BTW, I got some sort of “summer cooler” in TF2 - it says “maybe later there will be a way to open it.”
Right click the game on your game list and choose “back up game files”.
Steam downloads are generally much faster. Right now they’re being hammered by hundreds of thousands of people trying to download several new games. Once the sale is over the speeds will return to normal.
Steam is generally very fast - I can get a 10gb game in about 45 minutes typically. When my friend uses his badass work connection to download games from Steam, he can hit about 15MB/s, which would make that game download in about 12 minutes.
I downloaded TF2 the day after it went free…8 hours and 30 minutes! Not a surprise though…
Yup, downloads are painfully slow right now. I actually stopped the downloads and restarted, just because the throughput had trickled down to the point it just said “0b/s”.
What did I download? I’m in for the GTA pack. I had (technically still have) San Andreas for original XBox, which is sitting in a heap of old electronics in the basement, and had (have) Vice City for PS2, which actually is still attached to a neglected little SDTV. I’ve enjoyed playing both games, would like to play both again, but essentially dealing with old consoles for a game apiece, played rarely, is just silly.
The PC version of those games would look massively better anyway, and gain mods, so you’re better off playing them this way anyway.
I’m trying to completely ignore this sale (you see how well I’m doing so far). I had to ban myself buying Steam games after the last Xmas sale, when I spent almost $250 on games over the course of it, all the while knowing I still had a not-insignificant number of games I hadn’t yet played from last years Christmas sale.
I swear, it’s a sickness. I now have 140 games in my library, maybe 25 of which I’ve actually played. Steam Community :: cerridanae On the other hand, the genres I prefer (like RPGs but am picky, love strategy- pretty much all turn-based and alot of RTSes, but depends on the setting, and love pretty much any and all city-builder/trade sim type games) aren’t very prolific genres, so I’m saved there. I now have pretty much all the older games I had ever wanted, and not more than 2-3 typically come out a year I’d want to play.
The worst part is, I think I have too many games. I can never decide what to play, there’s just too much to choose from. I load up my Steam library page, all neatly sorted by genre, scroll through it, and just go “…buh, they all sound fun, I can’t decide what to play…” and go surf message boards for the remainder of the evening. =/
I think I’ve decided Steam sales actually is the game for me. It’s like Pokemon!
Oh you silly steam newbies with your “sickness” of having 140 games. Call me when you hit 400!
Incidentally, I think I’ve spent less on my steam account than people with way fewer games. I know people that have around 100 games but buy new $50 games all the time. I almost never pay more than 33% or so of the value of the game, often less. And that doesn’t mean I’ve racked up a bunch of $5 indie titles either - I have tons of AAA games, I just wait on them. Especially single player games - who cares if you play them today or in 9 months? In fact they’ll be better in 9 months after some patches and maybe some new content. And you can get them at 1/6th the price. Multiplayer-centric games I try to buy sooner because you want to learn with the community and participate when it’s most vibrant, but maybe twice a year do I pay full price for a game.
Agreed. This year my full price game will be Skyrim. Next year’s full price game will be Mass Effect 3.
Both single player games though, interestingly.
I can second that - it was my favorite game from last Chirstmas sale, too. In fact, in every game I’ve played since, at some point I’d stop playing and think to myself, “Man, this game would be *much *more awesome if I had a grappling hook and a parachute right now.”
What happened to the GTA classic sale? I saw it about 7 hours ago, but when I checked again only a couple hours later it was gone. I was gonna finally get a chance to play those games, for $8! WTF?
Look under “Specials”.
I think that’s where I found it originally. And when I go to the GTA games there’s no link to a pack deal. Maybe they pulled it off my region? Do you have a link?
Maybe you can gift it to me? 
I’ll buy you another $8 game during the sale!
Link is here. I can’t gift anyone anything right now - my last debit card expired on 6/30 and I’m having trouble finding the new one, I had to have other people gift me stuff today. Good luck finding someone else.
None of the Rockstar games are available in Japan (we actually miss out on 4 of the daily specials today due to region issues, IIRC, in addition to enjoying a “sale price” of $67 for BLOPS).
You can get around Steam’s region locks by using a VPN, though you still need a non-Japanese method of payment.
I should have added: I’d be willing to gift it to you if let me know your steam id in the next couple of hours.
I bought the Hero’s V pack this morning ($4.95 for the 4 games). Haven’t played Hero’s of Might and Magic in a long time (I think Hero’s III was the last one I played), but figured for 5 bucks I can’t go wrong. I also bought Star Wars Empire at War Gold. I played this game when it first came out and I remember it being fairly entertaining but rather buggy. But it was like $2.95 so again I figured I can’t really go wrong with that. I also bought Star Wars Old Republic (I almost got Force Unleashed II but it was a bit more expensive and don’t know that much about the game).
The folks at Steam are brilliant. They set the games low enough that in a lot of cases I’ll buy a game on special, play it a few times then it will just sit on my computer. I just wish they had the Panzer General series…would love to have that one on Steam.
-XT
New daily deals:
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 $5 and Vietnam expansion $5 (75%)
Half Life Franchise 75% off (first and second games, all expansions, etc). $10 for everything, or 75% off individually.
Magicka $3.39 (66%)
Football Manager 2011 $10 (50%)
Resident Evil 5 $15 (50%)
Bioshock and Bioshock 2 $5 each (75%)
Aliens vs Predator $5 (75%)
Darksiders $5 (75%)
Fable 3 $25 (50%)
Super Meat Boy $7.50 (50%)
Plants vs Zombies $3.39 (66%)
HOARD $3 (70%)
Achievements/activities for Magicka, HOARD, Jolly Rover, Spiral Knights, Super Meat Boy, Garshasp: The Monster Slayer, and a freebie of posting a comment to a friend’s steam page.
BC2 for $5 is a great deal. I’m not as big a fan of the game as I should be but it’s probably the best game of its type active now.
Magicka is a fun little game for $3. It has fun coop.
The Bioshocks are worth $5 I’m sure if you like that sort of thing.
If for some reason you don’t have the half life 2 games after all this time, now it’s extremely cheap.
Thinking about grabbing HOARD, I pretty much have everything else - any good?
There’s also a Magicka package with all the various extra scenarios and maps and stuff they’ve released (including Magicka: Vietnam, which looks hilarious) for a bit under ten bucks.
ETA: I looked at the Hoard demo a while ago; it was pretty fun but kept crashing on me.