Well, I just realized something colossally embarrassing when writing this post. No, I don’t mean that I’m constantly overpaying for games. I mean that the last two posts were labelled as being in October. How’d I pull that off?
Anyway, there’s some big titles on sale today if you’re looking for something to fill in the gap between now and the Christmas (Holiday) Sale in case you missed out on Train Simulator 2014 earlier today. Of course I bought it. I may do something special with that once I play around with that for a bit.
Did you catch all the Easter eggs in The Day of The Doctor? In case you didn’t, here’s a hopefully mostly complete list. [Wired]
Indie Game Magazine is charging developers $50 for an “in-depth, unbiased” review of their games. That sounds totally above board. [Destructoid]
The legendary Charlie Brooker has a documentary on TV this weekend called How Video Games Changed the World. He talks about the difficulty of making video game TV in an interview. [The Guardian]
In a sign that I’m getting old and shouldn’t be using proper punctuation in my texts any more, using a period might be a sign that you’re angry. No, using proper punctuation is a sign that you’re not 12-years-old. [The New Republic]
European astronomers have discovered a new solar system that is the closest mirror to our own. [Universe Today]
It’s Black Friday in America which means that our Yank friends are probably nursing some bumps and bruises from fighting through crowds for big deals in stores. The rest of us, on the other hand, are safe at home getting big discounts like those in today’s third day of the Steam Autumn Sale.
A quick note before we get into today’s daily deals and active flash sales. There are other big sales at other retailers besides Steam. GOG.com is doing a 70% off discount on 65 titles over the weekend. Green Man Gaming is doing their 4-Play discount which sees four new deals every four hours for four days so check back there frequently over the weekend (though they usually do a big final day blow out where everything’s on sale). And Amazon.com is having an extensive sale this weekend but you need to enter a US address to take advantage which I’m sure you can manage.
If there’s one genre of games that seemed to take of the last generation of consoles, it was the role-playing game. The RPG genre has been around for almost as long as video games thanks to the popularity of the pen-and-paper RPGs, like Dungeons and Dragons. It was really this generation that saw the proliferation of RPGs and the incorporation of RPG elements into a number of games in other genres.
At the top of the class in this generation is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The fifth entry into Bethesda’s hit action RPG series re-set the bar for Western RPGs thanks to gorgeous graphics, a spectacular soundtrack and seemingly limitless gameplay throughout the open world of Skyrim.
We’ve heard of games being cancelled at all stages of their development cycle but this might be the first time I’ve heard of a game being killed by a publisher after its retail release.
Publisher 505 Games has withdrawn the recently released Ashes Cricket 2013 from sale on Steam as a result of numerous bugs and glitches that render the game nearly unplayable.
It’s day two of the six-day Steam Autumn Sale and there are some good deals on some really good indie games. Naturally, I’ve already bought them because I never seem to hold out for the sale.
Before we get into today’s deals and the currently active flash sales, yesterday’s daily deals are still active. Check out yesterday’s Steam Sale post for those deals if you need a refresher.
The great danger of having an annual franchise, and especially one where licensing fees eat up a significant portion of the budget, is that the developer and publisher will pump out a new game every year that features only minor tweaks over the previous year’s effort.
While Big Ben Interactive and Milestone’s WRC series isn’t the biggest or prettiest racing game on the market, you can’t argue that they’re willing to change the formula every year.
I don’t talk about microtransactions in games very often because I keep hoping that they’ll go away if we just ignore them. However, sometimes, we just have to shame the developers who are making massive cash grabs with ridiculous microtransactions in their games.
The next entry into the Angry Birds franchise is kart racing game Angry Birds Go. The iOS soft launch of the game in New Zealand has revealed some shady microtransaction practices.
Don’t say that I didn’t warn you. As we mentioned three weeks ago on the blog, the Steam Autumn Sale is underway today and is running through Tuesday, December 3rd. As we’re wont to do around here, we’ll keep you updated with all the daily deals each day during the sale with links to any coverage we may have done on those games.
As always, you shouldn’t buy anything until the end of the sale unless it’s a daily deal or flash sale. And keep in mind that the daily deals appear to be 48 hours in length according to the actual store page for each game (the front page says 24 hours as of writing) and there’s no sign of community picks so far.
Given the religious undertones of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, it probably wouldn’t surprise you if the game dealt with The Rapture. However, I didn’t expect it to happen accidentally.
A glitch in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag not only causes the parting of the sea but your ship’s crew to ascend into heaven. Mind you, I’m not sure if that’s a bug or a feature of this game.
et geekera 