I picked up Empire: Total War from Steam for $24.95. Did you? I figured with a Metascore of 90 it must be good. Beware. It’s a 15GB download.
Steam
Wake Up and Smell the Defense Grid
I’m not a big fan of tower defense games, but I have dabbled a little in Ninjatown (Wow. That’s another story. Uh….squee?) and a couple of web versions. Something about the sit/wait mechanic makes me somewhat anxious when I play. However, it didn’t stay that way.
Enter Defense Grid: The Awakening. It was at a reasonable price during the Steam holiday sale so I figured why not? In short, I love it.
It has that right sense of gameplay and a surprising amount of humor in the form of your AI interface to the defense towers. The game is full of Steam achievements and has a good deal of levels and challenges (being amped up difficulty replays). Online leaderboards? Yes.
The only reason I’ve not done a 2 Minute Review is because I’ve not completed it yet. I’ve been too busy taking my time with this game, enjoying and replaying the levels with different strategies.
Basically this writeup is a shill for Steam once again because it looks like it’s being sold for 25% off. I think it’s worth $15, but no more.
Mount & Blade on ‘Da Cheap
Sandbox RPG Mount & Blade is on Steam this weekend for 75% off. That brings the price to $7.50. Yep, I’ve heard good things and I’ll try it for that.
I seriously love Steam.
‘Tis The Season To Save
If you’ve managed to survive Christmas dinner and the Boxing Day sales, there’s one more goodie under the virtual tree this year from our good friends at Valve.
Steam is having a massive sale from now until Jan. 2, 2009. Everything is 10-75% off and there are some great deals to be had. I snagged World Of Goo for $15 (I couldn’t justify getting it for $20) as well as Ghost Master ($3) and Runaway: The Dream Of The Turtle ($7). Nothing like getting 3 games for $25, I say.
There are some really good deals on publisher bundles as well and it would be a shame for those of you interested in some unique indie games or even some big titles from the past year or two to miss out on these deals.
Overlord On The Cheap
One of the hidden gems I came across this year was Codemaster’s Overlord.
The fine folks behind Steam are selling it this weekend for $9.99. I deem this price to be GoodTM.
…or if you prefer, get every game released (and soon to be) by Valve for $100.