Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Lewie Procter on August 25th, 2012 at 6:00 pm.

Gosh what a horrible day. Is it torrential storms and THUNDER AND LIGHTNING IN CAPITAL LETTERS near you too? Unless you’re planning on braving the outside world to attend the RPS social club tonight, I strongly recommend spending your entire weekend indoors playing some new PC games. Here’s some fun games that you could buy, all of them cheaper than they usually cost. For more gaming deals, check out SavyGamer.co.uk.

Tiny & Big, Grandpa’s Leftovers – £3.16/€3.99/$4.99
Cutting the world into bits is the order of the day here. This made John say these words:

I absolutely adore this game, at the same time as so frequently screaming at it how bloody stupid it is. Even if you ignore its obsession with underpants (which is reason alone to buy it), and the absolutely wonderful art style, and the collection of obscure and interesting music found throughout, and even the way Batman-esque onomatopoeic cartoon words so perfectly spring up for all actions, just the game’s three core ideas make this something splendid.

More here.

Offspring Fling! – £1.70/€2.04/$2.72
This is a sidescrolling puzzler about collecting lost chicks, then throwing them at walls and buttons. Here’s wot Alec though.

It’s not a gimmicky concept stretched until breaking point over a handful of levels, but a fully fleshed-out offering that milks admirable variety from the core idea of throwing chicks around a room. Perhaps it could be argued to be a little too retro, but what really makes Offspring Fling sing to me is that it’s genuinely evoking and then slightly building on that era of puzzle-platforming, rather than being an arch reimaginging or a shameless nostalgia trip.

There is a browser version demo playable here.

Ultimate Ultima Collection – £11.31/€14.34/$17.94
Lots of Ultimas. They’re available as one big package, or individually at a lesser discount. Enter Dan’s “memory palace” for a look back at Ultima Underworld II:

I stopped adding substantially to my memory palace maybe ten years ago. It’s not that there’s not lots of room to expand; Underworld II was subtitled “Labyrinth of Worlds” and featured eight other heart-breakingly strange and well-designed worlds that you had to visit, where I could have crammed in memories; no, it was just that I didn’t find myself with the time to retreat there for several years, ironically generating memories that I didn’t store and now have mostly lost.

GOG have also for some Ultima freebies in the form of Ultima 4, Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire & Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dream.

Dino Run SE, Guerrilla Bob, Gunman Clive, Ichi, Muffin Knight, Paper Monsters, Samurai II: Vengeance & Syder Arcade – £3.17/€4/$5
Or pay any price and just get Dino Run SE, Ichi, Muffin Knight & Syder Arcade.
A nice selection of games from developers that are looking to raise their profiles in preparation for submitting to Steam’s Greelight service. Dino Run SE is a blast, you’re a dinosaur and you have to run from left to right in a prehistoric race against EXTINCTION. I’ve not played the others, but Syder Arcade looks like a pretty rad shmup and Gunman Clive looks like Megaman but with a cowboy.

Deal of the week
Civilization V – £4.74/€5.99/$7.49
Civilization V [Goatee Edition] – £7.90/€9.98/$12.49
Registers on Steam, and since this is from Amazon US, you’ll need to enter a US billing address.
The Civ games are great, and Civ 5 is a great Civ. It’s maybe not the best one, but it’s without a doubt the most pleasing to look at. Alec said:

That’s Civ V’s thing- lavishness. It’s dangerous to kick off any game write-up harking on about how pretty the graphics are, but in Civ V’s case it’s genuinely integral to the game’s appeal. It’s not that it’s hyper-graphics. It’s that it’s meticulously detailed, a crafted world rather than merely a glossy one. The units are on the fuzzy side, for instance, but as a whole it’s this wide world of tiny, moving parts. Boardgame roots it might have, but this is Civ moving into being a living thing.

More here.

Also of note:
From Dust – £2.99/€3.74/$3.74
Shoot Many Robots – £3.99/€4.99/$4.99. Registers on Steam.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat – £3.24/€3.49/$3.74
Amnesia: The Dark Descent – £3.24/€3.74/$4.99
Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds: Survivor & Trine – £6.99
Darksiders – £4. Registers on Steam.
Guns of Icarus, Laxius Force, Metal Drift, Revelations 2012 & Zero Gear – Pay what you want
BIT.TRIP BEAT, Fieldrunners, SpaceChem, & Uplink – Pay what you want
All the Serious Sam’s for cheap.

Get all the latest gaming discounts on all platforms over at SavyGamer.co.uk.