Steam Top Ten: War, Warhammer, Woutubers

I am genuinely surprised by which game sold best on Steam last week (previous weeks here, btw). PC gaming remains beautifully unpredictable, doesn't it?

1. Hearts of Iron IV

Well, this is a surprise. A pleasant one, given the Steam userbase's propensity for flashbangwallop shooting'n'disembowelling, and given that we've had this, Stellaris and Total Warhammer topping the charts in recent weeks, no-one in their right mind could argue that strategy's moon is waning. Honestly though, the WW2-set HOV is the hardest of Paradox's cores, even to the point that resident grand strategy enthusiast Adam seems a little anxious around it, and I never would have expected it to charge right to the top. Pre-order deals and bonus content doubtless helped, but even so - this is a whopping achievement.

2. Total War: WARHAMMER

Hogging second place for a second week running, and I suspect it'll be some time to come before the Games Workshop adaptation drops out the charts - it's escaped the surge of negativity which eclipsed Rome II, the last mainline Total War release and good word of mouth keeps it aloft. Expect it to return when DLC invades, too.

3. Grand Theft Auto V

4. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Things I have done while trying to avoid devising yet another sentence about CSGO:

• Looked at Twitter 9 times.
• Drunk half a cup of lukewarm tea, 20% of which I spilt down my shirt.
• Stroked the cat. The cat scratched me.
• Rotated a semi-painted Eldar Wraithguard figurine to which I was applying a light blue layer too late last night, and wincing at my appalling brushwork.
• Refused to acknowledge a joke John made about the Little Mermaid in the RPS chatroom.
• Checked Amazon to see if GTX 1070s had been released yet.
• Walked down to the kitchen to see if there was any bread left. There wasn't, so I dejectedly walked back upstairs and now probably won't eat anything until lunchtime.
• Put out my towel ready to have a much-needed shower, then couldn't be bothered so I just looked at Twitter instead.
• Not thought for even a pico-second about CSGO.

5. Youtubers Life

Yes, yes, very apt and funny, but "I want to be a famous YouTuber" is the new "I'm going to get on X Factor" as life goals go, and because I am a dad that scares me a bit. This is why.

6. DOOM

The only DLC I'm interested in hearing about is a new campaign in which you get to play as a Cacodemon hunting down Marines. Flight'n'fireballs, and hopefully some nom-nom-nomming of skulls too.

7. Arma 3 Apex

New DLC for the now-venerable Arma 3, and also an attempt to make the military sim series uncharacteristically slick. Apex introduces a new tropical South Pacific setting, but also a horde of graphical, feature and under-the-hood improvements for the whole game. Still in pre-order for now, but at 20% off, hence doing so well for itself.

8. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Ubi's team shooter makes a return thanks to a £12 / €15 / $15, feature-limited 'Starter Edition', which is only available for a couple more days. Pretty much the full game is in there, but you need to grind a whole bunch to unlock all the classes - or, of course, cough up real Earth money to do it ASAP.

9. Hearts of Iron IV

Don't blame me - all I have to go on is Valve's charts RSS feed, which gives no context beyond the name. So my guess is that this is the slightly pricier 'Colonel' edition of HOVIV, which includes some extra aesthetic options for some units, but it could be the now-expired pre-order offer which included a few bonus goodies of its own, including 'German Marching Music.'

10. ARK: Survival Evolved

I can't see any mention of a recent discount, so I guess this is just doing solidly well for itself once again. Which probably isn't going to change any time soon, given they announced a new game mode and a dinosaur so big you can build a mobile fortress on its back. Goodness me, whatever would John Hamilton think?