WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Project Zomboid - £6.69
"Project Zomboid is an open-ended zombie-infested sandbox that asks one simple question - how will you die?"
I hope you weren't sick of early access zombie survival games because here's one more for you. You've got to loot houses, build defenses and do whatever you can to delay your death. Despite being in early access the game has a lot going for it already, the Steam page has what I can only assume is a full list of current features including things like having to deal with various emotions such as depression and boredom, full mod support and online mulitplayer survival with persistent player run servers. Small studios with big ideas are always something to get excited about but this is early access, if you're hesitant to throw money at a game without the comfort of knowing it will be finished then you can actually download a demo of the game, what a novel retro idea (that more devs should think of using). My advice is check out the demo, if you like it then great you can probably wait till it's finished, if you love it then buy it and help them make it better. If you hate it nothing is lost.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/108600/
Age of Empires II HD - £3.74
"Age of Empires II has been re-imagined in high definition with new features, trading cards, improved AI, workshop support, multiplayer, Steamworks integration and more!"
I'm sure plenty of you remember this game and already either own it or have written it off as shyte. If that's not the case and you know nothing about this game then let me fill you in, Age of Empires 2 HD is the re-skinned and freshly polished version of Age of Empires 2 which came out in 1999. It's an RTS where you advance your chosen civilization through four Ages and attempt to murder, backstab, trade and barter your way to surviving, though it mostly comes down to wiping people out as most RTS's do. In multiplayer the game is apparently still suffering lag issues though that information could be wrong or the people just had terrible connections. If you know the franchise and you have any kind of love for it then you probably already know if you want this or not, nostalgia is a powerful tool. Also should you wish to inflict your love onto other people you can get the 4-pack for a very reasonable £11.24 which is quite the price drop.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/221380/
Skyrim- £2.49
"EPIC FANTASY REBORN The next chapter in the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls saga arrives from the makers of the 2006 and 2008 Games of the Year, Bethesda Game Studios. Skyrim reimagines and revolutionizes the open-world fantasy epic, bringing to life a complete virtual world open for you to explore any way you choose."
Do I need to talk about this? You know what it is, you're probably already singing the theme tune in your head and thinking "man I should reinstall that game". IF you don't own it then you really should because there aren't many games that let you walk around the world yelling at people like some entitled git...okay there are actually lots of games but this one has dragons in it...Again it's worth noting that you can grab the Legendary Edition which includes all the DLC for the game for £6.79. Fus-Ro-NEXT!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/72850/
Terraria - £1.39
"Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!"
Easily the most successful in the long list of "Minecraft clones" though I always feel that Terraria is in a category of it's own because it does a tonne of things Minecraft doesn't. For one it actually has a progression in terms of a loosely woven narrative..and by that I mean it's got loads of bosses to kill and once you kill the big one you enter hard-mode and there's even more bosses to kill etc. I love this game, I've put more hours than I should into it. After a huge stale period where the game was half abandoned by the developers it came back with a colossal update that changed the entire game and revitalised it, now updates are more frequent and the community is just as strong. The biggest problem is that the game doesn't really tell you what to do or how to do it so you should really have that Wiki page open to the side. The biggest failing of Terraria is how hard it can be to get a multiplayer server working from your home but there are numerous articles to help with that.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/
Wasteland 2 - £26.79
"Welcome back to the Citadel, Rangers! Join the over 70,000 Kickstarter backers and interact with the development team to help shape the ending of an already historic post-apocalyptic story. The Wastelands's hellish landscape has been waiting for you to make your mark...or die trying."
Not a huge stretch to say this was one of the biggest Kickstarter campaigns in terms of popularity, 61,290 people pledged $2,933,252 to see the "Godfather of Post-apocalyptic RGPS" come back to life. A turn-based, isometric, story-intensive exploration of the radioactive wastes of the America Southwest, heavy on choice and consequence. This game is hella unfinished and I do mean hella, the devs are estimating a release by the end of August this year but since it was originally targeted for launch last October we'll have to wait and find out if that holds true. If you are really, and I do mean really, itching for a classic RPG experience then you're better off spending far less on a copy of Fallout 1 or better yet Shadowrun Returns. Sit back and wait for this one because it's not worth buying into right now.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/240760/
The Stanley Parable - £3.99
"The Stanley Parable is a first person exploration game. You will play as Stanley, and you will not play as Stanley. You will follow a story, you will not follow a story. You will have a choice, you will have no choice. The game will end, the game will never end."
The most meta of all games, Stanley Parable started life as a Source mod back in 2011 and now it's back again with new content, new ideas and a fantastic demonstration of voice acting from Kevan Brighting. It's pretty damn hard to explain what this game is, or isn't, so I urge you to try out the demo which is available on the Steam page.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/221910/
7 Days to Die: The Survival Horde Crafting Game - £10.44
"Building on survivalist and horror themes, players in 7 Days to Die can scavenge the abandoned cities of the buildable and destructible voxel world for supplies or explore the wilderness to gather raw materials to build their own tools, weapons, traps, fortifications and shelters."
Well if you've seen one you've seen them all. Another zombie survival game in the vein of Rust and DayZ that is as always in Alpha. The idea of a voxel world is interesting as that could allow for some very interesting building when it comes to fortifications and what not but alpha is alpha. Unless you really want to help out with development and by that I mean submit bug reports, find broken things, report all the time then probably pass this one up.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/251570/
Contagion - £3.74
"Contagion isn't your average Zombie Shooter but instead takes a more realistic and different approach to the popular genre with unique characters, environments, weapons, items, and a built in system that makes every round completely unpredictable with resources, objectives, and paths ever changing."
Contagion appears to take the best elements of Left for Dead and add more to them in both co-op and competitive multiplayer, humans can team up or go rogue and kill each other all the while zombies hunt anything with a higher pulse than their own. The game utilizes sound as a survival mechanic and features an Advanced gibbing system which will allow you to blow limbs off and organs outwards, when you're not hiding in the shadows like a scared child that is. There's also a range of game modes and better yet not one but two free DLC bundles coming in 2014, it's nice to see a zombie game that goes back to the fun of killing them, rather than the nightmare of surviving them.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/238430/
Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition - £4.99
"Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition includes Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening and all nine content packs."
An oldie and a goodie, Dragon Age is probably one of THE PC games that you should own, it's a fantasy RPG with enough story to cover a few novels and the Awakening DLC adds almost as much content as the original game. You make your own adventure as you follow the story of a world going to shit like most fantasy games and meet dozens of interesting and fleshed out characters along the way. Featuring the classic trifecta of RPGs (Warrior, Mage, Rogue/Archer) each playthrough will be different and the insane amount of conversation options will also have an impact on your characters relationships with NPCs and your party members. Bioware did this game so very right and if you let it take you then you'll be busy for the next few hundred hours and if you get bored of that then you can mod the balls off it and make everyone look like Hatsune Miku if you want...Some people probably want to.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/47810/
Deal of the Day
I really like Terraria so I can't not recommend it, more people should play it considering the immeasurable amount of people who play Minecraft. This game has so much depth (HAH) and character and once you get your head around how the world and crafting works you'll find the hours just flying by. It's stupidly cheap as well and costs less than a bottle of Coke on a Virgin train (other brands of caffeinated beverage and rail based transport are available). Go buy it, get a multiplayer game going, play some of the crazy multiplayer modes for it. GO!
