This is a continuation of this blog.
 

And there it is: It only took a few days for Steam's devious marketing to crack my 'strong' willpower and make me give in to their consumerist ways. What swayed me? The thing that always gets me: The perfect game.

Thanks to 2K and Sid Meier's incredible genius, I am now the owner of the 2K Complete pack, which holds too many titles indeed. When Steam had a summer achievement to try a demo a few days ago, I tried out Civilization V, just to see how it would run on my ancient rig. To my surprise, it didn't literally melt my PC, like Metro 2033 did (yeah, literally). Not only that, but it immediately hooked me back to the gameplay that Civilization hasn't really changed since its conception. To that I say: Touché, Mr. Meier.

This is what poverty combined with hypocrisy looks like.

The 2K pack came with Civ V and all existing add-ons so far, Civ IV and all add-ons ( which I already owned), Civ III Complete and CivCity Rome. That alone will keep me playing until I'm dead; but it also had some deals I thought made the 80 bucks more than worthwhile. For instance, it has X-com, all Strongholds, but most importantly it features Duke Nukem Forever. Even if it's a horrible game; that's a brand new, full price release! And then overkill it all with both Bioshocks and Mafias, but also Borderlands GOTY Edition and there's really no reason why anyone should pass this up. Especially since there's actually even more; it's somewhat mind-boggling.

It's only a shame that one can't gift a game or two from a pack to more interested souls, because why would I want an NBA franchise game; let alone 2 yearly releases? It would be nice to give away one or two games from a complete line-up, just to share the wealth. But then again, Valve would not make the billions of consumerist cash if they were this friendly; the packs alone are courteous enough.

Here's to you, shallow materialism. You have won this round and I'm officially relying on charity to eat this month. Luckily, I have games to keep me distracted from retching hunger and poverty.