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Halloween 2018

Planning Early for Halloween!

Halloween is my second favorite holiday. There’s just something about that spooky, suspenseful atmosphere that I’ve always enjoyed. Of course the memories of dressing up as a kid are great ones. Some costumes I remember enjoying were ghost and Batman. To get into the spirit of things, I like to play dark or scary themed games. I started this tradition last year, and I enjoyed it so I’ll continue it for as long as it lasts.

I’ve got a short list below, and I’d love to get your opinion on what game(s) you’d enjoy watching during this spooky time of year. I’ve also written on some of these games in the past if you want to know a little more:

What games would you like to watch for a Halloween stream?
  • DOOM 25%, 9 votes
    9 votes 25%
    9 votes - 25% of all votes
  • Hunt: Showdown 22%, 8 votes
    8 votes 22%
    8 votes - 22% of all votes
  • The Black Death 19%, 7 votes
    7 votes 19%
    7 votes - 19% of all votes
  • Vermintide II 14%, 5 votes
    5 votes 14%
    5 votes - 14% of all votes
  • Dead Frontier II 8%, 3 votes
    3 votes 8%
    3 votes - 8% of all votes
  • Left 4 Dead 2 8%, 3 votes
    3 votes 8%
    3 votes - 8% of all votes
  • Space Hulk: Deathwing 3%, 1 vote
    1 vote 3%
    1 vote - 3% of all votes
Total Votes: 36
Voters: 20
September 20, 2018 - November 1, 2018
Voting is closed

Some other games that I might play that aren’t on the list include:

  • Alien: Colonial Marines – One of the worst video games ever? Might find out!
  • Goatman – You must hunt down an urban legend terrorizing a modern countryside!
  • Resident Evil titles – Zombies, ’nuff said.
  • Killing Room – Twitch interactive game where I have to entertain YOU for points.
  • Some surprise VR titles!

You can leave any extra suggestions in the comments below. All this should be starting up towards the end of October. Most likely the last week in October, but I’m waiting on some vacation dates to solidify so I can nail down a good schedule.

Halloween Stream Theme Update

I’ve created all new Halloween themed bonuses for the stream! There are all new spooky alerts, a creepy new starting soon screen, an AFK screen graveyard that grows with new follows, and a background graveyard that grows with each sub during the month!

Each new Follow will add a tombstone to the AFK screen, and each Subscription allows you to customize a tombstone with your own battlefield-death themed epitaph! At the end of the month I will put up a YouTube video showcasing everyone’s creative causes of death.

 

As always, thank you guys for all your support. Be it a simple follow, leaving a lurk, chatting me up during a stream, donating bits/subscribing, or just using one of my partner links to buy a game you want. I really appreciate it. I’ve found a lot of great games so far this year, and met a lot of awesome people. I literally couldn’t do it without you.

As always, you can find me on Twitch, or catch me on Twitter if I’m offline.

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My E3 2018 Notes

I had a lot of fun co-streaming all the E3 events on Twitch. It will definitely be something I start to do more of in the future. I saw a lot of new games I’d like to give a first try. I’ve taken notes on what I found most interesting at E3 2018. I think Bethesda had the best overall show, but Ubisoft was a close second. I’ve highlighted my favorite announcement in each category. Let me know what your favorites were in the comments!

  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Singleplayer open world RPG. Play as a Padawan that escaped the initial purge/Order 66.
  • Battlefield V – Pretty standard lobby shooter. Large scale area control mode coming, but no details.
  • Battlefont II -New squad system, thank goodness. Starfighter mode where you dogfight with hero ships! A new large scale sandbox where you capture command posts & attack/take out capital ships?! Sounds awesome!
  • C&C Rivals – Decent looking RTS mobile game.
  • Play to Give – ? Never heard of this before? Money gets donated to charities based on player hours played.
  • Anthem – Feb 22, 2019 launch. Open world, 4 person co-op. You wear Iron Man looking suits called Javelins. You can change javelins so you are not locked into a specific class. Only monetization is cosmetic, no loot boxes.

  • Doom Eternal – Further details in August at Quakecon! Takes place on Earth. I’m hoping for open world and co-op!
  • Fallout 76 – Open world! All humans are players! West Virginia setting, the good old south! Can co-op with your friends on servers filled with dozens of players. Can transfer servers anytime. Launches November 14. Preorder now starting at $59.99 USD.
  • Elder Scrolls 6 announced. No details. Open world and co-op could make this my first venture into the Elder Scrolls universe.

  • The Division 2 – Better graphics than the original. Boss’s armor falls off gradually as you do damage? 8 person raids coming. The Division 2 is set in Washington DC. Launches March 15 2019.
  • The Crew 2 – Open beta June 21st, June 29 launch. Preorder now for $59.99 USD. Open world across the entire United States! I really liked driving in Ghost Recon, could be a match made in heaven.
  • Skull and Bones – Takes place in the Indian ocean. You can Co-op PvE to take down enemies, then turn on each other to fight for the reward!
  • Rainbow 6 Siege – 35 million players! Parabellum is a free update.
  • Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – Singleplayer, but looked very interesting. Battle scenes looked very realistic, and doesn’t look like a lot of stealth gameplay. Male or female character. Releases Oct 3, 2018.

 

  • Jurassic World Evolution – Take control on micro scale! Pilot the helicopter, drive the jeep, fire the darts! Sickness systems gives the game some complexity. I received a copy from the devs at Frontier Developments and will have it on stream!
  • GTFO – 4 person horror co-op shooter. Stealth gameplay is a big part, making melee weapons important too! Very intense looking whether you’re sneaking or fighting. Only 2 maps so far, that’s how careful they are about level design! Wow! Baddies have kind of a Silent Hill type horror look.
  • PuBG – Massive War Mode? No details but might be good.
  • Mavericks: Proving Grounds – New (lol) Battle Royale game, but! with 1000 players?! Massive chaos could be a good spin.
  • Hunt: Showdown – New weapons, and a new monster – THAT YOU FIGHT IN THE WATER?!
  • Maneater – Play as a shark! SharkPG?! Emphasis on roleplaying as a shark! Open world ARPG where you stalk Florida’s waterways.
  • Satisfactory – Welcome to the new Factory Survival genre! First person gameplay, similar to a survival game where you gather materials and build. You (and friends if you bring them) build industrial complexes instead of bases. Kind of an economy sim.
  • Resident Evil 2 – Remake of original RE2. No other info beyond a release date of Jan 25, 2019.
  • Just Cause IV – 3rd person, open world shooter. Multiplayer for the first time in the series! December 2018 launch! Sounds just like Wildlands!
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Top Picks for the 2017 Steam Summer Sale

My Recommendations for Best Value in 2017 Steam Sale

I’m changing up the release day for posts back to Tuesdays. That’s when I get the heaviest traffic to the site, so it just makes sense. As you may or may not know, the Steam summer sale is in full swing. I had 26 games from my wishlist on sale, which is about half. I’m honestly surprised it isn’t more. I decided to take a look back over the past couple of years, and go through the games I already owned to see what was on sale. I picked out the best games with the best discounts that I simply can’t recommend enough. There were quite a few surprises considering the age and heavy discounts of some of these games.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada: $13.59

Probably the biggest surprise because of the HUGE discount having only been out for a year. This is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. A strategy game of capital ship combat in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The campaign part of the game gets lots of praise, but I really enjoyed the skirmishes versus AI. The multiplayer queues are a bit slow, and imbalanced, due to the small population. That might change with this sale though.

Fortified: $4.94

This is probably the surprise hit of the sale for me. I’ve been playing a lot of Foxhole lately, so when I started checking out the developer I found this game. This is a third person shooter style game where you build up your defenses to defend from an alien invasion. A different style of tower defense game. It all takes place with vintage 1950s science fiction stylized graphics. It has a hint of humor in it too. While you can play solo, I really recommend you have a friend along for the ride. The devs have been pretty quiet for almost a year so the game may be ‘finished’, but it is a lot of fun for less than five dollars.

Helldivers: $9.99

I wasn’t much for top down shooters, aka twin stick shooters, until I found Helldivers. It’s heavily influenced by the movie version of Starship Troopers. You fight bugs, cyborgs, and robots alongside up to four friends. All your missions take place on procedurally generated planets. This is another of those must-have-friends games to get the most out of it.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3: $24.99

While I don’t normally play singleplayer games, this one really surprised me. It’s an open world stealth shooter, meaning 90% of what you do is going to be sneaking and sniping. Taking place in modern day eastern Europe, it’s a great story about an American sniper and his brother. The game has great graphics and great sniping kill cam effects. A huge discount too considering it just came out this year.

Total War Warhammer: $20.39

If you missed the Humble monthly sale, this is the next best thing. A Warhammer fantasy strategy game done by the Total War team. There is tons to do in this game if you enjoy battling with the available factions, even without the DLC. It will also add to your campaign world if you purchase the upcoming Total War: Warhammer II. All of the DLC is on sale as well if you want to pick up a little something extra.

Space Hulk Deathwing: $23.99

This game is a Warhammer 40,000 first person shooter. A colossal failure when it first launched, but 6 updates later this game is amazing. The dark and gothic environment visuals are on point, as well as the weapon effects. If you enjoy horde-mode style games, blasting away at waves of enemies with your friends brothers, this game is for you.

Company of Heroes 2: $4.99

This is probably the best deal on Steam right now or ever. World War 2 era RTS with no base building. This is my favorite strategy game, and for this price you won’t find anything better. This game has a campaign, multiplayer, and even a mod community for all kinds of new maps. The devs outlined an 8 year lifespan for this game when it launched, and there’s a good 4 years left to go.

DOOM: $14.99

Yet another game that has just plummeted in price being just barely a year old. It dropped to $16 during the Black Friday sales, but now the legendary first person shooter is even cheaper. A great Sci Fi experience, battling demons with the baddest weapons mankind has to offer. There’s plenty of player created maps as well thanks to the easy to use SnapMap editor. While it is a reboot of sorts, this is a great addition to the DOOM series.

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Are Early Adopters Punished? Or Patient Gamers Rewarded?

doom 2016 discount

Are Games Even Worth Full Price Anymore?

I mean, really? For example, DOOM had a great release, and was a well received AAA game. Still, it was 40% off during the Steam summer sale barely one month later. It was just $17.09 on Green Man Gaming for the 2016 Black Friday sale. Speaking of GMG, they quite frequently offer games at a HUGE discount for NEW titles, in excess of 20%. Online retailer Amazon commonly offers 20% off new titles for Prime members. So what is a game’s actual price nowadays then? I’m sure it’s some kind of marketing magic, but it’s beginning to look like a blatant cash grab by developers to me. I suppose the good news is that new games don’t actually cost $60 anymore?

Saving Bundles Of Money

Then there’s the bundle sites. Most notable is probably Humble Bundle, known for its portion of charitable donation. There are also other sites who focus on other aspects such as Indie games (BundleStars, IndieGala) and DRM Free (GoG). The idea is all pretty much the same. They bundle popular titles together for very reasonable, very low prices. While these sites are becoming more popular, you kind of have to stop and laugh a little. In the age of digital media, where we want our music one song at the time instead of bundled together, we don’t want our games one at a time, but instead bundled together. Go figure? I suppose a big reason they come bundled is to get exposure for Indie or smaller titles, and eek out a little more life for older ones. These are generally not factors gamers consider when buying these bundles though.

Fact: Drunken Platypuses Determine Discounts

So when does a game become worth $30? $20? Where is the dartboard that companies use to price items for their in-game store? I know there’s math, and science to a degree, behind all this pricing somewhere. As a consumer though, I start to wonder more and more if I’m being cheated somehow. I got DOOM through Amazon for $48. I thoroughly enjoyed the storymode. The map creation mode seemed fun, but very limited at the time. So did I buy the game too soon? I’ve only got 34 hours into it, would I have been better off waiting to buy it? We’re talking $12 to wait 5 weeks, and $31 to wait 25 weeks. With all these bundles, sales, and discounts, both $12 and $31 can go a long way. That’s an extra bundle, or new title.

drunken platypus monetization

Clear As Mud Pricing

Obviously game companies need money to fund new games, be them AAA developers or Indie developers. I just think that maybe the current system of video game pricing is still in the process of settling. While it’s not exactly a race to the bottom of the barrel, it’s definitely a race that benefits gamers. Amazing Indie titles like ARK also bring down prices by offering just as much content, if not more, than AAA games, and still MSRP priced substantially lower. Early Access muddies the water too, confusing the price of Free to Play games and up-and-coming AAA titles alike. It’s the American Wild West of video game monetization and pricing right now. There are bargains to be had on properties for gold prospecting, and there are snake oil salesmen on every corner.

Making Every Dollar Count

I’m not a wealthy person. $12 is a fair amount of money to me. I’ve started meticulously tracking how much money I spend on games, and how much time I spend in them. It’s deterred me from buying a game more than once, and later I was glad I had waited. Of course as time progresses, games will always be cheaper. They also get dated somehow, magically. Weird right? A game you’ve never played is somehow boring and uninteresting. Mostly I think it’s the graphics, though I’ve found I can tolerate older graphics more than most. Still, I guess I could sum up this article by asking one question:

When is the right time to buy a game?

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2016 Black Friday Week Deals for Video Games!

Best Game Prices For Black Friday and Cyber Monday Week Sales 2016

This is one of the best times of the year to get that game you’ve always had your eye on, but don’t want to shell out the asking price for. Now there are a lot of deals on a lot of different websites out there, so my goal is to keep it simple. I’ll be posting links to various websites and outlining their deals. Some of the links will be affiliate links, meaning I get a portion of the sale. Thanks in advance for your support!

Amazon

Green Man Gaming

  • The Black Death $14.99
  • Of Kings and Men $17.99 (Plus another 10% off!)
  • Stellaris Leviathans DLC $8.57
  • The Black Death $4.79 (Plus another 10% off!) BLACK FRIDAY ONLY

GameStop

Steam

  • Of Kings and Men $18.74
  • Battlefleet Gothic: Armada $19.99
  • Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade $24.99
  • Gloria Victis $13.99
  • Dawn of War: II* $9.99 (No DLC)

Humble Bundle

Bundle Stars

IndieGala

Sila Games