It may seem like there was a batch of games green-lit less than two weeks ago, because well, there was. Steam’s Greenlight program seems to have a proclivity for summertime releases. A great set of six games and one piece of software are the second batch with the thumb’s up. The long awaited Gunz 2: The Second Duel is a game that the community has expressed a heavy desire for, and it will be available very soon according to developers.

Assetto Corsa, Dread Out, Ether One, and Stonehearth are all extremely promising looking games that will certainly help fill long summer days. Steam also included Heaven Benchmark which can help to tune graphics processors. This really is a lucky seven, you can see the announcement here.

Steam Greenlight Rolls a Lucky Seven is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Good news for fans of adventure games – the Deponia series is making some splashes this week. First off, we have the above first teaser for Goodbye Deponia, the next game in the series. Possibly inspired by this announcement (although we have no idea), Chaos on Deponia is available for $4.99 (75% off) in the Steam store right now.

Daedalic has also announced three new games. Blackguards has been outed as Daedalic’s first turn-based RPG, featuring “tactical battles in elaborately crafted 3D-environments” “full of interactive objects and strategically complex situations”. Their other announced titles, Memoria and 1954: Alcatraz, are truer to Daedalic’s adventure roots.

It’s a great week for Daedalic, whose Edna and Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes received a positive review from us. We look forward to trying some of their new adventure games, as well as giving their forays into other genres a shot.

Big week for Daedalic entertainment includes sale, teaser, and new games is a post from: Steam Game Fans

E3 is nice and all, but this week’s Steam deals are hot, hot, hot! Stealth hit Dishonored is available for 20.09 (33% off). A couple of our favorites are also on sale, with Painkiller Hell & Damnationfor $4.99 and Super Hexagon for only 99 cents. Rounding out the sale is deals on Future Wars, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Symphony, and Space Empires V.

Head over to the sale page for links and more info.

Steam weeklong deals feature Dishonored, Painkiller, and Super Hexagon is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Five new titles have been Greenlit by Valve as part of their new initiative to approve things in smaller batches. The four games added are musical explorer Fract OSC, horror-adventure Haunt, epic action RPG Inquisitor, and rogue-like Rogue Legacy. The selection also includes a collaborative audio suite, Ohm Studio. It seems like Steam Greenlight is finally realizing its goal of being a consistent way for indies to get onto Steam.

Check out the full details over at the announcement page.

Five more titles Greenlit is a post from: Steam Game Fans

I love E3. In college, I looked forward to the conference as a much-needed break in the middle of the build up to finals (or as the reason I bombed some of said finals). While many gamers have been hating on the past few years of the fabled event, I loved seeing developer after developer roll out the red carpet to unveil their latest innovations. Whether it was Dance Central or the next AAA shooter, everything at E3 is just such a spectacle! Regardless of my interest level, it’s fascinating to see what the industry thinks the next big thing will be. However, with the new console launches coming up, the world was expecting great things.

Folks, I just finished watching the Sony press conference, and by all appearances Microsoft got stomped. Many are calling the PS4 the winner before the battle has even really begun. I’m just not convinced those people are looking at the right battlefield.

Sony. Wow, Sony! With the hardware they’re packing, I don’t think anyone saw that $399 price tag coming. They’ve got a great ecosystem going with the Vita and Playstation Plus, and it looks like they’re only going to expand on that. It’s a bit of a bummer that they’re moving multiplayer behind the PS+ paywall, but it’s a bit of a surprise that they’ve managed to hold out this long.

Then you had the games. Sony seemed determined to play precisely to Microsoft’s weaknesses, and it hit them hard where it hurts. First stop on the pain train was Square Enix, who busted out Final Fantasy Versus XIII and re-announced it as Final Fantasy XV, then swept the floor with a teaser for Kingdom Hearts III. Microsoft has always been weak with Japanese developers, and while those games were not announced as exclusives, Sony probably has some sort of deal ready to rock.

Evidently Japanese developers weren’t enough, because Sony decided to bring out indie after indie – literally lining them up on stage – to cement their superiority in the growing market segment. Of course, we’ve already seen a lot of these games on Steam, but getting them on consoles is a big deal. Sony is capitalizing on Microsoft’s weird policies concerning third-party publishers and allowing indies to self-publish, which is bringing them over in droves.

Mad Max looked pretty sweet too, for a teaser.

I’m not too torn up about the Xboner though, and it seems like a lot of other people agree. If you’re reading this, you probably use Steam, which has comparable or worse policies when it comes to “always-on” connectivity. I know some of you out there pass around your Steam log-in info to your friends to give them access to your Steam libraries. You can do the same thing with your Xbox. There’s also some murky policy about sharing games with your “family” that should come in handy.

Microsoft is building a backbone for the future. They are investing in a digital world, where we can all frolic amongst the clouds and digitally shoot our used games at each other like little licensed lightning bolts. In Microsoft’s world of tomorrow, there’s no reason to ever buy a disc again, because the only thing you’re getting out of it is a license, which you can easily sell back. That’s a pretty neat used game policy, because it applies to every item you buy on the system, not just physical discs.

Of course, it wouldn’t be E3 without a ton of games. Microsoft seemed to have more games that were definitively exclusives, but it’s really hard to say at this point. For my money, Capy’s Below, Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive, and Grounding’s somewhat vaporous Crimson Dragon are the gems here, but there was plenty for everyone. Naturally, there was even the requisite teaser for the next game in the Halo franchise.

On the other hand, it’s hard to use an awesome cloud-based system if you have terrible internet. I really don’t think that connecting once every 24 hours is as big of a deal as people are making it out to be, but I see the concern. I also firmly believe that Microsoft will make sure that everyone who wants to buy an Xbox One will be able to throw some dollar bills their way. And with all of the recent NSA stuff, I can see why people are a little leery of the always-on Kinect. Although, as one friend on Twitter said, “just point it at the wall”.

Microsoft needed a big win at E3. While their press conference cracked open the casket built by the much-maligned Xbox One reveal, Sony’s presser clamped it shut and nailed it down for good measure.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Sony was supposed to come out and say that they were releasing a console with the same online policies as Microsoft. They were supposed to release a console at roughly the same price as Microsoft. Instead of leaping into the digital era with Microsoft and Steam, Sony has firmly planted themselves in the disc-based world of the past, and many gamers are right there with them.

So wait, what was this article about again? Oh, right. Steam! Here’s where Valve comes in: Microsoft and Sony just built an unbridgeable gap in the console market. We should be moving on to Microsoft’s happy digital cloud, but Sony’s cheaper prices and well-worn policies are something that people are familiar with. There is only one thing that can fill that gap: the Steam Box.

If Valve can get their act together, they will hit the market at exactly the right time. It won’t be terribly hard to build a solid PC that matches Sony’s specs and price. From there, the battle is pretty much over. Valve will destroy them both.

Think about it – games are already cheaper on PC. Even launch titles tend to be cheaper (see upcoming titles Saints Row IV, Dark, and Payday 2). I would have loved to see game prices drop on console, but without primarily digital distribution methods, I’m not sure it’ll happen.

After years of focus, Microsoft is crushing Sony in the entertainment apps category. PCs easily crush both of them combined. If Valve can find an easy way to integrate everything a standard PC has to offer, it won’t even be close. Heck, they’ve already got the best controller-powered text-input.

Valve would even win the hardware battle. Even though it’s not a Steam Box, we’ve already seen examples of modular PC design. Steam Boxes will conceivably be on a much shorter release cycle, and could very well feature upgradeable components. Trying to get that next-gen feel? Swap out the video card!

Will any of this happen? Who knows. Many of us will probably end up getting next-gen systems, but it’ll probably be a while before we know who “won” the console war. Personally, I just want to know what the heck the Steam Box is! After all, I could be completely wrong – maybe the Steam Box will turn out to be the next Dreamcast and fall completely flat.

I doubt it though. Plus, if all else fails, Valve can win the entire war with one simple announcement at their console reveal: Half-Life 3.

Image source: @lauralollipop

Editorial: The only winner in this console war is Steam is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Developer Stainless Games brings the spell-slinging fun that is Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 to Steam on June 26th. There are some major updates and awesome new features coming to the game this summer.  The first and most exciting is the option to actually draft a sealed pool of cards and build your own deck! The deck can be used to play against others online which is something players have been asking for since the first iteration of the game.  The interface has been updated and players can still enjoy multiple decks with cards from Return to Ravnica through M14 cards that haven’t been released yet! Check out the trailer or pre-purchase the game here.

Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 Ignites the Summer is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Awesomenauts creators Ronimo Games recently celebrated the one year anniversary of their 2D MOBA. As a treat for fans, the team put together a video featuring the evolution of the game via concept art, old videos, and a timeline of character and DLC additions. It’s a great look at a terrific game. Plus, if nothing else, you’ll get to hear an extended edition of the totally rad theme song.

Awesomenauts is also part of the current Humble Bundle, and as such has just released on Linux. You can find the game on Steam here, or grab the Humble Bundle here for the next day and a half or so.

Awesomenauts anniversary video shows how far it has come is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Bioshock: Infinite is not just a game, it’s an enigma in and of itself. Upon its release, critics and fans alike cried out in joy that the game was a masterpiece, and that it was the best game of all time. There were dissenters to the lofty praise the game was given, but the overwhelming majority claimed that it was a masterpiece too holy to be touched by these non-believers. Now that the dust has settled, I want to take an honest look at Bioshock: Infinite and find out if it is in fact a game or a god-given gift.

Whether you love or hate Bioshock: Infinite, it can’t be denied that the magnitude of this game is massive. Like the original Bioshock before it, Infinite has changed the landscape of how we interact and feel about characters in games, for better or for worse. Before Infinite, characters in games affected me, but I didn’t know that they could have such gravity on how I felt about a game.

Andrew Ryan from the original Bioshock is one of the most important characters in videogames to me, because he represented the interaction between the player and the character the player was assuming control of in the world. “Would you kindly” is a phrase forever etched in my mind as the words that could get me to do anything, and those words shook the industry when the original was released in 2007. As incredible as Andrew Ryan was, I still don’t feel a direct connection with him, and I don’t think I ever have. On the other hand, Comstock is now, in a way, a part of my conscience, Elizabeth is forever in my heart, and Booker is in my mind. Not just because of how well written they were, but how well realized they were within this fantastical setting and story. Vivid characters are the ones that stick with us the most, and I can’t recall any characters in a game that are as fully realized as Booker and Elizabeth.

Not only are the characters fully realized and well written, but nearly every character in Infinite is essential to the world and the progression of other characters. In games, characters are often vessels of plot progression, serving a necessary purpose but not doing much of anything else (see, “Skyrim”). In Infinite the characters obviously serve that purpose, but the way the characters exist in the world almost makes them necessary for that world to exist in the first place. It’s a bit like a chicken or the egg scenario, but with fictional characters and fictional worlds. Whether it’s Fink, Comstock, Elizabeth, or Fitzroy, every character in Infinite is a driving force in the world, and I can’t possibly imagine this world without them.

The gameplay has received a lot of critique for using elements of older games and not using modern mechanics such as contextual cover. Those that complain about that are missing the point. The game as a whole is a radically different view into what it means to play a videogame, and the gameplay mechanics work perfectly for that. Those that truly can’t get past this style of gameplay are bringing down the game as a whole based on their personal preference. I’m sorry, but just because you prefer different mechanics doesn’t make the game bad; it just means you have different tastes than other people.

There are parts of Infinite that I feel to be almost unnecessary to bring up because they’re so obviously stellar, such as the voice acting. Of course Troy Baker and Courtney Draper had excellent performances, as did the rest of the class. Of course the game is gorgeous. Of course the musical score is stellar. And most obviously, of course the writing in the game is far and beyond one of the prime examples of how to write for a videogame. There. That takes care of that.

The most important part about Bioshock: Infinite and my final point to cover is the world of Columbia. As captivating as Rapture was, it pales in comparison to Columbia. When I first played this game, I had no idea what to expect. After being let down by Bioshock 2 I was apprehensive about all the hype, and as a result, I played it knowing nearly nothing about it. Then it happened. That first sighting of Columbia, when you’re flying into the sky, terrified and nervous as to what awaits, and then emerging from the storm and into the great blue yonder you see it: a golden city floating among the white clouds, shining brighter than heaven. In the background, you hear faint piano music to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. After that incredible moment, you know you’re in for something special. It just gets better as you descend into the depths of the arrival gate of Columbia, seeing the religious imagery and hearing a soft hymn in the background as you gain entry into the city of the heavens. I can’t think of a better opening to an experience, whether it be movies, videogames, television – you name it. Infinite trumps them all.

Maybe it’s my own personal tastes that make me love this game so much, but it’s undeniable that Bioshock: Infinite is an incredible achievement in the videogame industry and deserves respect. It truly is a masterpiece in every regard, and is in my mind undoubtedly the greatest game of all time. There is always a girl, there is always a lighthouse.

Beyond the Hype: Bioshock Infinite is a post from: Steam Game Fans

A few weeks ago, a game was released that flew incredibly low under the radar. Most indie games on Steam go unnoticed by many, and that’s a shame because so many of them are more fun than some of the AAA PC games that get released. One game in particular that I think deserves to be highlighted is The Story Mechanics’ The 39 Steps.

Based on the John Buchan novel of the same title, The 39 Steps is one of the most intriguing anomalies in recent memory. The intriguing element? I can’t quite place my finger on it, but I can narrow it down to a few key pieces of this experience.

First and foremost is the artwork. It’s all hand-made, and it is absolutely breathtaking. The amount of detail in every frame is astounding, and the fact that there are hundreds of these environments made from scratch is even more impressive. The amazing thing about the art is that it’s subtle, refined, and meant to be a background; this allows your attention to be taken fully by the story while your mind is peacefully enjoying the unobtrusively beautiful art that is present for the whole experience.

This game also has a fantastic story. Yes, the text is pulled straight from the book, but the text is abridged impeccably. Having read the book before, I never felt like any important information was skimmed over or any important details missed – a feat for any adaptation from one medium to another.

The 39 Steps is a classic tale about a man on the run, told from the perspective of an innocent bystander turned accomplice, and it has previously been adapted to movie form by Alfred Hitchcock. Sorry Hitch, but I prefer The Story Mechanics’ adaptation of the novel more than the film, and that’s mainly due to the acting in the game. Is the acting technically better than the film? Who’s to say, because there is a vast difference between being on screen and doing voiceover. Regardless of that, I found the actors’ portrayal of the characters accurate and not overdone. It’s easy to go overboard when you have a British character to portray, but I felt that these actors didn’t overdo the accent, which could have killed the whole experience for me.

There is something about this game that I can’t quite put into words. It’s an unobtrusive experience that tells a thrilling tale set to beautiful art with quality acting, but there is something else here. Something I haven’t felt in a long time while playing a videogame, and I encourage everyone to buy this game and play it a few times. You won’t regret it.

A Step in the Right Direction: The 39 Steps is a post from: Steam Game Fans

Holy cow, folks. Just when you thought there were no more markets Amazon could sneak into, they’ve gone and done it again. Amazon has launched an insane new Indie Games hub, complete with bundles, launch sales, and featured sales. There’s even an indie spotlight featuring different developers and including sales on all of their products. The first one up is Gaijin Games.

While we can’t guarantee every game on the page will be available for Steam, some casual searching showed that many of them certainly are. How good are the deals? There’s a Double Fine bundle (named the “Oh So Fine and Dandy Bundle“) containing Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Iron Brigade, Psychonauts, Stacking, and The Cave for only $9.99, which is 89% off the normal price of $89.95. Those are Steam sale prices, folks. And that’s just one sale!

Get on over and check it out.

Amazon launches deal-filled Indie hub is a post from: Steam Game Fans