Man, I just realized how many “indoe” games have come out this year that have gotten a ton of attention that I haven’t played:

Mark of the Ninja
FTL
Hotline Miami
Retro City Rampage
etc.

…and all of these games are probably gonna be low as shit come Steam sale. I got some demos to play. If any of these games had demos that is.

@angryjedi Sorry man, still can’t do stuff for free right now.

Any armour buffs in the house? Wargame: European Escalation is 13.60USD this weekend on Steam. For under fourteen clams, you can snag the year’s best RTS. Scalable, beautiful, tactical.

@cptcarnage I’m in a similar place. I have a ton of games on Steam that I have never even booted up. For whatever reason, the steam calculator doesn’t find my id, but that may be for the best since I’m scared of finding out what it says.

@redswir1 I remember being very excited for that game but picking it up when it came out. Thanks for remind me. I hope you will keep us updated on your progress and whether or not you are liking it.

@cgrajko mainly due to my cash strapped state i’ve found my self in a similar situation. It kindof puts things into perspective with Steam too, my games list is 240+ strong on there and I can only honestly say I’ve played maybe 25% of the game that I own.

Another thing that hurts is when I run my account through http://www.steamcalculator.com/ (its main page is down at the moment but you can access it buy adding http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/ and your username). It spits out $2750, now I know I didn’t pay that as it uses raw values for the games prices and alot of them I got through the various indie bundles over the last few years.

Also with the badges system recently implemented into the profile pages I realized that this September I will have been using Steam for 9 years. I signed up September 14th 2003.

I’ve shown a ridiculous amount of resolve this Steam sale. I reminded myself that I had all of the game left on The Feenwager Challenge, and it mostly stopped me from buying things, even things that I wanted that were on sale. I didn’t pick up The Binding of Isaac, Dear Esther, or Dreamfall, and I really, really want all of them. It’s like I’m becoming more mature or something. At any rate, it’s scary, and I don’t like it.

Somebody convince me that Fallout New Vegas isn’t a good pickup at $4.99. I had it for XBox and traded it in, but might have been burnt out on Fallout 3 at the time.

Anyone?

@feenwager I hear you. Howabout free to play MMO’s? D&D, Lord of the Rings, Age of Conan. Do some quests, get it out of your system, never pay a cent. Hopefully Wasteland 2, the only game I’ve kickstarted, will actually be that game we’re looking for.

And HELL YES, Episode 2 of the Walking Dead game was amazing and messed up! You know those decisions in Mass Effect where you don’t know whether to shoot a guy who is holding a hostage or keep talking to him? This game is ALL those, except there’s no easy paragon/renegade choice, there’s more of a snap, gut reaction involved, and the choices that best help your survival are often the hardest god damn decisions you’ll ever make, and you have this little girl watching you make them…

@angryjedi I would love to screw around in Minecraft with you guys. I can show you my bridge to nowhere, and my enormous unfinished castle… and then I can lock you up and force you to mine and finish said unfinished castle. Yesssssss.

@unmanneddrone It will, almost everything that has lost on that community vote has showed up in either the daily or flash sales.

Nothing in the Steam sale has really peaked my interest so far out of a combination of a huge backlog, my game access account and my desire to lay off the leisure expenses a bit. Only thing I’ve been truly tempted by is the Walking Dead but I’ve never made it through a single Telltale series yet so I’m a bit apprehensive.

Just completed my go-through of Rayman Origins. I stopped at 200/246 and got all the teeth, so I finished with the “secret” level. I don’t understand what it is about 2D platformers but clearly I can accept a lot of frustration and insanity before I am prepared to quit. Never threw a controller but like Super Meat Boy, it came pretty close especially in the last world and the secret level. Random aside: I know Giant Bomb has already made this joke but dear god the credits are long!! Quite possibly the longest I have ever seen… and I was forced to see them twice!

Not sure what is next, we’ll see what comes in the mail next but I may play some Saints Row 3 in the meanwhile.

Ok, @bowlisimo, I picked up Walking Dead. You’re a ruthless salesman. Ruthless.

@bowlisimo I checked out the demo when I saw the flash sale (didn’t realize it was a flash sale and missed it) and I actually like it a lot.

Despite being on what looks like the vanilla Source engine the game still looks very atmospheric. The combat and dungeon crawling honestly remind me of Dark Souls with how objectively it utilizes the physics, just in first person. Might scratch that itch until Prepare to Die Edition comes out.

@unmanneddrone I voted for Jagged Alliance BIA, no dice. Otherwise, have only picked up AC:Revelations, Saints Row 3, Alan Wake, and The Walking Dead. I usually pass on a lot of games, even when they’re on sale, so there always ends up being something to buy. Not that I really need to buy any more games.

@redswir1 Dark Messiah, yeah, not a bad game. The story is super dumb, but the first person combat felt great for 2006ish, if a little silly. Use your boot! When in doubt, kick that motherfucker. Tom Chick nailed it in his CGW review where he called it, “The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks.”

So far:

Tobe’s Vertical Adventure is one of this sale’s hidden gems.
Double-dipped on Hitman Blood Money.
Caved on Grimrock
Finally picked up Darksiders
Hoping for the return of another price drop on Dark Messiah Might and Magic

@unmanneddrone I pre-purchased Jagged Alliance when it wasn’t out but I never played it. As for the steam sale, so far I was only able to nab the Alan Wake collection and pre-purchase Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition.

Only picked up Tropico 4 and Orcs Must Die so far. I was tossing around the idea of picking up Fallout: NV for $5, but I bought it for $60 the first time around and sold it for significantly less a few weeks later when I realized I didn’t want to play it anymore.

The $15 Walking Dead series seemed interesting, but I’m still sitting on episodes 4 and 5 of Back to the Future that have yet to be played, so it just seems like a waste of money at this point.

Have we finally hit a point where the Steam Sale has over-saturated the market with shit I don’t want to buy and/or play anymore?

How’re folks going with the Steam sales?

Haven’t nabbed a thing, just been enjoying the favourites from the library. I do hope Jagged Alliance: Back In Action wins the community vote for the next round of discounts because, while lacking a lot of the charm of the older, venerated titles, BiA is mechanically fantastic. Real time with Frozen Synapse-esque pause/plan elements.

A few folks here would enjoy it. Has been patched and polished wonderfully!

The SEGA Collection in the Steam sale is something I will gleefully purchase before the sale ends on the 23rd. Not only does it have a ton of great Genesis classics, but it also includes Binary Domain and Sonic Generations, both of which I have been meaning to pick up for a while now. For those of you who just want some of the old school Genesis goodness, there is a pack for that as well, although it leaves out the fifth pack which has some of the greatest games ever made (aka Phantasy Star II and PS IV).

It’s incredibly surreal to look at my Wishlist and see everything but two games on sale, especially stuff like Jade Empire that never goes on sale as far as I can tell.

@shingro I’ve been meaning to ask, since I figure you would know, what is the best arcade stick out there? I sold my SFIV stick a couple of years ago when I was moving along with my copy of SSFIV, but I am going to get back into 2D fighters when Persona 4 Arena comes out. I will definitely be going PS3 since I know that’s the system that tends to have the biggest communities, and it’s free to play online. I’m not super picky in that Sanwa and Seimitsu buttons both feel damn good to me, but I would like something that’s comfortable to hold in my lap since that’s how I prefer to play. (Bonus points if it’s easy to take apart and apply new artwork/buttons/balls for the stick.)

Yeah, this it typical. Visa’s tapped on the new computer and the surprise $1300 repair bill on my car and the steam sale pops up.

VISA prepare to scream!

To add insult to injury the motherboard I purchased was just released and they are out of stock. Who knows when I’ll get it.

I’ll stick build pics here once I get everything, going to go mental with cable management if I can help it this time.

Oh and @angryjedi, I’m with you on MLP. I haven’t watched the whole thing but I can say its odd that watching a show like that for an hour or so can really lift your mood. Its not pointless mind fluff, there is some substance to it.

@angryjedi Oh man, I missed that on stream, how great! I fully appreciate people of fandom making a thing for love of their fandom =)

…… besides, the world needs a bit more sweetness and light culture, I suspect this is the nerve MLP touched for some.

Mmmmmm Steam sale has begun huh?

…. Tempted to try HoMM6, I’ve been a long standing fan of HoMM and King’s Bounty… but it’s still not compelling enough to me for $25… which is CRAZY, you’d think I only had mobile games as reference… ah well

I’ll think on it

Hey guys, every time one of these sales comes around I try to use it as an opportunity to convince some people to try out Steam who normally don’t play PC games because they’re afraid their work laptops won’t run anything, when in fact there’s a shitload of good stuff that probably will run on integrated graphics. Hell, from what I’ve seen Valve got Portal 2 to run on most modern Macbooks.

Just looking for newer suggestions.

@beige Be careful about buying ARMA II only for DayZ, as far as I’ve heard the mod is becoming a stand alone game.

“it was officially confirmed that the massively popular ARMA II mod, Dayz, will be seeing a standalone release by September of this year. In addition to announcing this exciting information, project lead, Dean Hall, has stated that the standalone release will come in the form of a “Minecraft-like model.”

Apparently SPAZ is also 50%, but not listed. I guess Valve is doing hidden game sales this time around, too? http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200/

As a reminder and a PSA, don’t buy a game unless it’s the Daily Deal or one of these Flash Deals, until the very last deal. Chances are good you’ll buy it, and it’ll be the next day’s daily deal.

Edit: @Beige I would bank on ARMAII being a daily deal in the next couple of days.
Edit 2: Better explained via Reddit –

“During the big sales, Steam discounts just about every game for the entire length of the sale (they last 14 days). Each day, Steam takes a handful of those discounted games and discounts them even further, calling them the “Daily Deal”. So a game that was 25% off during the first three days of the sale might become a daily deal on day 4 and get marked down to 75% off. On day 5, it goes back to 25% off and stays that way until the end of the sale.

Not every game becomes a daily deal. So if you’ve got your eye on, say, Civilization V at 50% off, you should wait to see if it becomes a daily deal and maybe get 75% off instead. If it never becomes a daily deal, then on the last day of the sale, you can still at least pick it up for 50% off because you won’t see at better deal at that point.”

Oh God.

Waiting for a daily or flash deal on Darksiders. Don’t think I canresist Grimrock any longer at this point.

Oh, and everyone here now owns Rayman Origins right? $15 deal’s only up for a few more hours.

God help us all, the Steam Summer Sale has begun (and Pete’s a brony?)

Just for the one or two folks who would give two hoots, Wargame: European Escalation is going to be twenty smackers over the weekend on Steam, a 50% off sale of complete and utter madness!

See if this review causes salivation or sleep apnea.

Just a gentle heads-up for anyone who wants the most deliciously intricate and fabulously versatile real-time tactical strategy game. There’s a huge Steam sale on the Men of War series. Men of War: Assault Squad is what you want, and the GOTY edition can be had for a mere ten bones, with the vanilla a minuscule seven. @bowlisimo has been in the thick of it and has many a tale to tell. I certainly encourage anyone with a few friends who’re willing to indulge in a little co-op to get in on this deal.

A wonderful game. Assault Squad is a quintessential co-op strategy game like nobody’s business. Or somebody’s business. Many, hopefully.

RAGE, 15 dolla, Steam, go, now.

Nobody would ever be down for Payday would they? It’s one of the daily deals.

The Steam Sale seems to have broken the Steam Store.

Yikes.

I don’t remember that ever happening before.

Oh god, there’s a metric fuck ton of Steam Christmas achievements coming, no doubt getting ready for their holiday sale.

All my installed games just updated (Dungeon Defenders, Super Meat Boy, Frozen Synapse, L4D2, Defcon…etc). Someone hold me.

@My Squad Santee, I haven’t forgotten you.

It has begun.

Pull the trigger on Gemini Rue and Dungeon Defenders now?

Amnesia! (Jump on it!)

Scare yourself for Halloween.

@impynickers Ehhhh don’t know. I will say that compared to its predecessor, Dead Space 2 is a much better action game and a slightly better horror game. If you haven’t played it yet I think $10 is definitely a worthwhile deal.

They tell you that DS2 is gonna be about ammo conservation and whatnot (especially if you played on “Survivalist” [hard] mode like I did0, but the game throws waves and hordes of enemies at you like any shooter, and I always seemed to find one more plasma cutter clip JUST as I was running out. It does manage to get intense at parts though (again, on hard mode), like a younger brother to Resident Evil 4. It still wants you to think that you’re playing by the rules of a classic survival horror though with item management and the occasional switches that need to be pressed, but not really.

Atmosphere-wise they seem to have learned a little bit from Silent HIll. There are points were DS2 might fake you out with noises, pull some lighting tricks to keep you on edge, etc. Even some of the enemies make you feel a bit uncomfortable every time they show up, but that’s still ultimately overshadowed by the “action” part of the game. That’s what it is: an action horror game that still tries to look like survival horror.

Oh, but the final boss can suck a dick though. What’s so horrible about it is that it is immediately preceded by a section that itself would have made for a satisfying climax to all of the atmosphere and rules of the game leading up to that point.

@redswir1 Legend has it that Minerva’s Den is the secret best piece of DLC content ever produced, perhaps now is the time it can be explored for a song~

Awww Sheeit. The fall sales have begun. Steam and Amazon.

Of Note on Steam:
Dead Space 2 – $10
Amnesia – $4
Vampire Bloodlines – $5
Penumbra Collector Pack $5
Painkiller Pack – $5
Dead Space 2 – $10
BioShock 2 – $5

Amazon:
Ghost Trick – $15

Hey kids, Vampire: Bloodlines is $5 on Steam this weekend.

Why is it that when I buy a bunch of games on steam sale I end up playing some random game gathering dust on my shelf instead? I guess its the intimidation of having so many choices, and the gravitation towards something familiar and comfortable.

I missed out on the Blood Money sale, doh! That said, it really isn’t THAT expensive. If people are getting into it, I will clear my pile of games aside and make sweet intimate play to the game. I think I could get my roomate into it too.

You don’t want to see my entire pile of unplayed Steam games.

My total damage this summer sale ain’t much, and a lot of it actually isn’t from Steam:

• Frozen Synapse
• Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword
• Civilization V from GamersGate
• Dragon Age 2 from GamersGate
• Earlier I also nabbed Thief and Bulletstorm from GamersGate. They’re starting to get up there.

@Redswirl Quake and Doom are still fun to mess around with for short spurts. I no longer find them as unsettling as when I was a youngster, but maybe I am just desensitized. I found the original single player Unreal to be underwhelming to play after all these years though. IMO it offers nothing that isn’t outdone by games like Halo. Unreal Tournament however is still a ton of fun.
I have never quite had the FPS phobia, though I did originally have a phobia of playing online games when they first came out. The players were often so skilled it was intimidating. I think the first game to break me out of my shell was Tribes. Fun game.

Do I really need to do Quake?

It might finally be time to go back and investigate DOOM, Quake, Unreal, Hexen, etc.

The thing is , I think I still have a weird phobia of those kinds of shooters left over from when I was little.

Back in the day when those games first came out I was honestly afraid to play them for several reasons:

• I wasn’t used to the idea of a game where you couldn’t see behind or around your character, so I was always afraid of something getting the drop on me. Obviously I can get over that now, if not for the other two issues.
• Most of the enemies in these games were things like monsters and demons which looked genuinely scary to me as a kid.
• There’s something about your health being displayed by an exact number that I found very fatalistic. Having your health display “02” somehow always seemed scarier than just a sliver of a lifebar to me. Your character’s face deteriorating in DOOM didn’t help.

I wasn’t ever able to progress through games like DOOM, Turok, and Duke 3D without cheats. I was never able to actually finish an FPS unassisted until GoldenEye came out. That game did two very helpful things for me: the enemies were all human, and it used a traditional health bar. From that point forward most FPSs on consoles used traditional health bars and had you shoot either humans or aliens – which I can deal with (it’s just demons that’s the problem).

Recently I was finally able to conquer Duke 3D, but again that was aliens, and I still hate the things that hatch out of the eggs. I still don’t know about the other games. A little while ago I tried to play Turok 2 without cheats, and made it through the first level, but had to stop at the graveyards in the second level. Also couldn’t do the third level with the big gorilla dudes. I think my problem more than anything is just shooters with mythical or supernatural enemies. I can play Left 4 Dead, even singleplayer, because I know that the zombies are scientific in origin in this game’s universe.

Should I really go back and investigate the aforementioned classics if I want more shooters without being stuck with grey war shooters?

Some great Steam deals today, and a good effort by you, @RedSwirl, waiting for that final price drop on FS.

It’s been a good sale thus far for strategy titles in general. Men of War: AS for 7 smackers yesterday or the day before, RUSE for a tenner today, as is Supreme Commander 2. Surely a few Squaddies would find those interesting.

Another suggestion for @feenwager would be Hitman: Blood Money. Bit trial and error’y, but remarkably satisfying. Filled to the brim with dark humour and a terrific sense of place. For some reason, and maybe coming under fire for being somewhat contrarian, but where the NPCs of Assassin’s Creed felt like automaton, the Hitman world’s citizenry seemed far more alive. And Agent 47…I mean, you cannot find a more bad-arse bad-arse than him.

Available on PC, 360.

Oh, and I’ll throw in Mini Ninjas, too. The game for people who like Zelda-esque romps, but want something a little different. Funnily enough, I read it was a game IO Interactive made because their usual fare was far too dark, depressing and violent to take home and play with their young families. Highly recommend Mini Ninjas.

Available on PC, Mac, PS3, 360.

Happy 4th of July, US comrades.

@bowlisimo I got games from Steam sales three years ago that I ain’t even installed yet man.

@Pete Roguelikes are a pretty big blind spot of mine. Be gentle.

@Redswirl I wonder if Steam will have another Perils of Summer sale this year, although I still haven’t finished the ones from last year.

Hey Squadmates –

Figured I should drop in and at least say a happy new year to everyone…I’ve been too busy lately to do much but lurk, what with work and holidays and family and playing through the entire halo series with my little sister. I’m also moving to NYC in two weeks, which is pretty cool…I know some of you guys are up around there, so we should totally hang out and stuff.

I’ll also jump on the bandwagon for supporting Stalker…it’s one of the games that got me to go out and build my first gaming PC. The atmosphere and the eerie degree of accuracy make it easily one of the most memorable games I’ve ever played. Definitely worth the five bucks…although these days, I have to think about games in terms of their cost in time more than anything.

Guys, Mafia II may not be the best game ever, but it’s definitely worth $13 less than a year after it came out. Optimized really well for PC too.

Blood Money, $2.50, go get it. The demo is not a good indicator for the game overall.

Also, just like with every other Steam sale, these damn Star Wars collections keep looking right back at me. I’m currently downloading a Jedi Outcast demo, but some advice would be nice.

EDIT: Just realized that Command & Conquer deal is actually for all of the recent games. I need some advice on Kane’s Wrath and Command & Conquer 4.

Anybody here played Brothers in Arms? All three games are on the low low on the Steam sale right now. Where do they sit on the tactical shooter scale with Gears being a 1 and a 10 being, say, the original Ghost Recon?

It just occured to me, today’s Steam sale = snapshot of the video game industry. Dudes holding guns.

Yes! Darksiders is 10 dollars on Steam today, Alpha Protocol on sale too, if you want to take @cgrajko’s word for it.

Also,
I never want to see another saw blade again.