Protect your wallets, ladies and gentlemen; the Steam holiday sale has begun. If this happens to be your first one, let me be the first to send my condolences for the kidney you’re about to sell in order to feed this addiction. Every day I’ll be posting the list of games available as daily deals and a quick blurb helping you figure out if it’s worth jumping on. The Winter Sale is traditionally massive, so being a bit more critical than usual may be able to help you hold out and stretch that dollar a bit more.
Before I get into the details, let’s lay out some ground rules right off the bat. Unless the game is a daily sale do not buy it. That’s right, don’t buy any packs, don’t buy anything simply because it’s discounted, wait for a daily deal. Almost everything goes on sale during this time, and the daily deal is going to be the best bet. If you happen to miss the daily deal, on the last day there is usually a last chance option to pick it up at its discount. You’ve got nothing to lose by waiting a bit to see if you can save yourself a few more bucks.
The steam sale will run from today until January 1st, so be patient.
Your daily deals for December 19th are.
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent $4.99 USD Amnesia is possibly the best horror game I’ve ever played. While it’s obviously not an AAA title, every single thing in the game is perfect for what it does. The game will wreak havoc with your imagination and will turn you into your own worst enemy. I still get chills if I hear running water in the dead of night. This is a game you play at 2 in the morning with the lights out, provided you’re not the type to scream and wake up your neighbors. Buy this game if you’re a fan of horror, physics puzzles or subdued storytelling that keeps pushing you to explore just a bit more.
- Bunch Of Heroes $2.49 Bunch Of Heroes is a colorful twin stick shooter without a lot of meat on the bones. The multiplayer community is all but dead, and unless this sale is a huge shot in the arm I can’t imagine it coming back. I can’t recommend this game even for this price when there are much better twin stick shooters out there which could easily go for the same price during this sale such as Renegade Ops, and Nation Red. Pass on this one.
- Fable III $12.49 If you’re familiar with the Fable games, you’re aware of the massive buildup leading to a disappointing title. What Fable III does well, it does really well, however the overall game left me wanting. While the game puts you in a position to feel like you’re making an impact and changing the world, nothing of importance changes no matter what decisions you make. On top of that the promised multiplayer is absolutely horrendous on the rare occasions it works.. Pass on this game, better ones are coming.
- Just Cause 2 $4.99 If you haven’t played Just Cause 2 yet, I demand you buy it right now. Just Cause 2 is everything that is right about video games. To put it in a bit of perspective, after asking a friend of mine for a way to explain it, the only thing he could come up with was “Michael Bay: The Game”. Steal planes, tether them to a truck and take off with your own personal wrecking ball beneath you. This is the perfect game to go in, dick around, and cause absolute mayhem. This is a must have.
- Max Payne 1 or 2 $2.49 Max Payne may seem dated now, but many of modern video games take parts straight from here. It has a great atmosphere mixed with a style that just oozes classic noir, it’s hard to say no to this one. Pick this one up if you haven’t had a chance to play the games in the past or are a fan of shooters.
- Metro 2033 $4.99 Metro 2033 is a phenomenal title that never garnered the following it really deserved. The game has an incredible focus on its world, and harkens back to the earlier days of survival games where every fight has weight behind it. There is a really great modding community here to fix a lot of issues that were present at launch. This game is made for hard core gamers and has a few bugs, but if you’re looking for a more shooter focused version of Fallout 3 it’s worth looking into. The atmosphere alone makes this game worth every penny of its asking price right now, and I have to recommend it for people looking for a game to get lost in.
- Orcs Must Die! $3.74 Orcs Must Die! is a new twist on the Tower Defense game and ended up being a killer product. It doesn’t try to do too much; it’s a streamlined title that provides easy fun. While you may not lose hours to it at a time, it’s my go to title if I need to do something with 15 minutes to kill. Its main competition is Dungeon Defenders, which offers a similar product with a focus on multiplayer. Frankly, these are both outstanding titles and I heavily recommend them both.
- Pendulo Adventure Pack $12.49 Pendeulo Studios focus is on classic point and click adventure games, and while they’re passable there’s nothing here that breaks the mold. For fans of the genre, Runaway is arguable worth the asking price, however more casual fans should try the demo and see if it’s something they want to jump into.
- Portal 2 $7.49 If you haven’t played Portal 2 yet, you’re finally out of excuses. This game was easily worth the full price of $49.99 when it came out, and it’s an absolute steal here. While it is a puzzle game, the voice acting and story work made this one of the top titles of the year. Pick this one up immediately if you have any interest in puzzle games.
- RIFT $7.49 I’m not a huge MMO fan, so I can’t really tell you that much about RIFT from personal experience. RIFT has worshiped at the altar of World Of Warcraft, and has made some visual and under the hood tweaks to separate itself. If you’re sick of WOW, this probably won’t offer much to recharge you, but if you’re new to the MMO scene, there are worse products.
- Sam & Max Complete Pack $12.49 Sam & Max are a hard sale. If you’re a fan of TellTale’s brand of point and click adventure games, this is a quality title worth looking into. However, if that type of game doesn’t appeal to you, I don’t think there’s enough here to really pull you in. Watch a few videos to see if this would appeal to you before jumping in.
- Singularity $7.49 If you haven’t heard of Singularity yet, there’s probably a reason for it. While it’s a fun game, it’s also fairly generic. The game has a feel very similar to the first Bioshock, and does offer some great story and characters, but there’s nothing that reinvented the wheel. You won’t be unhappy with this game by any stretch of the imagination, I just don’t think this will make many to 10 lists either.
Now with every big Steam sale, there is some sort of prize to be won. The Winter Sale is no exception, and Steam has offered the Great Gift Pile. Every day there will be a few games with special achievements. And each time you complete one you’ll get either a gift of a piece of coal. Coal can be crafted in the pile, or held on to for a raffle on the 2nd. Whoever has the most gifts at the end of January 1st wins the grand prize, EVERY SINGLE GAME ON STEAM. That’s just under $20,000 dollars of games. Tell my family I loved them.