happen to be clicking on a target at the time it starts to move, can cause you to cast on the wrong target, including yourself. Yes, you can actually damage your own hero, so beware. It is possible to do away with the automatic camera movement, but doing so disables ALL camera views (normally, you can switch between four static camera views using the F1-F4 keys).

The Meh:
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Etherlords 2 will not let you make any plot-altering decisions. For example, if the enemy tells you they will kill a hostage if you take one step closer, then feel free to move as close as you want without repercussion; your character will stop on his/her own while telling you “I think they mean business.” This takes all chance of failure away and puts it solely in the battles, where you can reload as often as you like. Whether or not this matters is strictly personal preference. Personally, I'd like the dignity of risk associated with making my own choices, but it's not a deal breaker.

The Bottom Line:
============
This is a solid TCG that doesn't really feel like a TCG. As such, it should appeal to a much broader variety of players, including TCG fans. If you have someone with which to battle over LAN, this is a five star game. If you're only playing solo, then bump it down to four stars, as there is little replayability here. That said, you've got a lot of hours worth of turn-based fun for less than the cost of a movie ticket. For fans of TBS, TCGs, or RPGs, this is a must own.

I have no mouth and I must scream just for a few cents!