Discount Drone Week 44 2010

Digital distribution platforms feature regular special offers to lure in new customers. These exceptional deals can be used to your advantage as a means to quickly assemble a vast collection of great PC games at very low cost. But that requires regularly checking in on each and every digital download service for their latest deals, which can be a tiresome affair.

That’s where this weekly Discount Drone feature comes in. Within I take a weekly look at everything that is on offer and extract the best deals for your perusal. These are formatted by genre and accompanied by short and accurate descriptions, so that you can decide whether a game might be worth having. This includes special offers on: Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Get Games, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Impulse and Steam.

An astounding Halloween weekend may have already passed, but there are a lot of very interesting deals to note this weekend as well. The most interesting of all has to be the free weekend currently going for wild west third person shooter Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West and astronautical first person shooter Shattered Horizon on Steam in celebration of the launch of their Frontier Pack bundle. The Grand Theft Auto Classics pack offers some excellent free-roaming action gameplay with three 3D third person titles and the two original top-down 2D games. And there are some great strategy games up for grabs this weekend as well, with the captivating and intense World in Conflict Complete Edition set in an alternate version of the Cold War and the far future infinite war of Supreme Commander 2 with its cold and brutal strategic warfare on an immense scale.

Read on for more exciting deals and subscribe to GameDrone for weekly coverage of the best digital download offers!

Deals of the Week

• Frontiers Pack on Steam – Free Weekend and Save 50% Launch Deal – 12,49 EUR
  A bundle pack of two excellent indie multiplayer shooters that explore two very different frontiers. Shattered Horizon is a first person shooter in space, which puts you in the role of an astronaut with a wide assortment of guns and utilities. It offers objective-based gameplay with the gun and item selection largely determining the role you play in this largely realistic space simulation. Lead & Gold: Gangs of the Wild West is also included and offers third person shooter gameplay in the wild west with four different classes and objective based gameplay. Both are great multiplayer shooters, but they have fairly small communities of active players.
• Grand Theft Auto Classics on Steam – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 7,49 EUR
  This bundle contains all the Grand Theft Auto games except for GTA 4 and its expansion packs. These are excellent free-roaming third person shooters in which you become part of the criminal element in a variety of cities, complete with car chases, shootouts and of course grand theft auto. Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2 are also included, but these top-down shooters are already available for free.
• Supreme Commander 2 on Steam – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 8,50 EUR
  Supreme Commander 2 is a real-time strategy game that plays on the strategic scale of thousands of units per side. It involves base building, resource management and large scale combat between three distinct factions; the religious Aeon Illuminate, the cybernatic rebels of the Cybran nation and the brutally militaristic United Earth Federation. SupCom 2 features greatly enhanced graphics and performance, more streamlined combat and much improved unit AI. But it suffers from a dreadful singleplayer campaign, overly prevalent experimental units, dumbed down economics and the removal of several advanced features. It’s partly better and partly worse than its predecessors, so your mileage may vary. The Infinite War Battle Pack DLC, which offers additional units, boosts, upgrades and maps, is also on sale.
• World in Conflict Complete Edition on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 7,49 EUR
  World in Conflict is a very innovative game in the real-time strategy genre. Players pick a class – infantry, armored, air or support – and order in a limited number of units to take over numerous control points spread across the map. It features the most compelling singleplayer experience in the genre and engaging multiplayer gameplay with objective-based FPS style teamplay, matchmaking, leaderboards, player advancement and drop-in matches. It should be noted that this package is similarly priced in most webshops.

Action

• Halloween Zombies and Aliens on Get Games – Save 38% Halloween Sale – 9,99 EUR
  This pack contains Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded, Zombie Driver and Zombie Shooter. That’s two solid top-down shooting games and one top-down driving game with guns and zombies to pancake.
• Miner Wars 2081 on Impulse – Save 71% Pre-order Deal – 9,99 EUR
  A space simulator with a fully destructible environment in both space and underground areas. It’s a combined single/multiplayer game that can be played cooperatively or versus and comes with joystick support as well as WASD + mouse. It supports battles with up to 300 ships, a wide variety of ships, numerous ship upgrades, full looting on all ships (similar to EVE Online) and 30 different factions to join. It’s hard to tell whether the game will actually be any good, but given the fact that it’s pretty much the only known upcoming space sim I’d say it’s worth mentioning by default. If you pre-order you will get access to the currently ongoing early alpha test.
• Starscape on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 3,51 EUR
  A top-down space shooter that sees your space research station damaged with most of its crew missing. Your task is then to restore the station back to full status by collecting lost equipment, mining resources, upgrading systems, finding your crew and fending off hostile attackers. The story and RPG-like ship advancements make for some nice touches to the basic space shooter gameplay and make it well worth playing.
• Worms: Reloaded on Get Games – Save 10% Weekend Deal – 17,99 EUR
  A 2D sidescrolling action game involving worms with crazy accents, even crazier weapons and collectable hats. It’s a turn-based game in which you attempt to kill off the other team(s) of worms by means of weapons like the holy hand grenade and exploding sheep. Add in some modding support, achievements, leaderboards, a singleplayer campaign and multiplayer and you’ve got a fair purchase that should last quite a while. However, this price may still be a tad steep.

Adventure

• Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse on Telltale Games / GamersGate – Save 43% Deal – 14,05 EUR
  The third season of Telltale’s popular adventure game series has finally concluded and it’s the best season yet! This package includes all five episodes of the third season for some hilarious point-and-click adventure gameplay. It’s been reduced in price to celebrate the launch of the final episode.
• The Whispered World on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 14,99 EUR
  The Whispered World is a fairly recent point-and-click adventure game with beautiful atmospheric visuals, a lot of interactivity and a large game world to explore and experiment with. It’s unfortunately hindered by poor voice acting and obscure puzzles, which feels like a throwback back to the Monkey Island days of “wtf am I doing?”.

First Person Shooter

• Painkiller: Black Edition on Green Man Gaming – Save 52% Weekend Deal – 4,75 EUR
  Go all-guns-blazing in this excellent fast-paced first person shooter with a grim mythical setting that puts you in the role of a demonic ass kicking mercenary. Crazy weapons, crazy enemies, crazy powers and a crazily fast pace make for one heck of a ride. And multiplayer offers solid competitive arena-based hardcore FPS play that’s unfortunately quite empty nowadays due to the free excellence that is Quake Live. Also included is the Battle Out of Hell expansion pack, which was the last decent Painkiller game.

Role-playing Game

• Darkfall EU (NA Version) on Impulse – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 7,49 EUR
  Darkfall is a fairly recently released fantasy MMORPG that’s geared towards a more hardcore crowd. It does away with leveling in favor of a skill-based progression system similar to Ultima Online. It also present a seamless open world with full PvP everywhere and full looting on all player corpses. Not to mention the cities to besiege, vehicles and mounts to fight on, extensive crafting and guild support, etc. It’s certainly not a game for everyone, but I know quite a few gamers who truly enjoy its more hardcore approach to the genre.
• Dungeon Defenders on GamersGate / Impulse – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 7,19 EUR
  Choose a class, create a character and team up with three friends to defend your dungeon from waves of monsters! Add in a wide variety of towers, pets, loot, monsters, achievements, game modes and a storydriven campaign and you have Dungeon Defenders’ unique take on the tower defense genre. These digital pre-orders come with an exclusive familiar depending on the digital distribution service (Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Impulse or Steam).
• EVE Online: Tyrannis on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
  EVE Online is a science fiction MMORPG that lets you command a space ship in a singular online universe. There are no alternate shards, there is full looting on death, no (real) PvP safe zones, a fully player-driven economy based around manufacturing and research, dozens of ship types, hundreds of ship upgrades, etc. The main drawbacks are the lack of direction and the indirect mouse controls (akin to fantasy MMORPGs rather than actual space simulators), but those are compensated for by the massive PvP battles with hundreds of players and the immense freedom that allows you to discover your own preferred play style. It’s also easily the most beautiful MMORPG to date, with a state of the art DirectX 10 engine that puts the likes of Age of Conan and Final Fantasy XIV to shame with ease while offering far superior performance.
• Eschalon: Book II on Steam / GamersGate / Impulse – Save 20% Weekend Deal – 15,99 EUR
  An isometric turn-based RPG in a large fantasy world. Its graphics are somewhat dated and it was created by a small independent studio, but it offers many dozens of hours of play time and a solid fantasy story. Worth a look if you’re into gameplay and storytelling over graphics in your RPGs.

Real-time Strategy

• Darwinia on Green Man Gaming – Save 33% Deal – 3,95 EUR
  A retro-themed indie real-time strategy game where you have to save the Darwinians from extinction as a computer virus has infiltrated their world. It only features singleplayer, but is actually quite fun to play.
• Faces of War on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 2,49 EUR
  Faces of War involves small scale real-time strategy gameplay with heavy unit micromanagement similar to Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2. That involves managing units inventories and actions in far greater detail than in ordinary real-time strategy games. It’s also a very challenging game with extensive multiplayer support and 3D graphics similar of Company of Heroes.
• Fate of Hellas on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,99 EUR
  Fate of Hellas centers around ancient Greece and offers fairly familiar RTS gameplay. It tries to change things up a little by carrying over bonuses from conquered cities, as well as introducing some unit customization by allowing you to pick up weapons from fallen enemies. But apart from that it’s just a solid RTS game with base building, melee and ranged combat, formations and siege gameplay.
• Gratuitous Space Battles DLC Bundle on Positech Games – Save 50% Deal - 9,99 EUR
  Gratuitous Space Battles is a space strategy game that involves ship assembly and positioning, but no control during battles whatsoever. The singleplayer campaign is essentially a series of escalating challenges, but it’s also possible to create your own battle scenarios or download other people’s scenarios. This package does not include the original game which is required to run the four included DLC packs that introduce new ships and equipment to the game.
• Hegemony: Philip of Macedon on GamersGate – Save 28% Weekend Deal – 17,95 EUR
  A real-time strategic warfare game made by a very small team of developers that looks surprisingly good with a board game-style overmap and close-up 3D battle sequences. It recreates the conquest of Ancient Greece by Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. A slight lack of depth and limited replayability prevent it from being a good strategy game, but it’s still interesting enough to warrant a look.
• Men of War Gold Edition on GamersGate – Save 70% This Week – 9,58 EUR
  This bundle pack comes with the original Men of War as well as its Red Tide sequel. Both games offer hardcore real-time strategy gameplay in the World War 2 era with a limited number of troops and a high degree of realism and control. They span dozens of missions and numerous factions with a wide variety of units and are among the best games of their kind.
• Star Ruler on Impulse – Save 20% Weekend Deal – 15,19 EUR
  Star Ruler is a 4X space strategy game featuring enormous, procedurally generated, galaxies displayed with decent 3D graphics. Its distinguishing feature is the degree of customizability for skirmishes, with randomly generated galaxies, two different types of tech advancement, ship customization, numerous difficulty levels, etc. It also features extensive modding and multiplayer support, but is known to suffer from a few bugs and a poor interface. It’s not quite as good as Sins of a Solar Empire or Sword of the Stars, but Star Ruler is a fair addition to the genre nonetheless.

Turn-based Strategy

• Armada 2526 on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 14,95 EUR
  This is a 4X space strategy game that involves turn-based empire management on the starmap and real-time 3D space battles. It doesn’t quite match up to Sword of the Stars in either respect, but it’s a solid alternative if you’re looking for something new in the same vein.
• Fantasy Wars on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,49 EUR
  Turn-based strategy gameplay in a fantasy setting. This is the prequel to Elven Legacy so the gameplay is nearly identical with constant grid-based turn-based warfare. It’s actually a lot of fun to play despite the low production values.
• Flotilla on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 3,59 EUR
  This indie-game involves randomly generated universes that you get to explore with your own space fleet. It includes turn-based tactical combat, exploration of a randomly populated universe, stylish 3D graphics, ship upgrades, splitscreen co-op, skirmish mode, etc. Definitely a game worth having.
• Heroes of Might & Magic V Gold on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 19,99 EUR
  The latest entry in the celebrated turn-based strategy game series of Heroes of Might & Magic offers charming 3D graphics and a stunning soundtrack. The game revolves around exploring a fantasy world with your hero unit(s) to gain resources, bonuses and buildings, while fighting turn-based battles on separate hex-based combat fields with the armies beneath your hero unit(s). It’s a much better game than HoMM IV, but doesn’t quite cut it in comparison to HOMM III. Still, it’s one of the best games of its kind and certainly worth having in this gold edition pack that includes both the Tribes of the East and Hammers of Fate expansion packs.
• Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,99 EUR
  A turn-based strategy game based on the Commandos series with colorful 2D graphics seen from an isometric perspective. You take control over a small band of heroes with very different abilities and need to sneak into heavily patrolled areas to accomplish a wide variety of objectives. It has all of the challenging gameplay of the original Commandos games, but is set in an interesting medieval fantasy environment that shakes things up a little and offers far more beautiful backgrounds.
• UFO: Afterlight on Green Man Gaming – Save 66% Weekend Deal - 6,69 EUR
  Afterlight places the focus on a small human colony on Mars that has to thrive in the face of constant alien invasions. It’s a much better game than Aftershock and a solid mixture of global strategy and small-scale tactical combat.

Simulator

• Football Manager 2011 on Green Man Gaming – Save 20% Launch Deal – 31,95 EUR
  Become the manager of a football team and lead it to top of the local and international leagues. It’s a fairly addictive game despite the lack of actual control over the football matches themselves, but you do get to decide on the tactics, training and line-ups beforehand. This 2011 edition is mostly more of the same with some changes of note such as better Amateur/B-level play, press conferences and newly generated players. Note: This is a Steamworks game so it will require Steam to run!

Platform and Puzzle Games

• Tidalis on Impulse – Save 30% Weekend Deal – 4,91 EUR
  Tidalis is a new take on the ubiquitous match-3 puzzle game genre. Rather than lining up blocks for extra points it involves blocks with arrows that blast out energy in a specific direction and thus can make some very unique match combinations. There are further unique blocks such as magnets and repulsors that can alter these energy beams. It also includes co-op and competitive multiplayer modes for a very complete puzzling package.
• Trine on Get Games – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 8,99 EUR
  Trine is a beautiful and atmospheric indie platform game that features an engaging singleplayer story with challenging puzzles as well as local (same computer) co-op support. You take control over three different characters with completely different abilities that can be upgraded as you progress through the game. Many puzzles call for cooperation between multiple characters, making it ideal for co-op play. Read my first impressions for an indication of what the game plays like and why you should get it.
• World of Goo on Green Man Gaming – Save 33% Deal – 11,29 EUR
  Take charge of an armada of goo and use it to form all sorts of weird contraptions to solve puzzles. It’s charming, humorous and challenging.

Other Games and Bundles

• Hacker Evolution Collection on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal - 9,49 EUR
  In this game you take on the role of a hacker trying to prevent computers from becoming the dominant species on the planet. It’s a series of hacking challenges in a simulated hacking environment with numerous console commands. It also offers fairly extensive modding capabilities. This collection contains both the original game and the sequel Hacker Evolution: Untold.
• Poker Night at the Inventory on Steam – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 3,59 EUR
  Take Team Fortress 2′s Heavy, Max from Sam & Max, Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad and Tychus from Penny Arcade and you get Poker Night at the Inventory! It’ll be a game about playing poker, but not quite in the way you’re used to.
• Sid Meier’s Complete Collection on GamersGate – Save 40% Weekend Deal – 32,99 EUR
  An exquisite bundle pack that contains the entire Civilization III and Civilization IV series of turn-based strategy 4X games, which let you build a civilization from the ground up to become the dominant force throughout the ages through diplomacy, culture, science or warfare. The free form game of Sid Meier’s Pirates is also included, which lets you explore the Caribbean, swashbuckle, woo and sail wherever your please. And then there’s Railroads which offers a stylish and engaging new take on managing your own railroad empire. This is potentially thousands of hours of gaming fun for a great price.
• THQ Ultimate Bundle on Impulse – Save 68% Deal – 93,64 EUR
  This is a bundle of some of THQ’s best PC games. It includes the entire Company of Heroes series of World War 2-era real-time strategy games, along with Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War and Supreme Commander and their respective expansion packs. Proper first person shooters are also included in the form of the entire Red Faction franchise and both Full Spectrum Warrior games. The excellent Action RPG Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion are also included, along with the superb free-roaming singleplayer FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The racing game Juiced 2 and zoo simulator World of Zoo round out the package.
• Uplink on Green Man Gaming – Save 33% Deal – 3,95 EUR
  In this game you assume the role of a freelance hacker. Take on jobs and upgrade your tools with the earnings as you progress through the game’s plot.

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