Winter (Steam Sale) Has Come

   A few days ago, Steam’s Winter Sale hit. Both the best and worst part of the year for gamers; the best, because tons of PC games are going cheap, the worst because tons of cheap games still add up to a lot of money. Luckily enough I’ve only dropped £1.40 so far. As good things come in 3s I thought I’d share 3 games that I heartily recommend and 3 games that I’m hoping become dirt cheap so I can pick up without hurting my wallet too much, already hurting from Christmas as it is.

What I’m Excited For

Braid:

As mentioned before I have already dropped a bit of cash on the Steam sale, and that little bit was on Braid. I first heard about Braid while watching Indie Game: The Movie and didn’t have a clue what was going on with its mechanics. Therefore I instantly became fascinated by it! As well as that, it’s a heavily stylised 2D side scroller which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite kind of game (think Limbo, Rayman: Legends and possibly Fez, although that’s more like 2.5D). Mostly it’s the time bending nature of Braid that intrigues me, I loved Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and haven’t found a game that lets you manipulate its flow in any meaningful way since.

Game Dev Tycoon:

Alright, so this game I’m sort of in two minds about. On the plus side, it’s a management game that’s about making games, therefore a genre I’m interested in and a topic I’m interested in, as well as being oddly meta. The only issue is I can see myself liking it too much and spending all my time playing a game about making games instead of actually making games.

Sir, You Are Being Hunted:

Ridiculous Steampunk British Survival Horror seems to be the genre of choice for Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Let’s be honest, that’s everyone’s favourite genre. I think it may have already been on a daily sale but unfortunately I missed it, so I’m hoping it’ll pop up on a Flash sale before Steam’s winter festivities come to a close. It is an early access title, but it just looks so brilliantly bizarre that I can’t resist. After all, how could one possibly resist a game that features a ‘British Countryside Generator’?

My Recommendations

Magicka:

Magicka is an absolute joy to play. One of the funniest and best written games I’ve ever played, it’s an excellent send up of all the tropes and over-used mechanics of the Fantasy RPG genre.  I suspect the true strength of the game lies in its multiplayer, which I haven’t had a chance to try yet, but it’s still very playable solo.

Age of Empires II HD Edition:

Age of Empires II is one of my favourite games of all time and the HD edition is a brilliant remake. AoEII is still the benchmark that all other RTS games are judged by for me. The only thing I ever disliked about the original was how much of a pain it was to set up a multiplayer game; a process which has been vastly improved in the new version. There really are few things as satisfying as steamrollering your friends with a vast array of trebuchets.

DotA 2:

Probably the reason I’ve barely spent anything this Steam Sale. One of the best Free-To-Play games there is around; DotA 2 is a great way of distracting yourself from all the sales. It took me a while to get the hang of, and to be honest I’m still not that good at it, but once I’d found my feet it started eating up my time like you wouldn’t believe. I may well soon brave facing other human players, but I’m still cutting my teeth on bots at the moment (and it’s still so much fun!).