By Lewie Procter on December 22nd, 2012 at 1:00 pm.
The Saturday before Christmas is for being thankful that you got all your Christmas shopping done before the seasonal bacterial invasion riddling your body has turned from “a bit of a cold” to “full on poorly”, wrapping yourself around a mug of Lemsip and whiskey, then taking a look at the great many number of PC games that are available to buy for not very much money. There’s loads more cheap games to be found over at SavyGamer.co.uk, and there will be some fantastic deals over the next few weeks, although I’m going to try to take some time off this year too. Here’s this week’s bucket:
LA Noire – £3.07/€3.79/$4.99
Available as either a Steam key, or direct download. You can also pay a little more to get the complete edition with the DLC. This is from Amazon US, so you’ll need to enter a US billing address, and some card providers may charge a fee.
Alec said this about LA Noire, although he has shifty eyes so maybe it was a LIE:
It’s not Rockstar’s strongest hour, but it is perhaps their most ambitious – and thus is one to check out, especially for the faces, dialogue and the rare chance to see a multi-million dollar budget spent on an adventure game, of all things.
LA Noire is a stylish and exceptionally clever game, but unfortunately most of that cleverness is trapped within its own head: a mad professor who becomes exasperated at his faithful assistant’s endless incorrect guesses, but who never thinks to explain how his crazy mind really works.
The rest is here.
Resident Evil 5 – £3.50/similar prices in other currencies. Apply coupon “GMG30-DPLIM-DN831″. Registers on Steam.
Going against Resident Evil 5 is that it’s not Resident Evil 4. On the other hand, it’s also not Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil 4 was the definitive modern action shooty game, and comparatively Resident Evil 5 was a jumbled mess of compromises. For starters, they let the fact that it was a coop game ruin the pacing of the single player campaign, where you often have to stand around for ages watching your AI partner complete some action or other. They really should have had two separate shorter campaigns. They also got rid of inventory Tetris, and gave way more of the zombies long range weapons, but you have a control scheme not really designed well to handle them. It has some decent moments, and those alone are easily worth the price of admission here, it’s also an above average port. I wonder if Tango Gameworks’ Zwei will come out for PC.
Stealth Bastard Deluxe – £3.49/similar prices in other currencies
Registers on Steam.
Adam stalked Stealth Bastard from the shadows long enough to get a fully formed opinion of it. He thought this:
It’s a puzzle game rather than a stealth adventure like Mark of the Ninja, although there are some similarities. Stealth Bastard does offer a variety of tools to find alternate solutions to its chambers, although none can be used on the first attempt during which the aim is to find a solution, which may well involve experimentation, but and structurally it’d be much better described as Super Meat Portal 2. Please don’t think about the phrase ‘meat portal’ for too long.
The rest is here
The Binding of Isaac, Closure, Dungeon Defenders, Legend of Grimrock, Shank 2 & Snapshot – £3.95/€4.84/$6.39
Or pay any price to get all these minus Dungeon Defenders & Legend of Grimrock. Registers on Steam.
I’ve not yet played most of the games in this bundle, but I’m looking forwards to finally getting around to trying Legend of Grimrock, Closure & Snapshot. Although let me tell you, I am very familiar with The Binding of Isaac though. I’m somewhat bound to The Binding of Isaac, and it’s bound to me. I’ve poured over 300 hours into studying it’s absurd layers of interviewed roughlikelike systems, and whilst I’d say I’ve pretty much mastered it, I still feel like I’m learning something new each time I play it. Also included in this bundle is a copy of Indie Game: The Movie, where you can see some of how Super Meat Boy got made.
Deal of the week
Steam Sale
Did you hear that there’s a Steam sale going down? It’s got some cheap games in it. As usual I’ve got a list of everything in the Steam sale over at SavyGamer, and I’ll try to keep it up to date over Christmas. For today, I’d recommend the excellent Double Fine Bundle, Mirror’s Edge and the Prince of Persia games for cheap (if you’re quick), also English Country Tune, Zeno Clash & Chime are all good uses of a bit of spare change.
Also of note:
Super Meat Boy, PC/Mac – £2.37/similar prices in other currencies. Apply coupon “IAMANELDERGEEK”. Registers on Steam.
Devil May Cry 4 – £1.19. Apply coupon “GMG30-DPLIM-DN831″. Registers on Steam.
NiGHTS into Dreams HD – £4.20. Apply coupon “GMG30-DPLIM-DN831″. Registers on Steam.
Scoregasm, PC/Mac/Linux – Pay What You Want. Registers on Steam.
Crysis, Crysis: Warhead & Crysis 2: Maximum Edition – £9.28/€11.38/$14.99
Hitman: Absolution – £12.37/€15.17/$19.99. Registers on Steam.
Homefront, Metro 2033, Red Faction: Armageddon, Red Faction Gorilla, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl & Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – £4.64/€5.69/$7.49. Registers on Steam.
For more gaming deals, head to SavyGamer.co.uk for bargains on games across all platforms.
22/12/2012 at 13:12 Cardinal says:
Happy Christmas bargain person.
22/12/2012 at 13:20 tciecka says:
Indeed! Have a Happy Christmas!
I truly appreciate these posts.
22/12/2012 at 13:21 Wedge says:
Ha ha, Red Faction Gorilla. The THQ pack on Steam itself is pretty funny, seeing what a company will sell it’s games for in bankruptcy. I think it is their entire Steam catalog for only $25. Shame Gorilla is really the only game in there I like, and already have it.
Also yay for cheap DMC4, Capcom rarely seems to drop anything below 50%, so getting that for under $5 is nice.
22/12/2012 at 13:27 KDR_11k says:
You should give the others a try, Saints Row and Space Marine are great fun.
22/12/2012 at 16:32 djbriandamage says:
In my opinion Titan Quest is the best action RPG ever made – even better than Diablo and Dungeon Siege.
PC Gamer loved Company of Heroes, though I can’t speak to that because I’m too dumb to get anywhere in RTSes.
Metro 2033′s only fault is its AI, but the setting and storytelling are some of the best since Half Life.
Saint’s Row The Third is a good, wacky GTA clone but scores enormous points for allowing you to play the whole campaign co-op. My wife and I had a brilliant time with this.
$25 is a steal for this bundle. If any one game strikes your fancy it alone would be worth this price.
22/12/2012 at 13:22 Cytrom says:
The steam sale is a bit disappointing so far. The stuff I bought were all at (much) better prices at Amazon, Greenmangaming, Gamersgate, etc.
22/12/2012 at 13:31 Wedge says:
Because they have to be to compete! Amazing how that works. And still funny when you can take most of those games and register them on Steam anyways.
22/12/2012 at 13:43 Llewyn says:
Or you would be able to if Gamersgate didn’t keep selling games that they’ve run out of Steam keys for :-(
22/12/2012 at 13:52 Donkeyfumbler says:
I’d say there’s just a more even spread of deals these days. Rather than buying 95% of my games through steam, I probably now only do about 30%, and those are only when the games are on fairly hefty sale – I’ve never bought a new or nearly new game from them.
Other sites are MUCH better for new games, particularly GMG and are now catching up fast for sale prices too.
That said, £10.00 for the Sims 3 on Steam is cheaper than it’s ever been before and £5 less than when I bought it about two weeks ago from Origin during their sale (it’s a present – really), so they can still come up with the goods when they want to.
22/12/2012 at 14:41 Tacroy says:
I just wish it was easier to tell what was going on with Amazon. I guess I’m spoiled by Steam, but when I look at Amazon I have no idea which specials are extra special (e.g, daily deals) and which ones are just “hay this is what’s on sale”.
22/12/2012 at 15:06 Cytrom says:
Yeah, steam has the best structure and readability of all the digital distributors. No question about that.
23/12/2012 at 21:46 mwoody says:
I thoroughly agree. I’ve been using this thread over at CAG to track what’s a good deal, when. That link may require registering for the forum; I forget.
22/12/2012 at 13:39 boredofall says:
Guys , i just got 2 working psn codes from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Y3xHDTTe8
22/12/2012 at 18:06 lordcooper says:
1. This is a PC site.
2. No you bloody didn’t.
22/12/2012 at 13:42 Shadowcat says:
Lewie: If possible, it would be great if you could differentiate a bit more clearly between games which need Steam, and those which merely provide a Steam key as an option?
Just saying “Registers on Steam” is a little confusing, particularly for games which are actually DRM-free (such as “Scoregasm”) but happen to also provide a Steam key for those who want one.
22/12/2012 at 20:44 nearly says:
alternatively, you yourself could put in the barest minimum of effort required to click on a link and see for yourself.
22/12/2012 at 13:42 TheFatDM says:
I bought, for myself, Simcity 4 and Psychonauts for about 50 SEK. I’d say that was pretty nice.
22/12/2012 at 13:49 Buttless Boy says:
No mention of the mad Bethesda bundle that took Gamersgate offline? I guess it’s not really a deal anymore since they fixed it, but I had so much fun with that. Trying to buy it between pages failing to load was like some kind of crazy puzzle game.
22/12/2012 at 14:09 Cytrom says:
Umm.. details?
22/12/2012 at 14:17 Buttless Boy says:
Oh, right, sorry. It’s morning here and I suck at morning.
This bundle was temporarily, and presumably accidentally, on sale for $28 for several hours last night. The news spread fast and by the time I heard about it, Gamersgate was so swamped with people trying to buy it that actually buying it was nearly impossible. The site seems to be mostly recovered now, the price is back to $300 and they’re not even offering the bundle anymore, and apparently they’ve run out of Steam keys for all the games, but a lot of folks got one hell of a crazy deal. I hope it doesn’t end up costing Gamersgate too much money.
22/12/2012 at 14:39 Gorf says:
Holy shit thats funny….not for them… but I love accidents like this.
22/12/2012 at 14:45 Buttless Boy says:
Yeah, I feel kind of bad for buying two copies of the bundle, but on the other hand I’ve got some pretty awesome Christmas presents to give people now. Which won’t be playable until they get new keys sometime next month, apparently.
22/12/2012 at 19:17 Koozer says:
“THIS BUNDLE CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS
No products available in your region”
What an incredible deal!
22/12/2012 at 17:21 abandonhope says:
I was loading pages and waiting out the several-minute load times by tabbing back into a game all night. Alas, I also had to get past creating an account, and I wasn’t able to seal the deal before they took the site down. Managing to both sign in and keep/get the collection in my cart was the main holdup. It makes me feel better that it was a mistake and not a time-limited deal that I missed out on. I feel kind of bad for them, in fact.
22/12/2012 at 14:38 LXM says:
Just a heads up, I managed to grab Sleeping Dogs over on GMG (activates on steam):
on sale for $17, then use the current 30% off code to bring it down around $11 and THEN you can get an additional $6 credit on GMG (or $4 cash back).
I was surprised it let me use a coupon and still get credit, could be a mistake?
http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/ca/en/pc/games/action/sleeping-dogs-digital-edtition-na/
22/12/2012 at 15:11 StranaMente says:
The code for the 30% voucher is GMG30-DPLIM-DN831 . Here are other interesting deals green man gaming blog
22/12/2012 at 23:11 wengart says:
If you look a few posts down on the blog they mention their new preorder deal. If you pre-order a game you can either get cash back or store credit. The amount depends on the game. For example, pre ordering Metro: Last Light can either get you $7 back or $15 in GMG store credit. however this does mean that you can’t use any vouchers on them.
Also because I like free money if you use this referral link: href=”http://www.greenmangaming.com/?gmgr=rinasawe”> http://www.greenmangaming.com/?gmgr=rinasawe to register your account you will get 2($, £, €) in store credit when you make your first purchase.
22/12/2012 at 15:15 Delusibeta says:
Yeah, Sleeping Dogs for an effective £4 is outright bonkers, and the refund’s already working through the bank systems already.
22/12/2012 at 16:17 mwoody says:
I can not for the life of me get this site to work. In firefox, it says it declined my payment – understandable, I guess, when I used a credit card, but it did it for Paypal, too.
In IE, I can’t even click the “checkout” button.
What a terribly coded site.
UPDATE: You have to not merely allow all sites, but outright disable NoScript for this to function, as their checkout process is detected and blocked as a cross-site scripting attack. As to why it didn’t work in IE, I have no idea.
22/12/2012 at 18:04 buckchoi says:
Thank you so much! I can’t believe that price is going to be beat, even by steam, for a while.
22/12/2012 at 18:29 Martel says:
I just finished Sleeping Dogs myself, and if you like that style of game (GTA clone) then it’s definitely worth it at that price. There are some annoyances around controls, especially when driving, but it’s still a fun game.
22/12/2012 at 16:04 Martel says:
Getgamesgo has Xcom for $24.99, pretty tempting
http://www.getgamesgo.com/product/xcom-enemy-unknown
22/12/2012 at 16:35 Vinraith says:
To be honest, I’m finding the sales on Gamersgate, GOG, and Amazon far more enticing than Steam at the moment. It seems odd to only mention the latter.
23/12/2012 at 01:40 Gorf says:
Yeah and Gamefly too….Skyrim was £9.99 (maybe still is)
23/12/2012 at 22:08 Malibu Stacey says:
Vinraith bitching about Steam, must be a day which ends with a ‘y’.
24/12/2012 at 02:13 yourgrandma says:
You can thank steam for making everyone else so much more competitive :D
22/12/2012 at 16:49 Jupiah says:
When the heck is Capcom gonna allow Resident Evil 4 to be sold as a digital download on the PC? You can buy downloadable versions of 5 and 6 on PC, and there are downloadable versions of 4 on the freaking Xbox and PS3, but as far as I know no digital distributors carry RE4. Seriously why not? Does Capcom hate money or something?
22/12/2012 at 16:54 malkav11 says:
I’m pretty sure they’re embarassed. Resident Evil 4 for PC is one of the worst ports in the history of mankind.
22/12/2012 at 16:54 Dominic White says:
RE4 was an astoundingly botched port, to the point where it literally launched without a lighting engine. It also has wonky gamepad support, despite the game effectively requiring one. The port was farmed out to some third-tier group in China, rather than being an in-house job.
Capcom are saving themselves a lot of hate-mail by burying RE4 on the PC. Just get the Wii version and emulate it if you have a decent CPU – that’s the definitive version of the game. It even has mouse-friendly pointer aiming.
Edit: Gameplay footage of RE4 Wii on PC with a high-res texture pack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otw6aodpBJg
It looks far better than even Capcom’s official HD re-release on 360/PS3.
22/12/2012 at 22:18 DrGonzo says:
I think there may have been two ports of RE4. Could be wrong, but I played it on pc and the port was fine (although had to use a pad, m+k was horrific). The graphics looked fine, it ran fine. But it was called Biohazard in the menus rather than Resident Evil.
22/12/2012 at 17:12 Jupiah says:
Ah, well if that’s the reason then why not rebuild the port and sell it? I’m certain it’d sell well. I mean, they rebuilt an HD version for the consoles, didn’t they?
Oh well, that Dolphin emulator looks pretty sweet, I didn’t even know you could hook up wiimotes and sensor bars to a PC! And it’s in 1080p HD! The Wii can’t even do that, holy crap.
22/12/2012 at 18:21 HadToLogin says:
Making new port is a bit harder then getting few texture-dudes to make bigger textures – there are many texture-swaps for many games, but no modder made Red Dawn Redemption port, or even fully working PSP-Gta-Liberty/ViceCity Stories ports…
22/12/2012 at 17:02 Baines says:
Dungeon Defenders in Humble Bundle is the $50 Complete edition, containing all of the game’s $110+ of DLC.
Even if you already own Dungeon Defenders, if you are missing some of the DLC, it may be worth buying the bundle.
22/12/2012 at 17:09 Martel says:
oh my, I didn’t realize that. I haven’t played DD for ages, but having a swath of DLC might get me back into it.
23/12/2012 at 02:36 Malibu Stacey says:
$110 of DLC for a terrible game doesn’t make it any less terrible.
I think some of the developers must have worked in the Exchequer in Zimbabwe before moving into games development.
23/12/2012 at 08:00 Baines says:
It’s a good game.
It just happens to also be a game that abuses the concept of DLC. And honestly even there it gives more value than some bigger companies offer.
23/12/2012 at 13:05 Dominic White says:
Well, they’ve stopped producing DLC for it, and the Humble Bundle version contains ALL of it, so grumbling about it now is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
23/12/2012 at 22:05 Malibu Stacey says:
I wasn’t actually referring to the DLC.
It is a horrid console port. They have no idea of how to create and manage a multiplayer game on an open platform like the PC and it suffers from the very worst of “DRM” where it’ll boot you from a game when you lose connection to the Steam community servers (this is their fault btw, VALVe have offered to help them fix it more than 6 months ago as it’s due to their shoddy implementation of the Steam API but they still haven’t responded).
Also don’t play with anyone you don’t know as it’s so easy to hack items using simple memory editing that the game is plagued by hackers and getting caught with hacked items gets you banned. The abundance of hacked items means the economy goes from the extremes of non-existent to ultra-mega-super-hyper inflation which they address by adding more ways to store the in-game currency instead of fixing the horrendous holes in their “DRM’d up to the gills” game.
22/12/2012 at 18:02 Mr-Link says:
Well since dishonoured and Xcom are still over $20….whereas Hitman subtitle is $19 …..I might actually get that despite the flak it got.
22/12/2012 at 21:00 RodeoClown says:
Am I allowed to point out that You Need A Budget 4 is on sale on Steam too (I’m one of the developers) here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/227320/ ?
Nathan thought he’d have problems with the narrative having missed the first 3 entries in the saga (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/01/waking-more-valve-greenlights-13-new-games), but I can assure you the latest version will bring you up to speed with no problems!
(Also there’s a free trial version if you want to check it out without paying up!)
24/12/2012 at 17:02 mwoody says:
Ohhhhh – I forgot Steam had apps now. I was looking through the screenshots thinking, “Wow, this game looks really dry. Could be fun, though, after I got past the learning curve.”
I’m glad I remembered the apps thing. There’s no telling how long I would have played it before I figured it out on my own.
23/12/2012 at 04:02 ArtemisNZ says:
I’m interested if anyone using greenmangaming is having problems buying games? I’ve brought over 50 digital games from them in the past but am now getting a error when I try buy with paypal or visa.
Don’t seem to be getting much help from support (they fixed it once) so wondering if anyone has had similar problems and/or fixed them? The error is saying payment not wokring as the site maybe reported as a gambling site.
Sucks I am having to use steam and missing out on the good greenman deals :(
23/12/2012 at 04:46 Dr. Shenanigans says:
On my very first purchase on GMG, I had (seemingly) the exact same problem, being unable to purchase through either Paypal or credit card. I contacted their support and they ” reset my account” (their words), after which it worked just fine. Haven’t bought anything there since, though.
24/12/2012 at 17:04 mwoody says:
If you use NoScript or antivirus software, you’ll have to disable both to make it work. And I don’t, in NoScript’s case, just mean allowing all scripts to run. Something about their purchase process is triggering cross-site-scripting blocking, I think, or some other trigger that is stopped no matter what.
It had to place an order five times using different combination of changes to figure that out and get a deal to go through.
25/12/2012 at 05:27 malkav11 says:
The Groupees Build a Greenlight Bundle, in addition to the 9 original games (none of which I’m particularly familiar with but some of which seem promising) now includes some music, all three La Mulana OSTs, La Mulana itself, a special extended beta/demo of Driftmoon (which is not and will not get you the full game, though it’s good for a discount code), and now Underrail, a really promising looking turn-based RPG that RPS did a feature on a while back. It’s still in alpha, but you do actually get a copy of the game that will continue to be updated, unlike Driftmoon.