By Jim Rossignol on June 30th, 2011 at 6:00 pm.
UPDATE: Confirmed by bizarre communique from Valve. I’ve posted the content of the email below. It seems to be suggest that shenanigans will produce wishlist prizes. See if you can decipher it.
Wuh-oh, there’s something wrong with the Bargainometer! It says there’s something big out there, and it’s closing fast. This Valve Complete Collection for £25 is probably just the first fragment of something much, much larger. Something much bargainer.
I pray for us all. (Lewie’s keeping an eye out over here, too.)
This was the email from Valve, in full:
Dear Everyone:
Me, Syl, and Tappet arrived okay at Steam Summer Camp today. A lot of our friends are here too. The folks we left back at Valve–who all got pink-eye and couldn’t go–said they’d put up the pictures from camp that we send them (after they’re done posting the loads of Summer Camp daily sales and publisher packs on Steam each day). The first one (with our new pals Marty and Max) is there now. This morning, Syl drove Marty’s car. Tappet had to work the pedals, but we got it up to 87 miles an hour on the dirt! We think we can get it to go faster tonight.
The counselors have planned a bunch of camp activities each day. Like playing games gets you special Steam Summer Camp Achievements. Then they say you get tickets for each Achievement you earn. Big whoop, right?!? But, guess what? There’s a Prize Booth where you can trade your tickets for cool stuff. I made the banner on the booth!
At the end of camp, they’re giving away some really big prizes: one-hundred campers get the top ten games on their Wishlist! They were going to have field day races for prizes, but not all of us have legs.
Gotta go.
Sir Roderick Bodkin & Syl & Tappet.
So. Yeah.
30/06/2011 at 18:01 DD says:
Noooooo!!! I have too many games already! Sell me some sort of day extending device to give me time. I need more time!
30/06/2011 at 21:36 iniudan says:
You have to excuse Valve they are so used to their own time distortion that they forget most people don’t live in it. =p
01/07/2011 at 00:25 Wulf says:
You need to have specific desires like mine. I personally find there are too few games.
I discovered Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier only the other day and that game has been filling me with joy. The jet sections have proper flight controls! That’s too rare. Why is it that so many MMOs on the PC are getting flight wrong lately when a PSP game can get it so, so very, very right?
Regardless, that’s been happy fun times. Terraria’s been great. (The community adventure maps have been nothing short of spectacular. Consider that you could probably recreate something kind of VVVVVV-ish now in Terraria.) But aside from GW2 there’s just not a whole lot I’m looking forward to.
Maybe… MAYBE… Skyrim depending on the mods, the situation with the dragons and how much choice is involved, and whether or not the Khajiit are an officially playable race (not just present as NPCs, which is all that I’ve seen officially confirmed thus far)…
So yeah, maybe that.
Much else? Eh.
01/07/2011 at 00:29 Bhazor says:
Another recommendation for the whole Daxter series. One of the precious few non-Mario 3D platformers left and a reminder of just how much fun they can be.
01/07/2011 at 00:45 TillEulenspiegel says:
and whether or not the Khajiit are an officially playable race
They’ve said ten races. That number and list has been unchanged since Morrowind. Khajiit have been in every single TES game. Is there really any doubt that it’s going to be the same old ten races?
01/07/2011 at 02:03 Jumwa says:
Todd Howard confirmed in a video interview that they’d have the same ol’ ten races for player characters. I’d look it up to link, but it’s late and I’m tired.
But this was a recent interview, there’s no doubt.
01/07/2011 at 03:26 ulix says:
I never really got into the Jak & Dexter Series, although I’ve tried one (was it the third on PS2?).
I much rather played Ratchet & Clank, which is awesome in so many kinds of ways. Its more of a hybrid between 3rd-Person Shooter and Platformer, sure, but its doing the Hybrid thing pretty spectacularly.
The Sly Racoon series is supposed to be very good, too. Never tried it though (maybe I should, with the HD collection on PS3).
I love (LOVE!) the 3D Marios though (the 2D ones as well). The two Galaxy games were high among the best games of the last decade.
01/07/2011 at 09:53 vodka and cookies says:
The Ratchet & Clank and Sly Raccon games are better and more accessible but the Jak games are worth checking out. 1 was much more cutesy but they made 2 more grimdark and amped up the difficulty level by a serious amount and the game was super long. The 3 third game is the most balanced, that was followed up by a racing game, a psp game and the last psp game the one Wulf mentions.
There are lets play’s of most of the Jak & Daxter games on the SomethingAwful lets play subforum.
02/07/2011 at 00:27 DD says:
My specific desire is to play video games.
30/06/2011 at 18:02 Vinraith says:
This raises an interesting question: is there anything left on Steam that I have any interest in owning on Steam? I guess we’ll see. I suspect there must be, but I’m drawing a blank at the moment.
30/06/2011 at 18:20 Raiyan 1.0 says:
Have you tried this title called.. what was it… I think, Call of Doody? I hear it’s all the rage. Must be a great game since it’s getting an 7th or 8th sequel. I mean, they can’t keep making sequels if it ain’t good, right?
Might wanna try it out if you haven’t.
30/06/2011 at 18:27 12kill4 says:
I’m feeling the same thing here… 300 steam titles is probably enough to be gaming on with…
30/06/2011 at 18:29 Fwiffo says:
Well this is a great opportunity to push your boundaries and buy stuff you wouldn’t normally. There’s often great indie packs at massive discounts in Steam sales.
30/06/2011 at 18:31 Vinraith says:
@Fwiffo
I own tons of indie packs on Steam, but I really prefer to buy indies direct from the devs when possible.
30/06/2011 at 18:38 Bhazor says:
I’m only on 275 games (about 80% of which are from publisher mega deals) so I think theres still some room.
Again like Vinrath I try to buy indies straight from the developer but often end up buying them again on Steam so I have a (more or less) reliable back up in case the developer sinks and they take their servers with them.
30/06/2011 at 20:11 Squirrelfanatic says:
Indeed, I really try to avoid Steam whenever possible. I’d rather see some good discounts on GOG, which are delivered right now. As if they’re reading my mind and fulfill my wishes. :)
30/06/2011 at 20:22 gwathdring says:
Indies are about the only games I buy full price nowadays. Usually because the price just feels more fair for what I’m getting. I know how much money it takes to make a triple-A games, but so much of that goes into parts of the game that aren’t worth that much to me (graphical power, for example) that I rarely feel like $50 to $60 is the right price for what I’m getting. I’m much more lenient when I buy retail, because of shipping and casings and such.
Especially now that I’ve gotten into board gaming and have such a huge back-catalog from bargain purchases, it’s almost impossible to justify a $60 purchase of a video game even if I think it’s worth every penny.
30/06/2011 at 20:51 Jim Reaper says:
@ gwathdring
That’s the wonderfully ironic thing about most Triple A games these days. They cost hundreds of millions to make, cost about £50 a pop, and are more disposable than ever.
I played Call Of Duty 1, 2 & MW, and I can’t remember a bloody thing about them, because scripted events just aren’t memorable for me. But I still remember vividly things that happened to me in Thief, X-Com, Syndicate, Elite….precisely because they were unscripted and of my own making.
30/06/2011 at 21:27 gwathdring says:
I don’t necessarily mind scripted events though. Mostly for me it’s about playing to the game’s strengths. A lot of indie games take one concept and hammer it out to perfection instead of taking a whole genre worth of gameplay mechanics and ideas and connecting the dots. Irrespective of the level of skill and artistry possessed by the designers, the first kind of game is going to feel more memorable and concise by nature.
But I really want to love games that try to do a little of everything–they’re just a lot harder to make and often publishers don’t let them take risks and railroad the development into the always disappointing “everything that’s been big for the past five years” feature-fest. And even when none of that happens, it’s just incredibly easy for it to feel diluted–like Oblivion. It wasn’t railroaded into a modern feature fest, but it simply couldn’t keep up to speed with all of the features it threw at the user and came out about as concise and playable as a sandbox below the tide line on a windy day.
Even in Mass Effect 2, which had some rather memorable moments in conversation for me, so much of the gameplay and so many of the game design changes went into improving the combat … which was, despite feeling vastly improved to me, the least memorable part of the game. And of course there are all kinds of issues with the writing that could make a whole separate discussion, but think it was a great example of a big-budget game ignoring it’s own strengths in order to be more marketable.
What it really comes down to, for me, is that I can enjoy a lot of big budget titles. And some of them will even be memorable for me. But if I can get at least as much enjoyment in a smaller, shorter, cheaper package then there’s no reason for me to spend hard earned wage on one really fun game I may as well already own over three really fun games that look like nothing I’ve ever played.
30/06/2011 at 22:48 ArthurBarnhouse says:
@Reaper
Really, you don’t remember anything? Because I definitely remember a bullshit gunfight at a fucking ferris wheel that took two days and 50 attempts to complete.
30/06/2011 at 23:32 Kdansky says:
Let me sum up what JimReaper says:
“I prefer good games to mediocre movies about manly guys shooting guns where you have to press some buttons to make the movie go on.”
01/07/2011 at 04:02 Mitthrawn says:
I only have 800 steam games. I must be slacking.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/redsaint9
30/06/2011 at 18:04 skinlo says:
Disgustingly good discount.
30/06/2011 at 18:17 Stromko says:
It’s almost 7$ a-piece for each version of the original Counter Strike, and seeing as the original Counter Strike was perfectly complete in its original, much more popular free-to-play mod format, buying three versions of the premium version seems a bit silly.
It wouldn’t be a bad deal if you didn’t have the Half-Lives, the Left-4-Dead’s, and the Portals, but part of why they offer these bundle deals is we end up buying a lot of games that hardly anyone would actually buy.
30/06/2011 at 20:00 Nallen says:
I have everything in that pack.
30/06/2011 at 22:18 Carra says:
It would be at €23. Damn valve and their €45. Still a nice deal… still ripped of in comparison with you Brits.
But I also already have bought the orange box, HL ep1, hl2, left 4 dead 1 &2 & portal 2 on release date…
01/07/2011 at 01:20 wu wei says:
The Valve pack doesn’t seem to be available in Australia. At least, I’m taken to the main store page when I click on the link in the article above.
01/07/2011 at 03:06 Mattressi says:
Yeah, wu, it’s not available in Oz because it contains the uncensored version of L4D2 in it. Not sure why they don’t just put the censored version in it…probably because it’s crap I guess.
The best you can do is get a friend who lives in a country which isn’t a nanny state (basically any other country) to gift it to you.
30/06/2011 at 18:06 Synesthesia says:
ok, now i do have a good reason to stop procrastinating and turning this in on time. I think my poor, poor wallet just tried to escape through the window. Easy there, fella.
30/06/2011 at 18:06 Teddy Leach says:
“It’s coming.” That’s what- *Dies.*
30/06/2011 at 18:08 Duckee says:
Phew. I own every single game on that list. Even have extra copies of some of them!
30/06/2011 at 18:12 Balobam says:
I have pretty much the exact same problem, yet I still think I’d get a bargain out of it if I bought it now. Stupid, magnificent Valve and it’s Jedi mind tricks
30/06/2011 at 18:08 plectophera says:
not good.
30/06/2011 at 18:08 TimA says:
Brink appears to have returned to the Steam store for me, as well as being reduced.
Whether it’s worth getting is another question. (I’d say not)
30/06/2011 at 18:30 subedii says:
On the one hand, that’s awesome news.
On the other, it sucks, because I know that the multiplayer community is unfortunately dying off fairly fast.
30/06/2011 at 18:31 Fwiffo says:
No. More people are playing Football Manager 2009 according to Steam stats. Probably the biggest screw up of a release I’ve seen in a while.
30/06/2011 at 18:37 westyfield says:
Yep, Brink is back for me (UK) as well.
30/06/2011 at 18:09 Demiath says:
Bring it on. I only have 40+ unfinished games installed on my new computer, that can’t possibly be enough to last me longer than, say, the retirement years of the next reincarnation of me…
30/06/2011 at 18:14 Duckee says:
I wish I had that problem. I have no backlog at all, and it is quite boring at times. Out of interest, how much do you (and other people) play then, say, on a weekly basis? I would have to be honest, and say that I must clock in at around 35 or more. (Yes, lazy student and summer months).
30/06/2011 at 18:22 Vinraith says:
It’s ironic, really. When you’re an undergrad/highschooler, you generally have time to play games but not enough money to buy them. When you’re employed, you generally have plenty of money to buy games but no time to play them. My backlog is even worse than Demiath’s
30/06/2011 at 18:27 Duckee says:
Ah, but I guess I have a lucky mix. As I can afford to get most games, but there are not enough of them to sate my gluttonous hunger.
30/06/2011 at 18:29 Vinraith says:
Hmm, sounds like you either aren’t a fan of time-eating games, or don’t actually spend very long on them. I’ve got thousands of hours logged in games like Morrowind and Europa Universalis 2, so even back when I was dirt poor I never actually ran out of stuff to play.
30/06/2011 at 21:45 gwathdring says:
I played the crap out of Oblivion when it came out. I can spend hours in games like that doing very little. If I hadn’t cranked up the difficulty to 11 in Far Cry 2, I’d be spending a lot of time mulling over bits of scenery instead of tackling the latest tactical impossibility, dying, swearing about forgetting to quicksave, and trying again a few more times and leaving while it’s still the fun sort of challenge. Minecraft. Damn. I’ve spent so much time playing Minecraft.
It’s impossible to say how much time I spend a week. I’m a college student with the summer off who is having trouble getting hired and thus, almost unwillingly, has as much free time as back in high school. But I’m also really into designing board games and I’ve been doing a lot of things other than playing video games. Some weeks it’s a crazy number like 20 hours and some weeks it’s zero. I’d say an average of and hour a day. During the semester it maxes out at about an hour and a half every other day but rarely drops to zero hours a week since I play Left 4 Dead with my girlfriend’s roommate some weekends, minecraft with my girlfriend every so often, and get my ass kicked at Super Smash Borthers by my roommate about once a week (and then beat him mercilessly at Mario Kart 64).
30/06/2011 at 22:52 ArthurBarnhouse says:
Yeah, in college I just replayed games I did have again and again. I think I probably played Killer7 15 times or so.
30/06/2011 at 18:11 Pop says:
Love it that Team Fortress 2 is cheaper thanTeam Fortress. Weird quick of going F2P
30/06/2011 at 18:16 Duckee says:
This is very odd, as this used to be a free mod. Just like CS and DoD. Charging money for old mods? Devious
30/06/2011 at 18:20 LionsPhil says:
Not quite. It seems the way it works on Steam is that TFC is treated like a mission pack or DLC for Half-Life 1; it’s there as a free game available if you own the base. Which is, of course, the same as it was back in the day.
The really odd one is that if you feed Steam your Opposing Force CD key, you get Blue Shift as well. I think there was some publisher dispute with them ever getting the right lists of what key is for which expansion, so they just said “fine, any is good for all”?
30/06/2011 at 18:12 johnpeat says:
The site is a bit broken atm – early deals look a bit meh but something interesting must be around the corner…
That said I think I own most things on Steam I need *famous last words*
30/06/2011 at 18:16 Bhazor says:
The only deal I can see at the moment is 33% off Peggle daily deal. Which runs out in just 264 hours and 47 minutes. Better hurry up and get that.
30/06/2011 at 18:12 Anthile says:
Yup, steam front page is bugging out right now – that always means something big is coming.
30/06/2011 at 18:13 Bodminzer says:
Hoping for a good offer on ME2, as I lost one of my discs. Oh… wait… :(
30/06/2011 at 18:15 skinlo says:
What? Its on there?
30/06/2011 at 18:20 Anthile says:
There seems to be a Mass Effect pack.
30/06/2011 at 18:23 Bodminzer says:
Oh, fab! I just didn’t have much hope as it was an EA game.
30/06/2011 at 18:32 Bhazor says:
£30 for both Mass Effects is a pretty bad deal to be honest. You can get them for £10 each on Amazon.
30/06/2011 at 23:52 8-bit says:
I was going to say that a better deal would be ME2 from D2D because they had it for about a fiver earlier today but it seems to be back to its original price now. still thirty quid for the two games isn’t exactly a great deal, just go to amazon like Bhazor said.
30/06/2011 at 18:14 Rush Ton says:
*freezes his bank account as a precautionary measure*
30/06/2011 at 18:15 20thCB says:
omg omg omg omg it’s coming!!!!
wait…
…
it’s already here…….!!!!!
30/06/2011 at 18:29 Fumarole says:
Indeed it is. My Steam sale RSS just jumped to 1,000 unread items. Blimey.
30/06/2011 at 18:18 Fumarole says:
I suspect my recently purchased Europa Universalis III Chronicles for $7.50 on Steam will hold me over for July.
Well, that and Dungeons of Dredmore which will be released on Steam July 13th.
30/06/2011 at 18:28 Teddy Leach says:
I think Cthulhu Saves the World is also being released on Steam on July the 13th.
30/06/2011 at 20:51 Creeping Death says:
$7.50? Seriously? Man Steam rips us off here in the UK. It’s £13.99 on sale, that’s about $22.50
I’m glad I got it on gamersgate last week for around £6 -.-
30/06/2011 at 23:23 Fumarole says:
I bought it yesterday, before the ginormosale. It was likely a one day special.
01/07/2011 at 02:18 gwathdring says:
It was. It’s about $20 now.
30/06/2011 at 18:32 Hillbert says:
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is half price… My significant other is away, the kids will be going to bed.
Soon it will be dark.
Dare I?
30/06/2011 at 18:37 TimA says:
Do it!
One of my favourite games, ever. Immerse yourself.
30/06/2011 at 19:54 Edgar the Peaceful says:
Yes, do it. On your own. In the dark. With headphones.
Until you fling them across the room and run upstairs to safety of your well-lit bathroom, hug your kids and put on Radio 4
30/06/2011 at 20:39 Torgen says:
I think my hearing loss has shielded me from being overwhelmed with horror on that title, as I watched some youtubes of it and was ok.
But, I won’t be taking that chance.
30/06/2011 at 21:57 Hillbert says:
Nods. Done. 50% off, may drop further it would feel churlish to wait for even more money off.
I think this is going to be like Silent Hill 2 all over again.
30/06/2011 at 18:32 Lobotomist says:
Word of warning:
Steam is selling Age Of Conan (expansion) – The game that goes Free 2 Play tomorrow.
I dont know what the ramifications are. But better to be aware.
30/06/2011 at 18:35 somini says:
It’s cumming…
That’s not a typo.
30/06/2011 at 18:42 Ondrej says:
I just want Portal 2. And Crysis 2. And maybe WItcher 2. No fancy stuff.
30/06/2011 at 18:46 Vinraith says:
Err, Witcher 2 is on GOG and Crysis 2 isn’t on Steam anymore.
30/06/2011 at 18:52 Ondrej says:
Not discounted as far as I can tell.
30/06/2011 at 18:57 Froibo says:
I think the point is they are not on steam.
30/06/2011 at 19:01 Vinraith says:
@Froibo
Witcher 2 is on Steam, I just can’t conceive of why you’d want to buy it there.
30/06/2011 at 19:14 skinlo says:
Its cheaper retail?
Unless you mean why you’d buy it on Steam instead of GoG?
30/06/2011 at 19:17 Froibo says:
Oh so it is.. Must of been a bug when the sale was switching over cause its only $33 now.
01/07/2011 at 01:44 skalpadda says:
“Witcher 2 is on Steam, I just can’t conceive of why you’d want to buy it there.”
Because you’d rather pay 33,49€ than 49,99€?
30/06/2011 at 18:44 Ice-Fyre says:
Steam is playing up for me, says daily deal is peggle with 200 odd hours left
30/06/2011 at 18:52 Text_Fish says:
The only one of those Valve games that I don’t already own is Portal 2, and I just ordered that from Amazon for £14.99.
30/06/2011 at 18:56 Froibo says:
Well steam is going update-o-crazy again. 5 of my indie games have already received a decent sized chunk of a patch.
30/06/2011 at 19:00 Tei says:
Everyone that is scared just now, can send all his money to me. I promise to protect it, as long this sales last.
And maybe forever.
30/06/2011 at 19:07 DethonRells says:
I look upon the desecrated shell of my wallet and ask “why?”
30/06/2011 at 19:16 konrad_ha says:
They managed to crash their own store … well done I guess?
01/07/2011 at 02:21 gwathdring says:
It’s been an interesting day for a steam user …
I was just trying to use the chat feature, but apparently too many people are buying things.
30/06/2011 at 19:19 Gotem says:
Oh, it seems will be like the treasure hunt, but this tiem you will be able to downlaod some DLC for games as a prize
30/06/2011 at 19:19 bwion says:
And all the RPGs and first-person shooters and indie platformers and strategy games and hidden object games and crazy Eastern European games that defy description will look up and shout “Buy us!”
And I’ll look down and whisper, “…yeah, all right.”
30/06/2011 at 19:22 johnpeat says:
Oh crap it wants me to do some work for free games – oh crap…
I love this stuff – and I’ve got WORK to do
Crap…
30/06/2011 at 19:25 Warth0g says:
…………….and it’s up.. Steam sale just gone live!!! RUN
30/06/2011 at 19:25 noobnob says:
My wallet is safe this time. No more game purchases, no more.
Until the end of the year, that is.
30/06/2011 at 19:26 ManaTree says:
IT HAS BEGUN!
Steam Summer Camp. Looks similar to the Treasure Hunt, but to another level.
30/06/2011 at 19:26 Warth0g says:
………….and it’s crashed. Anyhoo, the theme seems to be Summer Camp in case you missed it…
30/06/2011 at 19:26 Vinraith says:
Can I just say how irritated I am by the concept of “limited edition” DLC which cannot be purchased but must be earned by jumping through inane hoops? Less of this, please.
30/06/2011 at 19:38 mwoody says:
Though I usually hate DLC, this is a step up in my book. You are at least being rewarded for in-game feats, rather than merely being handed a bonus because you gave them money. I look at it like a meta minigame, in other words.
30/06/2011 at 19:41 phosgene says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I
30/06/2011 at 19:48 cjlr says:
And there I was, just about to complain about the same thing! You said it, Vinraith.
30/06/2011 at 19:52 Xocrates says:
@mwoody: Are you mad? I expect my DLC to be free or something that I unlock by handing the Dev Money. Being forced to jump through random hoops to get access to a (presumably) time limited DLC is a bit balls.
Honestly, the current promo only makes sense if there’s a way to get that DLC once the sale is over, because some of those seem to good to simply disregard.
I’m not talking about the hats here.
30/06/2011 at 19:57 Vinraith says:
@mwoody
Metagames are well and good, but they should never be the ONLY way to access content. This is even more true when the metagames themselves REQUIRE the purchase of other games. You’re still paying for the DLC, you’re just doing it by paying for other games, then being forced to play them. That’s neither fun nor economically sensible, it’s just bullshit.
30/06/2011 at 20:18 Lilliput King says:
I’m pretty confident there’ll be other ways to access the DLC. The Spacechem one in particular sounds just too well thought out to be competition only.
30/06/2011 at 20:39 Vinraith says:
@LK
Yeah, I certainly hope so. The Fate of the World and SpaceChem entries are both of interest, but there are real limits to how much time and self-respect I’m willing to trade for them.
30/06/2011 at 21:06 TillEulenspiegel says:
I’m just a bit shocked to see DLC for X3:TC.
I don’t own any of the games in question, and I’m not about to buy them so I can play them as a chore. Oh well.
30/06/2011 at 22:42 Veracity says:
They can’t very well subsequently give any new stuff there away like they did most (all?) of the actual video game bits of the potato sale because, after balancing balls on their noses for treats, people would be even more annoyed than TF2 purchasers without special hats. So if they do make them available, they’ll have to charge for them. Maybe the idea is that it increases the perceived value of extra bits that people might otherwise complain are too slight to pay for. Although, if Paradox is any indication, you’d have to get very sparklehorse to get scoffed at for being “too slight”. Surely I didn’t read aright that they fiddled a bit with some EU3 sprites and are selling the result?
30/06/2011 at 23:03 Lilliput King says:
Seems perfectly plausible to me that they might put this stuff on sale for up to a couple quid after the sale ends.
30/06/2011 at 23:45 Xocrates says:
Yeah, I’ve unlocked the Spacechem DLC and it is a full chapter with a fair amount of new stuff. (It’s also bleedin’ hard)
As such it would be a huge dick move not to be able to unlock it after the sale is over, so they are probably planning to release it one way or another afterwards.
01/07/2011 at 02:36 MD says:
Is my developer-bought copy of SpaceChem registerable on Steam?
edit: Yes. The whole thing froze up when I added the code, but when I restarted Steam it was in my list. Now to hope there are at least 2 ‘tickets’ available quickly and easily in games I own.
30/06/2011 at 19:29 magnus says:
Boo! I get something about a Summer Camp Sale click on something and this happens ‘Unable to connect to server. Server may be offline or you may not connected to the internet.-101′ Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
30/06/2011 at 19:32 detective says:
Nooo I ‘am getting this error:
Error 503 Service Unavailable
Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:
Varnish cache server
30/06/2011 at 20:18 Darko Drako says:
Cant access steam myself at the moment.
30/06/2011 at 19:32 Ysellian says:
Lol server crashed for me.
30/06/2011 at 19:36 johnpeat says:
TDU2 for £5 – wallet open already BASTARDS
30/06/2011 at 19:40 BooleanBob says:
Wait, they’re still charging money for Ricochet?!
30/06/2011 at 19:41 EOT says:
Oh thank god I want nothing on the front page, or already own them. My wallet is safe….for now.
30/06/2011 at 19:54 Vesperan says:
Summer camp!?
Its freaking winter down here in the other half of the world.
We maybe a minority of the world’s population, but damnit we’re good looking minority!
01/07/2011 at 02:27 MD says:
Speak for yourself :-(
30/06/2011 at 20:10 Buemba says:
RPS favorites The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are currently 75% off too ($6.24 for both games).
01/07/2011 at 16:37 Malibu Stacey says:
or £3.74 for us UK types which is a ridiculous bargain.
30/06/2011 at 20:21 lonesock says:
I’m going to annoy everyone who reads RPS by saying I’m into this just for the TF2 glasses.
*puts on real life “deal with it” glasses*
30/06/2011 at 20:23 Kaira- says:
Well, I’m safe for today, there’s absolutely nothing that interested me and if it did interest me, I already owned it.
30/06/2011 at 20:24 man-eater chimp says:
I have 3 or 4 games on steam to play through already without having more random games to buy!
30/06/2011 at 20:33 TsunamiWombat says:
Damn you steam devil! Stop takin my money!
30/06/2011 at 20:34 edwardoka says:
Feeling particularly diddled after paying full price pre-release on Test Drive Unlimited 2, which I bought on the strength of TDU1. I’ve played it for maybe 2 hours.
Reduced to £4.99 now :(
30/06/2011 at 20:38 shoptroll says:
Ack! Hide the wallet!
30/06/2011 at 20:49 Urthman says:
[...re-shuffles Steam wishlist to put most expensive items at the top...]
30/06/2011 at 21:05 PoulWrist says:
I won’t get anything cause I don’t get achievements. Grinding is not for me :(
30/06/2011 at 21:08 Johnny Lizard says:
indeed.
01/07/2011 at 02:20 johnpeat says:
Grinding != Achievements – not always, in fact not even most of the time.
The Toki Tori ‘achievement’ requires you to use the tools in selected puzzles in different ways.
The AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa level requires you to die in order to win – that’s new to me in that game :)
Not every achivement is a pointless grind – they can lead to you discovering allsorts of cool stuff too – don’t be such a wuss eh?
30/06/2011 at 21:09 Lambchops says:
I think I might actually manage to buy nothing this time. I’ve definitely oome to the relisation that I have games far in excess of time to complete them so am only going to buy titles when I’m either super excited about them or if they are so spectacularly cheap it would be almost rude not to.
I’m also refraining from taking a punt on titles I think there’s only a slight chance I’ll enjoy, even if they do only cost two quid. This will stop things like Torchlight from sitting unplayed in my list of games having deleted them upon confirming after a couple of hours that I still don’t like action RPGs and it wasn’t just that the Diablo demo I played as a kid was shite.
30/06/2011 at 21:21 Gar says:
I need a good deal on Morrowind (Definitely) and Dragon Age: Origins (I think?) if I am to buy anything. Oh, and the New Vegas DLC’s, if those go on sale, but I doubt those will be. I think those are the only games that I have not played and am feeling the urge to add to my Steam list. I would throw Crysis 2 in there, but since it’s not available there anymore… :/
30/06/2011 at 21:23 Freud says:
Very timely for me, seeing as I had gone back to playing season 2031-2032 in FM11 because I had nothing else I wanted to play.
30/06/2011 at 21:25 Rikard Peterson says:
I’ve waited for a sale to buy Portal 2, so now I’m actually considering going for the full Valve pack. I’ve never played a Half-life game, and that’s almost something you ought to have done when you’re interested in game design. It comes up so often in those discussions…
(I haven’t played L4D either, but that doesn’t interest me much.)
30/06/2011 at 21:34 johnpeat says:
Original Half Life is still very playable BUT a lot of the amazing things it did will seem a touch passe now.
Enemies who were smart enough to work their way around behind you were amazing back in the day tho – and it’s a nice, tight, solid game.
Half Life 2 – is worse if anything because it’s novely (the physics gun) has been done-to-death everywhere else now. That’s not to say it’s a crap game – it isn’t – but it does overstay it’s welcome by quite a lot IMO, you’ll probably find it less playable than the original.
The add-ons/episodes for both are non-essential unless you’re buzzed about the main games…
30/06/2011 at 21:31 johnpeat says:
It’s made me play Toki Tori AGAIN!!!
It may look cute but it has the heart and soul of a concrete elephant…
It’s also bastard hard – in case you didn’t catch that bit…
30/06/2011 at 23:05 johnpeat says:
Oh man that reminded me that – much as I loved Toki Tori at first, the later levels are vicious nasty miserable cuntishness…
It you’re going to make a puzzle where there’s only ONE possible solution (but a million possibilities) – you have to put in some CLUES for people.
Once you venture into Hard/Bonus and even the later Regular levels, the game really does become a “try every possible combination of things you possibly can” thing – which is, frankly, fucking grating…
Please Please Please can we stop including this game in promotions – please….
30/06/2011 at 21:48 vivlo says:
(time for some mac whining)
hah, not much things good for us mac users, apart maybe valve pack which has some neat mac stuff, but which i already bought at full price. :(
ans alos i just realized : Bioshock and Bioshock 2 aren’t available for mac on steam, but they are on the Apple app store. At twice the price, no discount. Hate gaming on a mac.
30/06/2011 at 22:10 skinlo says:
I didn’t think you bought a Mac for gaming really. :)
30/06/2011 at 22:19 deadpan says:
Install Boot Camp. Problem Solved.
01/07/2011 at 00:42 vivlo says:
@skinlo : i didn’t for sure … but i’d like it too
@deadpan : mb i will… but then you need to BUY Windows :/ (edit : or use other ways, which i can’t talk about in public space, but are even trickier in this case i suppose)
01/07/2011 at 02:43 field_studies says:
I bought Revenge of the Titans at 33% off, which, IIRC, got favourable reviews here, and it says it’s Mac friendly.
01/07/2011 at 16:52 Malibu Stacey says:
AI War + all 3 current expansions is £10.
SpaceChem is £6.
If you want something shootery, Killing Floor is £7.50 (or £10 if you want the 4 completely optional skin packs too) & has a massive summer event update coming out today. It will likely be on a daily discount during the sale though so you may want to wait.
All 3 of the above are SteamPlay games & I recommend them all very highly.
Other Mac compatible games of note would be Trine, Amnesia, Torchlight & Frozen Synapse although I wouldn’t bet against those being on daily discounts later too.
Just get BootCamp & dual boot Windows 7 like every other Mac owner I know.
30/06/2011 at 23:05 P4p3Rc1iP says:
Wait…. What is Max doing there? Where is Sam? What’s all this?
01/07/2011 at 00:39 MadTinkerer says:
What’s this? All the Potato Sack games (and a couple others) suddenly updating!?!
ARG!?!?!
(Need further investigation!!!!!!)
Edit: Nope, not an ARG, but it has to do with The Steam Summer Sale Prize Booth. Not a bad offer!
01/07/2011 at 00:46 lokimotive says:
I just bought Bit.Trip Runner and my thumbs hurt like hell. I also just bought Borderlands, but that’s going to take forever to download. I’m not totally interested in it, but for 7.50, ahh let’s give it a try, eh?
01/07/2011 at 02:18 johnpeat says:
I thought Borderlands was excellent – until, when I completed it, it insisted I play the whole fucking game again just to ‘level up’ so I could play the DLC – I fell asleep…
Also, playing DLC like Dr Zed before you complete the game once screws-up the level/difficulty stuff for the whole game meaning you’ll spend eons fighting piss-easy or nails-hard enemies – I don’t understand how you can get this shit so wrong, simply look at the player’s level and adjust the enemies to that FFS.
When it’s working, it’s amazing tho – it’s Diablo with GUNZ – lots of GUNZ…. MOAR GUNZ
01/07/2011 at 02:52 Martel says:
That’s good to hear JohnPeat, the fun parts not the broken parts. Something I’ll keep in mind, not to go out of order. My buddy and I have never played it, and really never paid attention to it until today. I looked and said…is that Diablo with guns? He said, I believe so….and now we both own it. Hopefully 2player co-op is good stuff.
01/07/2011 at 08:52 luminosity says:
You don’t have to play the DLC to get the levels out of whack. Just do all the quests in each area before moving to the next, and soon everything is way too easy. It boggles my mind that they didn’t scale to the player’s level.
01/07/2011 at 02:23 aldo_14 says:
Bugger. And here I am with a Brit account in the US, with steam resolutely refusing to connect.
01/07/2011 at 03:13 Melf_Himself says:
Nerd failure – nobody has commented on blatant Back to the Future reference, i.e.:
1) Marty’s car
2) Attempting to get it faster than 87 miles per hour (could that be perhaps…. 88 miles per hour? Great Scott!!)
This clearly has hidden meaning that you should all ponder immediately.
01/07/2011 at 03:40 mwoody says:
It’s a pity they couldn’t get Din’s Curse up on Steam. I’ve been waiting for that game to get cheap again (along with the expansion).
01/07/2011 at 06:30 Man-E-Faces says:
The THQ pack looks real enticing to me.. :( . MUST. STAY. AWAY!!!
01/07/2011 at 09:44 absolofdoom says:
Welp, finally got Recettear (or however you spell it…), $5 was too good to ignore. Oh, and I got Terraria. And ponied up the cash for The Witcher 2. And this is only the first day of the steam sales…dear god I’m screwed.
01/07/2011 at 11:59 Brutal Deluxe says:
I’m so excited I will be sick!
01/07/2011 at 16:56 Malibu Stacey says:
You horrible bastards. Terraria for £4.49. Now I have no excuse especially since yesterday was pay day =(
02/07/2011 at 13:04 Ayam says:
What was on sale the first day? Damn social life got in the way. Don’t tell me I missed a Witcher 2 deal, I see it’s number 1 in the charts. :(
02/07/2011 at 13:11 Rinox says:
You missed a Witcher 2 deal. :-( But, if it’s any comfort, Valve tends to repeat its ‘best’ sales on Sunday during sales. So make sure you check tomorrow in case it gets repeated.