The Steam Summer Sale launched late last week and I daresay that many of you reading this have probably already had a little peruse and have possibly spent some cash on a few more titles to bloat your already pretty hefty library. – If you are anything like me though, after having experienced more Steam sales than I care to remember, the most recent one feels like a bit of a mess.
Oh sure, there are definitely some amazing bargains to be had. Is it just me though, or are some of the really great ones buried quite deeply while some other awful deals are seemingly getting thrust in our faces a bit?
Well, with this in mind, if you want some new games but haven’t quite made up your mind as to what you want, let us try and help by picking 5 titles that are definitely worth checking out, and 5 that are probably worth avoiding (well, for the moment at least!).
Two-Point Hospital – £6.24
With Two-Point Campus set for release in just over a week’s time, I’ll freely concede that it’s coming a little late in the day to play the original ‘Two-Point’ title. I can’t, however, stress enough just how much fun this game can be. Effectively representing a more modern take on ‘Theme Hospital’, it’s fun, easy to learn (difficult to master), and for this price, it’s also an absolute bargain! (Check out our review of it here!)
Garry’s Mod – £2.79
Garry’s Mod isn’t so much a game as more of a portal to the limitless world of imagination. Thanks to custom servers, there is so much you can do here. Feel like a bit of RP? I don’t think there’s a scenario that hasn’t been covered. Feel like tackling a homebrew shooter? Again, lots of things on offer. – For £2.79, you easily have access here to hundreds if not thousands of hours worth of fun, interesting, and admittedly sometimes disturbing, user content!
Hunt Showdown – £17.99
Although hardly a new title, this one very rarely sees discounts as substantial as this. – Hunt Showdown effectively boils down to a competitive shooter but falls more into the tactical remits of Tom Clancy’s Seige rather than Call of Duty.
It’s exceptionally punishing. Quite honestly, for first 10-20 hours are probably going to be more of an exercise in masochism than enjoyment. When a plan comes together though, Hunt Showdown can be amazingly satisfying and addictive!
Parkitect – £17.84
Not dissimilar to Two-Point Hospital, Parkitect is effectively a loving remake of an older and beloved gaming franchise. Although massively more simplified than the significantly better known ‘Planet Coaster’, while Parkitect sticks to the basics, it does it amazingly well! This really does feel like a more up-to-date and polished version of something like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 or Theme Park.
Having played this and Planet Coaster, Parkitect is easily my favourite of the two. – The only mildly disappointing thing is that it’s only ever received 1 solid DLC pack expanding on the original scenarios. For this price though, and for those of you with a love for games like this, you will not be disappointed!
Poly Bridge 2 – £3.75
I love this game. And mostly I think because it reminds me of the days of indie-developed browser-based construction games. Poly Bridge 2 requires you to build a bridge. Yep, that’s about it. With limited resources and, in some cases, materials though, what I love about this most is the trial and failure element. You can attempt pretty much anything you want. As long as the bridge works, hey! You get your gold star!
Plus, a feature I really love is once you’ve completed the level you can see what weird, wonderful, and wacky creations the community came up with on the level! And in many instances, the diversity in design can be absolutely astounding!
In terms of this list, we should note that not all of the games listed below are bad. In fact, many of them are excellent. The problem, however, predominantly boils down to the fact that either the discount is pretty lousy, or the fact that even with a good chunk of money taken off, it’s still way too overpriced for what you’re actually getting!
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Intergrade – £49.69
Originally released (on the EGS) for £69.99, with £20 off the original price on Steam, you might think that this is the perfect moment to strike and land your copy of the highly-anticipated Final Fantasy 7 Remake. – Here’s the problem though, even at £49.69, for what you actually get, this is still ridiculously overpriced. What we’ve basically got here is a discount taking it to what it should have cost originally.
In other words, as amazing as this is, this still doesn’t represent anything close to a bargain, and probably within the next 6 months, we can almost certainly expect to see this price tank in future sales!
Fifa 22 – £7.99
A bad idea for a whole host of reasons here. Firstly, the football season is thoroughly over meaning that while still representing the latest FIFA title, we’re in that awkward period of this really only having a few months of relevancy before everything gets changed again for the next title. – Lest we forget though that this ‘PC’ version is based entirely upon the last-gen console version. FIFA 22 on PC is not a next-gen experience (and FIFA 23 isn’t looking to be one either!).
Yes, at this price, it’s tempting. I don’t think though that EA should be rewarded for, once again, treating the PC community like idiots!
Forza Horizon 5 – £39.99
If you want to play this on PC, don’t bother with Steam and get the Xbox PC Game Pass. For new subscribers, you can access it for just £1 (for 3 months) and Forza Horizon 5 is included among many other excellent gaming titles. – No, Forza Horizon 5 is not a bad game. It does, however, tend to suffer from one pretty huge problem. Namely, after you’ve spent about 20-30 hours playing it, you do tend to run out of fun and interesting things to do anymore.
With this in mind, I think you’re infinitely better off simply getting Xbox PC Game Pass, having your fill, and walking away spending significantly less than this discounted £39.99 price tag!
God of War – £31.99
A difficult choice because the PC port of God of War is absolutely fantastic. – If you’ve not got it yet though, it seems pretty clear that you’ve been willing to wait for this one. And with this in mind, the discount applied here (around £9) probably shouldn’t be enough to finally tempt you to pull the trigger. – It’s just my opinion, but I can see this getting a substantially higher discount in the Steam Autumn/Winter sale.
Put simply, if you’ve been able to wait this long, I think hanging on another few months might be well to your financial advantage!
Battlefield 2042 – £24.99
Even with a monumentally huge 50% discount, Battlefield 2042 still isn’t worth touching with a barge pole. – Thanks to this sale, average player figures have shot up quite notably from the circa 2,000-3,000 concurrent average it’s seen since February. Don’t let that fool you though! Battlefield 2042 is still a complete mess and even if they were giving this away for free, I still don’t think I’d be able to recommend it!
As always, we’re always keen to hear your opinion. So what do you think? Have you spotted any hidden gems on Steam at a price too good to ignore? Adversely, are there any titles you think people should resist the temptation and/or avoid like the plague?
Let us know in the comments!
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