Steam Winter Sale 2012

Does it? I know it has open-ended campaigns, but not story-based campaigns. Totally a steal for $13. If you need a story in your campaign, however, this isn't the way to go.

To reinforce what Mysterio said, if you give Civ V a shot the Gods & Kings expansion is a must. Other than that it's hard to know whether to recommend it if you haven't played a Civ game, or haven't played one recently. For the kind of game it is, Civ V is great. However it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Hmm, all Steam sending out e-mails about games on my wishlist being on sale is doing is making me realize there are a lot of games on my wishlist I'd probably never get to even if they were free.

Flash deals with ~12 hours to go:

• Bastion $3.74 (75% off). With soundtrack $6.24. A repeat but still a nifty game.
• Snapshot $2.49 (75% off). An indie platformer, how weird! Play as 'a lone robot lost in an abandoned world'.
• King's Bounty in the following flavors:
  • Warriors of the North $20.09 (33% off)
  • Armored Princess $9.99 (50% off)
  • The Legend $7.49 (50% off)
  • Crossworlds $9.99 (50% off)

How is Bastion? I have quite the backlog of post-apocalyptic games now, but if it's as good as they say...

It's not that post-apocalyptic. It has colors and whatnot. And it's as good as they say.

And the soundtrack is fucking incredible. I think I'll listen to it right now.

The original AC is totally worth checking out at that price, if only for the setting.

The weakest points in that game were all the repetitive side missions in order to progress, but the actual story segments range from good to excellent, IMO. That game stands apart from the later ones in some important ways, especially its handling of the whole Animus concept. The later games increasingly abandoned those ideas to better streamline and smooth out the gameplay, which certainly worked, because on the whole, AC2 and the others are more playable.

Oh, I guess it was also pretty stupid that Altaïr couldn't swim, being the crazy agile dude that he is.

There are some good side missions if you find them, but in general it was pretty useless to run around trying to do them just to get more packs of priests to hide in, because it was trivially easy to lose guards. The content fluff just isn't interesting enough and after doing it a half dozen times, you might say "fuck it" and just get on with the main game, which is certainly still a quality experience. But if you don't have time for both, then I suggest going straight into AC2.

Hahahahaha.....

Oh wait, you're serious. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Hey now. Assassin's Creed is the best parkour game I've played! I dunno what you're talking about w.r.t. story, though; I only played it to climb around places and find view points.

Assassin's Creed (1) avoided. But I did pick up Sins: Rebellion, despite no story campaign (thanks Brian).

Oh no!

But in all seriousness, I have played Civ I-III, and just didn't get around to IV yet. I'll hold off on Civ V, seeing as it'll probably go on sale half a dozen times, by the time I actually get around to playing it.

If you played Civ I-III and haven't played IV. Then you're probably done with Civ as a thing. I'd save my $ if I were you. IV still stands up as the best of the series IMO.

It's a bit late for that, as I already have Civ IV and all the expansions from a previous Steam sale.

I don't think I'm done with Civ games either, as the last time I played one was back around 2001, when Civ III was released (which I was unimpressed with and did not play for long). It's just that a lot of other games got in the way. But as you mentioned, I hear nothing but good things about IV, and it was always the plan to get to it (eventually!). For the longest time, the primary limitation on gaming has been a lack of time, rather than lack of good games to play. That annoying sleep thing constantly gets in the way, they keep releasing great new games, so it never gets easier, only worse. But of course I'm preaching to the choir here.

Definitely don't buy 5 until you've tried 4 then. They play differently enough that both are worthwhile.

AC1 is an amazing game. I liked it much more than 2. However, I cannot recommend AC1 over AC2 to anyone that isn't me. I played through the first game with the UI off. Not HUD indicators, no minimaps, I even avoided the world map. It was great.

I usually try and get people in at AC2 because the combat engine is much improved, and the main character is more of an amusing dick than just a dick (Ezio in AC2's only crime is being too Italian. It's basically Berlusconi's fantasy life.)

Really, AC2 shines entirely because Ezio is such a great character as you go through the phases of his life. And imo that's part of why we're having issues fully accepting AC3 (besides the new engine oddities, Connor is kinda boring as a character)

Is the AC3 season pass (or deluxe edition) worth the additional cost?

Connor's dad, on the other hand, he's awesome. Even if a lot of his charm is simply because he gets under his whiny son's skin.

It is a very good game. Get the soundtrack edition for $6, you wont be disappointed.

Good news! In half an hour DARK SOULS is the Community Choice and will be 50% off.

...

Or get it at Amazon right now for even less.

Yeah, the sales for Dark Souls have been a letdown on Steam. Thank goodness for amzn!

Also: Just finished a few hours of coop in Dead Island. Fun game!

Purchased Bastion. Bring on the backlog! Thanks, Hanacker and SqueakyFoo.

I must say I am totally NON impressed by LEGO Lord of the rings currently being offered to me "ON SALE" at $33.49. Particularly considering Amazon had it for $7.50 a few days ago.

X-COM is currently being offered to me at $46.89 "on sale". I actually PRE ORDERED it cheaper than that, you regional pricing bastards!

About the only new stuff I really want to get is Farcry 3, Borderlands 2 and maybe Transformers. Farcry 3 is ubiDRM'd so I would prefer to buy directly through steam. Can't recall it dropping under $30 yet.

Borderlands 2 is regionally priced right up the wahoo. GMG is currently offering it to me for (I SHIT YOU NOT) $71 (I suppose it registers on steam at least)

Transformers Fall of Cybertron is on now for $25, which is getting into the range of a purchase, but probably needs to go sub $20.

Did not work for me. Code just reduced the price to €35.00

That's because it's not on sale anymore.
I thinking about doing up a Sins Rebellion 4 pack if I can get 3 other people on board. PM me if you're in.

Flash deals ending in ~4 hours:

• Transformers: War for Cybertron $4.99 (75% off). Explosions.
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron $29.99 (50% off). Sequel explosions.
• Transformers: Alms for Cybertron TBA
• Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers $14.99 (50% off). In which you play an aircraft carrier.
• Carpe Fulgar franchise:
  • Fortune Summoners $4.99 (75% off)
  • Chantelise - A Tale of Two Sisters $2.49 (75% off)
  • Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale $4.99 (75% off)

Flash deals ending ~10 hours:

• Sonic Franchise from 50-77% off. In case you missed it. Again.
• Portal & Portal 2 bundle $6.24 (75% off). In case you missed it the first five times.
• X Superbox $9.99 (75% off). Includes X, X2, X3 and various bonus content.

$20 is the most I'll pay for Alms for Cybertron.

Daily Deals for December 29th:

• Galactic Civilizations Complete Pack (includes I, II and expansions) $6.24 (75% off).
• Payday: The Heist $4.99 (75% off). Robbing Simulator.
• The Witcher $2.49 (75% off). Witching Simulator.
• The Witcher 2 $7.49 (75% off). Witching Simulator sequel.
• Grand Theft Auto franchise 75% off. Mob Crime Simulator.
• Skyrim $29.79 (50% off). 18 cents cheaper than Gamersgate!
• Morrowind and Oblivion are $4.99 each (75% off). 11 thousand hours of gameplay, approximately.
• Bioshock 1 and 2 $9.99 (75% off) or $4.99 each. Libertarian Underwater Paradise Gone Wrong Simulator. And sequel.

A penny cheaper if you buy them individually? I see how it is, Gabe Newell. Or should I say Andrew Ryan?!

A man chooses...not to buy stuff on Steam this year because the sale is disappointing.

I only picked up Grimrock (loads of fun!) but that's it.

I'm boycotting Steam for the rest of 2012!!!

This year's sale definitely seems underwhelming. That may be because I'm following it more closely (more moneys in my pocket). Have previous sales had so many repeats?

The summer and Halloween one did. And this one is either rehashes from then, or prices that just aren't that appealing.
I'm doing better out of this sale since I had no real money to spend during those sales so I didn't really bite at anything unless it was really dirt cheap. This time around we came into some money just before Christmas plus I'm spending my Christmas money on the Steam sale rather then on gifts, and I've been able to pick up some very nice games. But most of those sales were on over the last two sales a well.

As to the question of how awesome the current Steam Winter Sale is, I submit the current games up for Community Choice voting:



(I voted for Farming Simulator 2013.)

Me too, Creole Ned. Me too.

To be fair - and I think others have pointed this out - most of us have already purchased older games on previous Steam sales. As a result the pool of potential purchases are "games discounted more than they were during the previous sale," possibly with a side note of "games I'm newly interested in." The degree to which a game gets discounted is probably some function of the game's age. XCOM and Dishonored were both AAA games released late summer and we're seeing 50% discounts on them; the discounts on AAA games released since then aren't very deep. Steam Sales are becoming so frequent (this is what, the third in three months?) that games simply haven't aged enough for them to provide new opportunities. Likewise the frequency of sales leads to a behavior in which if I don't anticipate playing that game in the next month or two I might as well wait for the next sale, when it will probably be discounted more.

And OZ makes three.

How pathetic is that?

Train Simulator, bitches!

jeffd has a good point in that perhaps maybe Steam has just had too many sales and we've all picked over their catalog. I think that's somewhat true.

I also think that this sale has been underwhelming. Dark Souls went for a maximum of 50% off, whereas Amazon has had it for 60+% off for a week. Silent Hunter III hasn't gone lower than 35% off. Conquest of Elysium hasn't been on sale at all. I don't think I've seen Fallen Enchantress for more than 33% off. There are quite a few games on my list that I'm going to pick up at the end of the sales period, but there are many more that I've expected to have deeper discounts that just haven't materialized. There have been too many repeats on Flash Sales and too few decent titles. I think the old sales method was better - a dozen or so games for 1 day rather than daily sales + flash sales community choice. It just gets old after a while.

A-10C Warthog is actually very good, so I hope that wins, even though I own it already.

I agree about the frequency being an issue. Between midweek sales, a sale over Thanksgiving, and so on its not like its been awhile since Steam last had a sale.

But I also think that there are fewer big titles being release overall now and so fewer things that can go on sale and be a big deal. I know I haven't even bought that many games this year - I've had to really think for GOTY voting what I've even bothered to pick up.

That said, I'm up to something like five purchases so far so its not like I'm not seeing anything worth buying.