As regular as the changing of the seasons the Steam winter sale has started. As usual, there are a lot of games from independent producers marked down to ridiculously low prices as well as a handful of AAA titles to keep things interesting.
The gimmick this time seems to be coupons. There are Steam Achievements associated with many of the games and completing them gives you either a coupon or a lump of “coal”. You can trade in coal for… more coupons.
The coupons really aren’t that big of a draw. I have a couple so far but the “deals” on the coupons are worse than the sale prices on the same games right now, so they are kind of useless.
Still, some of the deals are really good. I’ve cut way back on my video game spending (I only bought two full-price games this year (Dragon Age and Skyrim) so being able to pick up enough games to keep me occupied for the next few months is worth it. I’ll probably look at some of these in more detail later, but here’s the haul so far.
Portal 2 – Yes, I’m probably the only one who hasn’t played it yet, but at $7.50 it finally fell into impulse buy range.
Orcs Must Die! – Been lots of good buzz about this one. It seems to be a combination of tower defense and FPS.
Psychonauts and Costume Quest – A pair of games from Double Fine. I started playing Psychonauts years ago but never finished it.
Avadon: The Black Fortress – An RPG in the classic mold, this one looks good so far.
E.Y.E. – Divine Cybermancy – Was interested in this one when it first appeared last summer but never got it. I finally had to try it at $2.50. It’s an FPS of sorts in a weird cyberpunk world. The setting is a bit hard to describe, mainly because I haven’t figured it out myself. It certainly looks different.
Bastion – Another game that’s been getting a lot of buzz. Sort of an isometric shooter with a interesting storytelling/narrator mechanic.
And that’s the sale so far. I’ll give more thoughts on these once I’ve spent more time with them. Meanwhile, I have some dragons that need slaying in Skyrim.
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