Best Steam Summer Sale Deals: Day 3
Dawn of the third day.
What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 3 of the sale.
A reminder: resist the wily charms of non-daily, non-flash, non-community deals - you can extract more value from your hard-earned dollar/pound/euro/bitcoin. One good thing about the minigame is it's giving us an additional nine deals a day, so it's basically inevitable that whatever you want will be discounted further. Then there's always the final day spending spree, where hopefully I'll be able to give you a bumper set of recommendations.
As for the minigame itself, naturally it's inspired its own subreddit. Most people, myself included, are using a bit of javascript to auto-play the game in the most efficient manner possible and maximise DPS. There isn't really any reason to do so as all the upgrades are only really interesting if you're actually playing the game, but racing for the highest room level completed can distract you from the endless abyss into which we're all falling and there's some nice Steam badges for it too. Remember that the unlocked discounts from it show up at the bottom of the minigame page, rather than on the frontpage.
Deals? DEALS?! DEEEEEAAAAALLLLSSS!!!
5. The Evil Within
75% off: $14.99 / £8.74 / €14.99, Store page
Shinji Mikami, of the original Resident Evil and its fourth iteration, directs this story of horror, gore and gorey horror. Incredibly claustrophobic and damningly difficult, it's a marmite-game if there ever was one. Stanton and Smith have double teamed our coverage of it, Adam providing his review upon release and a follow up further down the line, while Rich had thoughts on its similarities to the director's other games and took a look at the DLC for us. That DLC is also on sale in the form of the season pass.
4. Lethal League
66% off: $4.75 / £3.39 / €4.07, Store page
Quite possibly one of the best indie fighting games ever made. Up to four players battle it out with a variety of characters, attempting to hit each other with a ball that increases in speed whenever they wack it with their bat or bat-like device. Favourite character is definitely the horrifying ball-headed clown who can cause the ball to pass through walls. One of the best soundtracks of the year. Our collected thoughts over here.
3. Prison Architect
85% off: $4.49 / £2.99 / €4.19, Store page
The now surprisingly accurate and intricately detailed simulation of building, managing and attempting to make profit from a private prison in modern day America. There's everything from attempted Shawshank-style escapes, to keeping death row detainees happy and ensuring prisoners aren't being abused by staff. We've posted about the various Early Access patches every time they've taken our fancy while good old Brendan wrote a diary of his failures back in 2013.
2. Sunless Sea
40% off: $11.39 / £8.39 / €11.39, Store page
Cthulian horror sailing simulator after the end of the world has caused London to be submerged. A much more horrible FTL-style roguelike of exploration, inevitable cannibalism and general awfulness. Video games. Alec was a big fan when it sailed out of Early Access earlier this year, though had some reservations about it maybe not being for everyone. Quinns meanwhile felt that it was good enough to have a COGWATCH dedicated to it, which you can watch here. We've had quite a lot to say over the course of its development, so have a look at the rest.
1. Cities: Skylines
33% off: $20.09 / £15.40 / €18.75, Store page
Our game of the month for April and a well-deserving one too. Filling the void left by the unpopular Simcity reboot, this city-builder found a massive following with its intricately simulated urban planning. Alec gave it the full diary write up while Duncan Geere took a shot at creating a self-sustaining paradise. Modding the game proved popular enough that Alec first wrote and then updated a list of all the best ones available. Mr. Meer was also first on the scene with the initial review. Loads more over our exhaustive coverage over here.
Only a couple of recommendations from the comments yesterday:
Command: Modern Air / Naval Operations WOTY - $39.99 / £30.49 / €36.99 - A full-on war simulator, currently discounted 50% to the price of a regular game. If sims are your thing, this is definitely worth looking into, as people in the know seem to recommend it even at the £60 price point.
Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal - $1.49 / £1.09 / €1.49 - a top-down tower-defense game that seems to eschew most of the usual lane-building, monster-killing elements in favour of base building and a full, story-based campaign with multiple endings. You can probably do a lot worse for less than two of your local currency.
And, of course, this:
