Holiday Sale Survival Guide

I have no idea where this originated, but it's hilariously accurate.

It's not officially Christmas until I've been saddled with feelings of shame and guilt after adding a dozen games to my already gigantic backlog. Amazon, Valve - why must you tempt me so?

If you're at all concerned about being able to afford food in January, you might want to take a look at the following tips.

1. Use resources like /r/GameDeals and IsThereAnyDeal.com to find the best deals.

While Steam might be the "Granddaddy of Them All" when it comes to offering games at stupid prices during the holidays, there's a lot of other stuff going on elsewhere on the Internet. Sites like Amazon and Green Man Gaming have been offering deals on par with - and occasionally better than - those of Valve's service. Plus, with Origin and Uplay on the prowl, it's increasingly common (albeit somewhat annoying) to find games that simply aren't offered on Steam.

Bottom line - it pays to look around, and using some kind of deal aggregator makes everything super easy. Sites like the aforementioned IsThereAnyDeal.com and Cheapshark.com can also give you an idea of the pricing trends for a given game and whether or not it's been cheaper in the past.

Thanksgiving Deal Overload

It's been a busy week thus far - so much so that I haven't posted in a couple of days - and things are only going to get busier from here. It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year as far as PC gaming is concerned. Hopefully you and your wallet have prepared appropriately.

Deal-watching is going to be kind of a big thing for the next five weeks or so, and reddit's /r/GameDeals and sites like IsThereAnyDeal.com and CheapShark.com are going to be your best friend. Time to shovel another 6 or 7 games onto the backlog pile.

I've already picked up Civilization V Gods and Kings for $7.49 (Amazon), Sleeping Dogs for $13.60 (Green Man Gaming, no longer valid), and KOTOR I and II for $2.49 each (Steam). On the hardware side of things, Newegg has a Gigabyte 660 Ti for $250 after $20 rebate, with Assassin's Creed III and Borderlands 2 included at no cost. There's also a Galaxy 660 Ti for $225 AR, sans Borderlands 2. I'm debating whether to jump on a card this week, pick up a cheap 128GB SSD, or just hold off on everything till the next generation.

Should be an exciting week regardless. Happy hunting.

Possible Deal of the Year from Amazon

Amazon is offering a pretty sick THQ bundle this weekend: six games for ten bucks, plus a $5 coupon code. Ridiculous.

Should you take advantage of this deal you'll score copies of Homefront, Metro 2033, Red Faction Armageddon and Red Faction Guerrilla, STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl, and Warhammer 40K Space Marine. To make the deal that much sweeter, Amazon includes a promo code good for $5 off of an "Editor's Choice" game during the month of January. Amazon ran a similar promotion last year and games like Assassin's Creed (1 and 2) and The Witcher were available on the cheap. Some eligible games were on sale for 5 bucks, meaning they were effectively free with a promo code.

This deal might not last through the weekend, so act quickly if you're interested.

Tantalizing THQ Medley [Amazon]

SC2: Heart of the Swarm Release, Preorder Info

Blizzard finally announced a definitive release date for Heart of the Swarm earlier today. The expansion pack hits on March 12, 2013 for $39.99.

Additionally, there are Digital Deluxe and Collector's Edition versions available for $60 and $80, respectively. The Digital Deluxe version adds a handful of skins and portraits for use in SC2 along with a pet for your World of Warcraft characters and zerg-like wings and a banner for Diablo III. The Collector's Edition includes all of that stuff plus a behind-the-scenes DVD, the game's soundtrack, an art book, and a mousepad. I could maybe see buying these if I still played WoW or D3, but then again I'm a cheap bastard.

The best preorder deal seems to belong to Amazon right now. While you don't get a price break, you do score access to the HotS beta. The game's Amazon page states that they'll email you a code "within 4 business days" so that you can get your frag on early. Pretty tempting.

One Great Deal and One Huge Mess (Updated)

Oh EA, what are we going to do with you?

I was browsing /r/GameDeals late Friday night/early Saturday morning and came across a post about an Origin promo code. Things started out innocently enough: EA was sending out surveys and rewarding those who participated with $20 promo codes usable on Origin.

It didn't take long for some enterprising individuals to figure out that the promo code could be used twice, once via the Origin client and once via the website. Don't worry, it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective). Whoever set this thing up must have been in a hurry to get out of the office on Friday, because the promo code could be used an unlimited number of times on a couple dozen games. By adding games to the cart one at a time and applying the promo code to each individual game, people could basically walk out with a sack of games for free.

As much fun as it would have been to load up a cart with everything I was missing à la the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run, I only added Sim City 4 to my account. It's hard to imagine EA just letting this one slide, but then again it'll be hard to distinguish between people who may have innocently snagged 2 or 3 games and those who were deliberately trying to game the system.

Update: EA has supposedly said that they will honor all "purchases" from this event, so download away.

More Amazon Deals - Batman, FEAR

I'm sitting here browsing the 'nets while watching the Steelers and Eagles play an embarrassingly terrible first half of football. While this game isn't very interesting, Amazon has a couple of Digital Deals of the Week that definitely deserve some attention.

Both the Batman Arkham Action Pack (which includes Arkham Asylum GOTY and Arkham City vanilla) and the F.E.A.R Ultimate Pack (all three titles plus some DLC for the first) are available for $10. If you haven't used it yet, promo code OCTOFUN1 can be applied for an additional 25% off, bringing each pack to $7.50 before tax.

I've skipped Batman deals several times in the past because of the size of my Steam backlog, but this particular deal is way too good to pass up. Both Arkham games have a score of 91/100 on Metacritic; nabbing two critically-acclaimed games (released in the last 3 years) for less than 8 bucks is pretty amazing in my book.

The F.E.A.R. deal doesn't look quite as appealing to me, but there's a lot of content there for the money. I remember the first game being fun and pretty original when it was released in 2005, but I haven't played either of the more recent additions to the series. The general consensus seems to be that the series has gotten worse with each game - the original FEAR has an 88/100 on Metacritic, while the two sequels have scores of 79 and 74.

While the deals should stick around for several days, the promo code might expire as soon as tonight. If you're interested, you can pick up the deals here.

Game Deals (via reddit)

I found a couple of deals browsing /r/gamedeals earlier tonight that are worth sharing.

• Amazon: 25% off non-preorder, non-new release games with promo code OCTOFUN1 (reddit link)

  I guess Amazon wants us to have fun this October, and 25% off sounds pretty good to me. This code supposedly stacks with current sales, meaning you can use it to pick up Sleeping Dogs for $22.50 or this combo pack (featuring Mirror's Edge, Bulletstorm, Burnout Paradise, Mercenaries 2, and The Saboteur) for $7.50. No word on how long the code is good for, so act quickly.

• Toys 'R Us: Clearance games for $9.98 (reddit link)

  Looks like Toys 'R Us is making room for their holiday inventory by reducing a bunch of popular games to clearance prices. The reddit user who posted the deal stated that most deals were in-store only (SWTOR, Sims 3, MW3, SC2, Diablo 3), but Arkham City, Rage, and AC Revelations are all available online for less than 10 bucks. Almost all of these are well worth your hard-earned $10 - maybe even MW3, which I reviewed earlier today.

In addition, there was a link to a forum post at Cheap Ass Gamer by an Amazon employee. Apparently this weekend and throughout next week we'll see game deals on the FEAR and Batman franchises in addition to Vessel and Battlefield 3. No word on whether the above promo code will work during the sale - $10 for both Batman games is pretty amazing, but $7.50 would be even better.

Deal Alert: Amazon $10 Bundle

Just got word of a pretty amazing combo pack for sale on Amazon today. The "Storming, Burning, Reflecting, Flaming, Sabotaging Pack" contains Bulletstorm, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, The Saboteur, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, and Mirrors Edge. Each game retails individually for $10-20 and it'd set you back about 75 bucks to pick up everything. The combo pack is currently available for $10.

Burnout Paradise is arguably worth 10 bucks by itself as it easily offers 15-20 hours of gameplay, but the rest of the games are no slouch. According to a user on reddit, everything but Bulletstorm and Mercs 2 will activate on Origin; unfortunately none of the games activate on Steam. Amazon's game downloader isn't anything special, but it gets the job done.

Metacritic  scores
Bulletstorm (link)	82
Burnout Paradise (link)	87
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (link)	70
Mirror's Edge (link)	81
The Saboteur (link)	76

Pick up the deal on Amazon here.

Amazon Labor Day Digital Download Sale

Amazon is having a Labor Day salethat supposedly offers "up to 75% off over 400 PC titles."

Looks like there are some pretty decent deals available at first glance. Mass Effect 3is available for $16, Homefront,Darksiders,and Metro 2033are all 5 bucks each, and the Crysis 2 Maximum Editionis $10. Metro is definitely worth more than $5 and is a pretty solid DX11 game. While I haven't played the others, these are the cheapest prices I've seen, including on Steam.

The sale runs from now until September 9th.