I normally would post sales to our digital distribution sales thread, but this looks so massive as to deserve its own discussion.
Steam is running a “perils of summer” thread (stay inside, game, don’t get eaten by sharks) sale that looks to me like it’s the most massive sale they’ve ever run. I thought I was going to have until christmas to save up to buy 500 new games. It runs from June 24 through July 4.
The sale runs like their christmas sale, where hundreds of games will be 20-66% off for the entire duration of the sale, but every 24 hours a new group of temporary sales come up even more steeply discounted.
The deals that are today only (end in 20 hours) are:
Overlord complete pack (3 games in the series) $4.50
Dirt 2 $10
Counter-strike: Source $6.80
Unreal Deal Pack (every unreal game) $13.60
Bioshock 2 $15
Trine $4
Killing Floor $5
Those will be gone and a new set of temporary deals here tomorrow. Of those sales, I strongly recommend trine $4 (maybe my favorite platform ever, although I’m not a big platformer fan). Dirt 2 is by far the best racing game I’ve ever played and we still get SDMB games going a few times a month. I’ll probably pick up killing floor since it was recommended by a few people.
But there are a ton of non-daily sales too, which are pretty significant discounts. I can’t even list them all, you’ll have to look. Entire catalogs are significantly discounted - all Epic games 50% off, 25% off all 2k games, 50% off all paradox games, 33% off all capcom games. And they’ve got gigantic bundles going again, like the id super pack, valve complete pack, 2k complete pack, etc.
Anyway, look through yourself and go buy 100 games. I’ll post more recommendations when I have more time to look through everything and my mind is unblown.
I should point out that if you have games you’re interested in the non-daily sales (but instead the sales that last the whole 2 weeks), you may want to hold off on purchasing them, since they may come up at some point in a daily sale for cheaper. So rack up a shopping list of the stuff you want, wait to see if it becomes available as a daily sale, and if not, buy all of it on the last day
A few recommendations, based on my taste in games:
-Dark Messiah: Might and Magic is worth seven bucks. Fantasy first-person action game. Very linear.
-Tropico 3 is is worth ten bucks, and if you like that then the Absolute Power expansion is worth seven bucks. Cold War era tropical island town builder.
-Mount & Blade is rather unique, but has a very indie feel. For some reason the original and the expanded Warband version are both fifteen dollars. If you pick it up, just get Warband. There should be a demo. Medieval (no magic or elves or anything) combat, with an emphasis on mounted combat.
-The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Directors Cut; I’ve only played a few hours, but I think it’s worth seven bucks if you can tolerate the long load times. Similar to BioWare RPGs with lots of talking, interesting setting. Makes an effort to be dark and edgy, and your mileage may vary as to whether it works.
Just picked up Trine and the Overlord pack for less than i spent at McDonalds this morning. Freaking hell i haven’t played 90% of the stuff i got during the christmas sale yet! Mount and Blade is a must have, buy warband.
I notice bioshock one and two are on sale and I’m tempted. I’ve never really played a FPS on PC. Is one recommended over the other? I’m not really concerned with the best graphics, but rather the best game play.
Ouch–reading a review of Dark Messiah makes it sound dreary and dull. I’ll give that a pass, and wait for some other good ones.
FWIW, I hated The Witcher, which I bought over Christmas. Dull, slow-moving, and tacky.
Edit: Caveat, a caveat: I’ve only played the first Bioshock. That said, it’s entered the pantheons of Games with Awesome Stories, which the second one reportedly hasn’t done. I’ve still heard great things about the second one, but nothing as great as the first.
Killing Floor is fun. Not a ton of depth, but you get to blow zombies up with friends, and the way the guns are modelled actually impresses me and I’m a gun nerd. Probably not something you’ll play 100+ hours of, but you’ll easily get $5 worth of fun out of it.
Anyway, like 8 of us SDMBers grabbed the game and it allows 6 player coop at one time, so if you read this in the next 8 hours go ahead and grab it and play with us.
I really liked what they were trying for, the very grim, no-right-decisions fantasy, and sometimes they hit it pretty well. It was peripheral issues that were hard for me.
For example, the first boss fight at the end of the first (or maybe second) chapter was kind of hard for me, especially with the implied secondary goal. I kept having to reload the game to replay it.
Except there was a lengthy cut-scene before that fight, complete with dialog choices. I kept having to sit through long sections of cut-scene.
And that was totally unnecessary: there should be an auto-save before a boss-fight, especially if it’s impossible to save manually between a cutscene and the fight.
Plus the “I banged her!” trading cards. Really, guys? Really?
Resident Evil 5 $12.50
Galcon Fusion $2.50
Aliens vs Predator 2000 (the old but good game from a decade ago) $1.25
Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West $5.10
Serious Sam HD: Double Pack $7.50
Ghostbusters: The videogame $4
Alpha Protocol $33.49
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City $15
Ghostbusters for four bucks.
Serious Sam 2-pack for $7.50.
Alien vs. Predator 2000 for $1.25.
Resident Evil 5 for $12.50.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City for $15.
And some others I haven’t heard of.
I’m getting Ghostbusters, although Serious Sam and RE5 are both tempting. I’m really trying this time to stay beneath $5 for any game I get (less than $10 definitely, and only for things I’ve really Jonesed for).
The THQ pack, similar to the one they offered at Christmas, is probably the best deal available. Most people who are interested probably got it on black friday or Christmas. It’s a little tweaked - they added Metro 2033, World of Zoo and the Dawn of War II expansion. But it seems to be missing the original DoW and one of the expansions. Which is strange, because 2 expansions are still there - doesn’t make sense to sell the expansions without the game. I suspect it’s an oversight that they may correct. The expansions don’t require the original to play though.
Either way, even without that, it’s a ridiculous gaming value with some great games.
I’ve heard really good stuff about The Witcher and that’s the best version for $7.
I’d recommend the Intervision Complete Pack with Defcon, Darwinia, Multiwinia, and Uplink for $5. Worth it just for Defcon, IMO - I need to start playing that again.
There are so many good deals it’s hard to even single out anything. There are dozens of games I’d recommend that are 50% off or more. Just look through the catalog I guess and keep an eye on the daily sales.
Not knowing anything about the daily sale game Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, I looked up a video review on youtube which made it look interesting enough to roll the dice for $5.
It’s a lot of fun. It’s a multi-player only team objective based third person shooter with classes. It’s a really pretty game (not in terms of being technically advanced but good art, map design, and characters), has a cool setting, and lots of game modes. I don’t generally like third person shooters but the controls are pretty solid so it doesn’t bug me so much.
Anyway, the sale still goes on for 6 hours and I give it my official $5 game stamp of approval if you think you’d like that sort of game.
