Steam Winter Sale 2012

Then you missed a very solid, meat-and-potatoes Raven manshooter. Better than, say, Quake 4 or Rage, not as good as (pick your choice of favorite manshooter here).

Before the sale runs out for it (about 20 hours left), who wants to gift me The Walking Dead? In my TradeBox, I have Half-Life 2, the original versions of Serious Sam First and Second Encounter, Clive Barker's Jericho, Rock of Ages, The Ship (single and multi) and Far Cry. I'll give them all up for The Walking Dead.

Flash deals with a little under 12 hours left:

• Tom Clancy Franchise Pack $67.99 (31% off). Tom Clancy wants you to shoot everyone. EVERYONE. Individual games also available up to 75% off.
• The Binding of Isaac $1.24 (75% off) or $1.49 with soundtrack. DLC is 74 cents. Cheap and disturbing!
• Forge $9.99 (50% off). Online class-based shooter thing brought to you by Greenlight.

So I picked up Assassin's Creed 2 for 5 bucks, because I live under a rock and have not played any of them. Do I need to play the first game or can I just youtube the plot?

Even that isn't necessary. The plot is summed up in the first few minutes of AC2.

Hooray. Xcom is finally on sale, but its not quite cheap enough for me to get excited about. :(

How cheap would it need to be for you to be excited? It was $25 on Gamefly last week. I wouldn't be surprised if it hits that again somewhere else in the near future.

Good sale for me so far. I'm enjoying being behind the curve of games. Having a two year hiatus has been awesome for my wallet. I grabbed several titles that I have wanted to play for a while.

Portal
LA Noir
Batman Arkham City (I still haven't played Asylum form the summer sale)
Legend of Grimrock (Don't know when I'll get around to it, but it just looks so appealing to my 18 year old self)
Mass Effect (1&2) (Something about this game. It never really interested me but $5 was the right price point.)
Assassin's Creed 2 (I enjoyed the heck out of 1. Maybe the last game I completed before I moved away from my 360, looking forward to it)

I missed Dead Island at 75% so I might grab that if it goes on flash sale again, but I think I'm spent. Civ V:g&k is much cheaper on Amazon than steam. I might grab that one too... Eminent arrival of baby is likely to cramp my gaming time though.

I played my Gameboy Advance in the delivery room so I deny the idea that babies are bad for gaming.

(P.S. My wife was mad.)

$25 is certainly cheap enough for me.

Of course she was! She <insert punchline>

10+ hours left in these flash deals:

• Driver San Francisco $7.49 (75% off). Cars.
• Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams $5.09 (66% off). Puzzles.
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD $4.99 (50% off). Tired.

Ned why is your avatar getting punched in the face with a tiny paint roller?

Heres a recurring pattern that I am experiencing this Steam Sale (most recently with LA Noire).

1) I put a game on my wishlist, because I'm not interested enough to pay full price, but if it gets cheap enough, I'll jump.
2) The game goes on sale so cheap its almost free.
3) I realize that I have so many good games on my backlog, that I will never play that game.
4) I remove the game from my wishlist without buying it.

Woah. Me too.

Maybe next sale they should feature more than the same 9 games over and over.

I still buy it, because while I might have too many games to realistically play, when I want to play a game it might not be one of the ones I own right now.

If only Gabe could somehow have Steam sell an extra hour every day to use playing games...I would buy the crap out of fhat.

TBS games are made for one armed baby gaming. One of my kids arrived during the height of WoW and i was able to raid (badly) with him.

Try GameXLeratorPro (tm) -- makes your games run 20% faster, giving you 20% more gaming per hour! Buy now!

I'm in a similar situation with my dog. One-arm suitable games see a lot more game time than those that require two arms.

I've already got that, but it comes from my employer. They call it "vacation time."

Just logged in this morning to check the Steam sales and saw Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams on flash with only a minute to expiration. Woo! Grabbed it just in time.

The Great Giana Sisters was a really good Mario Brothers knock-off on the ol' Amiga. It was the same kind of game play but with enough of its own character as to be really charming and unique. I had no clue this new game existed so I have no idea if I've just wiped my butt with five bucks or bought an interesting game, but the power of nostalgia compelled me!

Edited to add: BTW, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition is one of the voting choices right now for a Community's Choice discount. GO VOTE!

It's already been up at that price (and is cheaper at Amazon). In fact, everything you can vote for, and everything you could vote for last time, has already been up.

The Walking Dead is $10 on XBLA. A better deal than this steam sale if you're so inclined. And if you're like me, 'sup Adree, you can try out the first episode totally free. I'll probably get it now on XBLA.

Green Man Gaming's Daily deal:

XCOM - 17,50€ / $17.50 / £10.50

with code GMG30-DPLIM-DN831

Cheapest price it has been yet as far as I know.

Mirriam is there an expiry on that deal? I'm stuck at work with no way to buy that until 5:30pm pacific time, and that price is pretty sweet.

From the GMG site: 'snap it up quickly as it expires on Thursday 3rd January 2013 at 12GMT.'

Creole Ned was faster then me, but yes you should be able to grab that tonight. Just remember to use the code :)

I am only linking to new or (what I think are) noteworthy offerings.

Flash deals ending in 4+ hours:

• Saints Row the Third $7.49 (75% off)
• Miner Wars 2081 $6.24 (75% off). A Descent-style action game brought in through Greenlight.
• Painkiller Hell & Damnation $9.99 (50% off). I would recommend Painkiller: Black Edition for $2.49 (75% off) instead.

Flash deals ending in 10+ hours:

• Stronghold 3 Gold $7.50 (75% off).
• Prince of Persia Complete Pack $12.14 (75% off). Individual games are $2.49 each.
• Call of Duty blah blah blah 50% off.

I can't recommend Miner Wars guys. At all. Great potential, horrific execution. I have a lot of tolerance for space games, and I don't wanna review this one.

So you might say it's not decent-style? Ho ho.

The Daily Deals for December 28th are up and look, repeats! Hooray.

• Prototype $4.99 (75% off). Because you've always wanted to do this to a helicopter:

• Prototype 2 $19.99 (50% off).

New game, same poor helicopters:

• Just Cause 2 $3.74 (75% off). You will get your $3.74 worth the first time you use the grappling hook.
• Assassin's Creed - 1, 2 and Brotherhood are 75% off, Revelations is 66% off and III is $37.49 (25% off).
• Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion $13.39 (66% off).
• Left 4 Dead + Left 4 Dead 2 $7.49 (75% off) or $4.99 each. Obligatory Valve title.
• Limbo $2.49 (75% off). Replacing Magicka as the go-to game that always shows up.

EDIT: Fixed a few mistakes, added links and junk.

I'd been planning to hold off until there was a GOTY-type edition with all DLC, but this just made me fold.

Is Civilization V, regular edition, worth 7 bucks? Note, I've yet to play Civ IV, at all.

How about Sins: Rebellion? Worth 13 bucks? I have not played the first Sins due to lack of a campaign, and this one's supposed to have it.

Ok, now the first game (Director's Cut) is also on offer for 5 bucks. Worth playing or should I still just start with the second one? What about the rest of them gazillion AC games (Revelations, Brotherhood, etc)? I already have the third one (came with my video card purchase).

And yes, I know I'm years late to the party, but it was so comfy under that rock.

I totally would have been down for Sins:Rebellion for $13 in the summer, but I know I'd never get to it until next summer if I bought it right now.

Yes, especially when you pair it with the expansion on Sunday.

You need to play IV first or you won't understand the story at all.

Do the graphics in Prototype 1 hold up?

Honestly just skip it. AC2 is better in every way.

Agreed. I actually played AC1 to completion and loved it, but got burnt out on the gameplay by the time I loaded up AC2. Still, I could tell AC2 did everything AC1 did but better, so it's definitely the way to go.

Just read up on AC1's story (or watch YouTube). It's not long, because a surprisingly small amount actually happens in the span of its 20 hours.