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Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of November 24
Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
Rules:
- No grey market sales
- No affiliate links
If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.
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Happy (American) Thanksgiving!
I'm thankful for y'all, and as such, I'm doing a smol giveaway for people who visit these threads hehe. (Mostly because I'm probably gonna be away when we get an full fledged giveaway thread, and I've missed the last couple haha) These are gonna be games from Humble Bundle so if you already been subbed for the last couple of months you probably already have these games
Only rule is to comment what you're thankful for or what you're looking forwards to for the holidays! I don't ask for much, but if you don't and someone comments what they're thankful for before you they get it first!
Games on the list, 1 per person pls.
Persona 4 GoldenMarvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
High on LifeGotham Knights
Yakuza: Like a DragonThanks for doing this, very nice of ya!
I'm thankful for my daughter. She's 1 and I often find myself just looking at pictures of her on my phone when things are stressful. It's amazing how much dopamine such a seemingly small action releases in my brain. Never understood it before I became a parent, but damn there's gotta be some evolutionary chemistry at work to produce such feelings. This holiday season we're going on our first vacation as a family with her and I'm incredibly nervous and excited at the same time. (nervous for the long plane ride with a baby, excited to see family!)
I'd love P4G if it's still available.
Sent in a PM! Haha I just had a thanksgiving with some new parents and I got to play with the new baby for a bit, they're so cute! Hope that the plane ride goes well!
I'm thankful for my grandpa. He passed last month. He was a big part of my family and my upbringing, I wouldn't be the person I am without his guidance. He was a storyteller, he left behind several books of his own writing. I'm grateful I still have those to go through when I want a story from him.
I'd also be grateful for that copy of Like a Dragon :) thanks for being a part of this community
Of course! I'm sorry for your grandpa, I hope your family is doing well and still enjoying the holidays. Sent it to you in a PM, thank YOU for contributing to these threads as well :)
Thank you. He was at peace with it and was happy with the life he lived, should we all be so lucky.
Key activated successfully, happy holidays~
Thanks so much for doing this, Phoenixrising! I'm thankful for the time I can spend with my family this holiday season. My mother has dementia, and is starting to deteriorate rapidly. I know that we don't have too many more holidays that she will be "herself," so I treasure the ones we have left.
If you still have it, I would love High on Life. It's been on my wishlist for a while.
Thanks again for doing this! I'm grateful to you as well!
Hopefully your holiday with your mother will be the best it possibly could be! Sent it to you in a PM!
Thank you! I appreciate the well-wishes!
Humble Sci-Fi Shooters Bundle
Tier 1:
Tier 2:
Tier 3:
As always with Humble Bundle, click
Adjust Donationand move the sliders to your liking before buying.This is a really solid bundle deal if you don't own any of these.
Prey is excellent. If you want to know more, check out this amazing writeup from @Evie for the Backlog Burner (seriously, it's such a good read).
I played the System Shock remake on release, and it's very well done. I will warn anyone interested in it that, even though the game itself is new, the devs were consistent with the original in that the game is very maze-like and doesn't give a lot of direction to the player. If you go into it with modern sensibilities, you might be frustrated. If you go into it with the mind of a kid in the 90s, then you'll love it.
The new DOOM didn't grab me like it did others, but I can definitely see why people rave about it. That said, it's also highly likely that most people who want a copy have already gotten it in the eight years since its release. (wait, seriously -- eight?!)
I haven't played the original Crysis games or their remasters, so I can't speak to them. I do know that this is by far the steepest discount they've been on though. They usually don't drop below $10-15 USD each during sales, so getting the whole trilogy for $19 USD (plus other games) is a very good value if you're interested in them.
GOG Black Friday Sale
Runs now through December 3rd.
Here is a list of games in GOG's Game Preservation Program, which means that GOG has put in additional effort to make sure these older games are playable on modern systems.
Here is a list of games that are only available through GOG.
Here is a list of store historical lows (at their lowest price ever on GOG), sorted by discount.
Here is a list of games that are at least 75% off, sorted by popularity.
Oaken is free with an email newsletter subscription.
You can use this link to unsubscribe.
Steam Store Autumn Sale now live:
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/special_deals
I might be doing some spontaneous giveaways from my Humble membership in this thread, stay tuned!
Dark Sector is free. No idea what the game is, but free is free!
Also Psychonauts 2 is 90% off.
Here is a list of all time store lows with >500 reviews and review scores above 90, sorted by discount.
Here is a list of games that are at least 75% off, sorted by popularity.
Here are games with fewer than 500 reviews and at least 25% off, sorted by review scores (a potential hidden gem list).
Games I had on my wishlist and finally bought since they're at really nice discounts right now:
Space Haven -60% CDN$ 10.79
Suzerain -75% CDN$ 6.49
Need for Speed™ Most Wanted -90% CDN$ 2.69
STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order -90% CDN$ 5.49
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus -80% CDN$ 7.79
The Council - Complete Season -90% CDN$ 1.99
And I also picked up Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 at -20% CDN$ 63.99 since this is the first time it's gone on sale since its launch this Sep, and I really want to play it.
Most Wanted is fun — I played a lot of it back on my Wii U. Didn’t quite capture the same magic as Burnout Paradise, but also that’s an unfairly high bar to hold any game to.
Also, I started The Council, played for a few hours and really liked it, then neglected it enough that going back to it feels odd. It’s been too long for me to pick up my original save, but not long enough for me to start it over fresh.
Graphically, it has some jank you have to get used to (the character models can be a bit unsettling, for example), but mechanically it’s really compelling. It feels like they took the Telltale narrative adventure model and iterated on it a lot, mixing it with Bethesda-style dialogue skill checks. I really liked being able to allocate points to different skills and build the social profile of my character, then executing on those skills in conversations.
I can’t speak to how the game pans out since I didn’t get that far, but my initial impressions were very positive. It’s pretty unique — I haven’t played much else like it.
I had Most Wanted and Burnout Paradise for my 360 and played the crap out of them, so you're preaching to the choir. But I got rid of my 360 a few years ago since it was just collecting dust. My oldest nephew races karts in RL, is obsessed with racing games, and asks to play them on my PC every time he comes over. But we've played to death all the arcadey ones I already own on PC, like Flatout: Ultimate Carnage, Burnout Paradise, Juiced 2, Grid 2, etc. And he's still a bit too young for the more serious, simulatory ones I own, like iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, Spintires/MudRunner, the Forza Motorsport/Forza Horizon and Dirt series, etc. So I figured I would pick up Most Wanted for us to play next time he's over. :P
p.s. If you have any other good, arcadey racing game recommendations, let me know!
And yeah, The Council looks super interesting, and I've had it on my wishlist for a long time. I didn't want to start playing it before they finished the game though, but by the time they did I kinda forgot about it. And no worries about it being janky, I have a pretty high tolerance for jank, so most of the negative reviews mentioning that didn't phase me at all. ;)
Adorable! I know we've talked about nephews before, but I'll reiterate that it warms my heart that you're getting that kind of quality time with him! Also I LOVED racing games as a kid, so it sounds like we would get along too!
Furthermore, you asked for racing game recommendations, which is like handing me a GIGANTIC JAR of worms and begging me to open it, so know that what follows is entirely your fault! 😂
The Trackmania series are my favorite racing games of all time. The easiest point of entry is their 2020 release (which is free to try). It's not great as two player, since the fun of the game is beating either your own times on tracks or competing in multiplayer lobbies, but Trackmania Turbo has a mode called "Double Driver" in which two players steer one car together, which might be really fun for y'all. Trackmania, to me, scratched the Hot Wheels itch I had as a kid -- lots of loops and swoops and jumps. It's a lot more than just driving in circles like a lot of other racing games.
Hot Lap League isn't as good as Trackmania, but it's got the exact same format and might be a little more kid-friendly.
Forza Horizon 4 and 5 are both great and I'm sure you're already aware of them, but I figure I should mention them for completeness's sake.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is a remaster of an older NFS title that's fun and well-made.
Split/Second is a spectacle racing game all about triggering explosions at strategic times while racing to try to throw off your opponents.
nail'd is a really fun off-road racing game, though the name is questionable for kids.
The WRC Series is a decent arcadey off-road game series. I don't even know which ones I've played, since there are a lot of them and they're all pretty similar. The older ones go on sale often, so they're the easier buys.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Team Sonic Racing are both fun kart racers. Transformed has you shifting between vehicles as parts of the track (car, plane, boat) which is exciting, while Team has some co-op mechanics that could be fun for both of you. Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is also decent, but honestly, Transformed improves on it in every way and is probably a better starting point.
Super Indie Karts is a modernization of the SNES Mario Kart formula featuring characters from other indie games. It's still in early access so it's unfinished, but it's promising.
Star Drift Evolution is a genuinely fantastic little hidden gem. Great stylized art, addictive time-trial gameplay, and tons of content.
Inertial Drift is an anime-inspired racing game with a really unique dual stick steering system that uses the right stick to drift. One of my favorite arcade racers of late. Has a learning curve, but is really satisfying once you get the feel for it down.
Crash Drive 3 is a multiplayer car playground. Each level is a lobby, and every minute a new game stars, such as capture the flag. Everybody then participates until time runs out, a winner is declared, and then a new game automatically starts. It's very likely that there isn't much of a population for this one, so you might not be able to play with randos, but the two of you could easily play against each other and have a ton of fun. Supports cross-play with all platforms too, including phones.
GRIP is a super-fast arcade racer where the gimmick is that your car can flip over and keep driving. It also regularly goes on sale for ultra-cheap, and the DLC is unnecessary to enjoy it.
Zeepkist is a zany, kid-friendly game where your car is entirely gravity powered. It's very exciting, but it's still in early access. I'm waiting until it's fully cooked to dive into it.
Descenders might not be as exciting for him if he's into cars specifically, but this is a procedurally generated downhill racing roguelite game that's easy to learn, hard to master, and tons of fun.
Lonely Mountains: Downhill is similar to Descenders, but slower paced and with an isometric camera.
Race the Sun is a bit of an odder recommendation. It's less of a racing game and more of an infinite runner game with a racing game feel where you fly a spacecraft through abstract environments while the sun is setting. Because your craft is solar powered, if the sun sets completely, you run out of energy and stop, so your goal is to keep going fast to keep the sun in the sky.
Riptide GP2 and Riptide GP: Renegade aren't necessarily great games, but he might like a change of pace from racing cars, and these are both jetski games.
SkyDrift is another change of pace from cars, but this time with planes. There's also SkyDrift Infinity but I haven't played that one and thus can't really recommend it (it also has worse reviews than the original).
STAR WARS Episode I Racer is very dated so he might not be into it, but it's another nice change of pace from cars.
Tinker Racers and Toybox Turbos are both top-down, Micro Machines-inspired racers. Neither is amazing, but they could both be fun for kids.
OmniBus isn't so much a racing game as it is sort of a ridiculous car playground where you're tasked with doing different tasks while driving a bus with no brakes. Goofy fun.
Snakeybus, likewise, is about a bus that expands as you collect powerups, just like the traditional snake game. Pretty novel and fun. The addition of a third dimension to snake adds a lot to the game.
Blur and FUEL are probably my favorite arcade racers of all time, but unfortunately neither of them are available via distribution anymore. I'm just adding them here for completeness's sake, in addition to the idea that you might still be able to snag copies of them from somewhere if either of them looks like something he'd be into. Blur is basically Mario Kart set in the real-world with real cars -- lots of powerups and combat. FUEL is a gigantic open world with tons of off-roading.
Also, I will recommend AGAINST LEGO 2K Drive and Hot Wheels Unleashed. They're actually both decently good games, but they have predatory monetization systems that I think are exploitative of children.
Whoa, sweet! Thanks for taking the time to make that list. I own and have played quite a few of them already (e.g. I have several hundred hours played in Horizon 3, 4, and 5), but there are actually a surprising amount on there I haven't even heard of. So I am definitely going to have to go through them all and pick out a bunch to buy that my nephew and I can play together.
At a quick glace the ones that really stood out to me are Tinker Racers and Toybox Turbos. You're right that they 100% remind me of the old Micro Machines game, which I also used to love too! We used to play it at LAN parties and it was a blast. So I am definitely picking those up for us.
Speaking of party racing games, one you might not have heard of is Make Way. I haven't played it yet myself, but I've watched Smi77y play it with his buddies, and it looks super fun! There is no preset race tracks, but between each round you all rush to grab randomly selected track pieces and hazards from a pile, and then you rush to place them down, with the goal of making it more and more difficult to finish each consecutive race lap. :P
And I know of Trackmania and even used to watch a bunch of speedrunners play it, but I've never actually played it myself... which I should really remedy!
p.s. Totally agree on Hot Wheel Unleashed. We bought it for my nephew's PS5, and it is fun, but I absolutely agree that its "DLC" model is predatory as hell.
My gaming group LOVES us some Ultimate Chicken Horse, and Make Way looks like the racing version of that. Thanks for the recommendation! It's right up my alley.
Ah, yeah I've seen that game and a few others like it being played by YouTubers. Looks fun too, and yeah similar concept, for sure.
Ultimate Chicken Horse is also a popular party game for my group. Sometimes rage-inducing, but always fun.
We extend the default number of rounds because it feels too short by default. Sometimes levels only start to get interesting after 10+ rounds. You can customize the game rules and save them as presets. You can even customize the item frequencies, if you want more bombs, fewer projectiles, etc.
I think it's the kind of game that everyone has to be a good sport about. It's easy to make the level impossible to complete if you're ahead, but that just makes the game unfun for everyone. So a good house rule is try to keep things beatable. That's not to say you can't make it as difficult as possible otherwise, though. Make 'em work for it.
The devs seem to drop a surprise update every year or two with new characters and maps. I keep thinking they're done, and they keep surprising me.
I believe games like FUEL and Blur are considered abandonware, one can find downloads for them (and many other pieces of abandonware) on Internet archive. There are some sites dedicated to sharing abandonware as well.
The OG 512 GB LCD Steam Deck is 25% off its list price, and is about 40% cheaper than the equivalent OLED model’s list price (the OLED models are also not currently on sale).
If you’re interested in the Deck but are worried about which hardware to buy: the OLED model is technically a little bit better than the LCD model, but it’s nowhere near 40% better, so you’re not taking a massive loss or anything by paying less for the older model.
Forza Horizon 4 is 80% off again. It is getting delisted from Steam in two weeks, so if you want it before it goes, now's a good time to get it (it will be gone before the next big Steam sale, so this might be its last discount round).
Also, the only way to get the DLCs is by buying the Ultimate Edition, since they have already been delisted and you cannot buy them separately.
Sega’s Dreamcast Collection, which features 6 Dreamcast titles and one Saturn game, is 45% off. Not a great discount, but it’s your last chance to get these, as they’re being delisted in a week.
The same goes for the SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics, which is 51% off. It’s also getting delisted too, with some of the games originally from it already gone (the Sonic platformer titles). One cool thing about this set is that it does include ROM files for the games, so you can pull them and use them in an emulator separately, if that’s your preference.
Walmart has the digital version of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on sale for $30 USD (not sure if it’s available in other countries).
Nintendo first party titles very rarely go on sale, especially steep discounts, so this is pretty noteworthy.
Nice catch, that’s the lowest price ever for TOTK. Finally gonna pick it up, thanks!
For the next 35 hours there's a 55% off Steam bundle for Danganronpa 1, 2, V3, and Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE Plus. If you already own the Danganronpa games then those are deducted from the full price, and you'd get RAIN CODE for $27 USD, historic low.
Fanatical Dollar Collections
I'm not going to take the time to list out all of them, but some of these are a steal for a buck. Here are some that I recommend, depending on your interests:
3D Realms Dollar Bundle has some nostalgia in it if you were a 90s PC gamer (I loved Wacky Wheels).
GRIP is a good Rollcage-inspired racing game. It's got some issues, but those are ignorable at this price.
Valfaris is a very stylized 2D shoot-'em-up. I didn't love it myself, but I can see why it's very well received.
Frog Detective 1 & 2 are cute, absurdist comedy kids' games.
This pack has You Suck at Parking which is a cute little driving arcade challenge game; When Ski Lifts Go Wrong which is a cute little bridge constructor-type game; and Iron Fisticle which is a cute little action dungeon crawler (with a genuinely terrible name).
EDIT: The ones below are now out of stock.
Oddworld Complete Collection is a nice throwback for anyone that grew up on Abe's Oddysee or Exoddus.Embr is a fire-fighting game. I didn't love it myself, but I also only played it solo. It's likely much better with friends, and getting a 4-pack for a dollar is a low ask.Brotato free on EGS this week!:
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/brotato-ed4097
I have well over 100 hours in Brotato. I haven’t started on the new DLC yet, but prior to that I’d completed every character on Danger 5 except for one: Streamer ::shakes fist in anger::
I think Brotato is, as of yet, the smartest and most addictive iteration of the Vampire Survivors formula. It’s not exactly a steal for free since the base game is already very cheap, but I also know that free games like this often get added to libraries and then just sit there.
This is a game you don’t want to just let sit there.
Persona 5 Royal is at a historical low of just under $19.34 using the discount code BFHDY2A279 on NewEgg! I put 120hrs into this JRPG, I highly recommend it if the style, setting, and turn based combat appeal to you.
A Steam key for Breathedge is free at Fanatical if you sign up for their newsletter.
Not exactly a game, but game-adjacent: Fanatical has these Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher graphic novel bundles that look really tempting. Anyone read them before?
I have the first Witcher comic somewhere. I liked it fine, felt like it could've been one of the short stories, but I didn't care for the Dark Horse aesthetic. I think that one had a leshen that looked cool. So if you're already a Witcher and Dark Horse fan, it's cool, but I'm not sure it serves as a good intro to Witcher or comics. I'm also the sort of nerd that read the fan translations bc the original novels weren't in English yet so that's my bias.
That sounds good, thanks. Luckily I’m already a big fan of the series. I played throne breaker recently and it reminded me how much I love that whole universe, so I think these comics will scratch that same itch.
Cyberpunk is the one I was most debating, since I’ve never played that game (did enjoy the anime though). But looking at the previews, they do look pretty cool. So I think I’ll give it a shot as well.