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, EA Store, GamersGate, Get Games, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Impulse and Steam.
There are some great games to be had this week even though the total offering isn’t quite as expansive as last week. This includes the action-adventure game classic Beyond Good and Evil which on sale for practically nothing over at Get Games, while the atmospheric indie platformer Trine sees an even better deal than last week over at Green Man Gaming. GamersGate packs out with a Dragon Week and crushes the other services with a bundle pack that offers more value-for-money than anything else this week in the excellent Spellforce 2 Gold real-time strategy/role-playing game bundle. And lastly there is some great free-roaming shooter gameplay to be enjoyed over at EA Store with its sale for simultaneously awesome and flawed World War 2 shooter The Saboteur.
Read on for more incredible deals and subscribe to GameDrone for weekly coverage of the best digital download offerings!
Deals of the Week
- Beyond Good and Evil on Get Games – Save 80% Weekend Deal – 2,- EUR
A futuristic action-adventure game that sees reporter Jade delve into a conspiracy theory regarding planet Hyllis’ government seeming inability to repel their alien invaders. It’s a diverse game with stealth, vehicle, flying and photo-shooting elements and some helpful sidekicks to aid Jade in her mission. Beyond Good & Evil is an older game, but the graphics are still quite decent by modern standards, which is in part due to exaggerated character and environment designs. This is widely regarded as one of the best action-adventure games ever made, so be sure to grab it if you haven’t already. Note: also on sale at Good Old Games! - Spellforce 2 Gold on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
Spellforce 2 is a greatly underrated mixture of real-time strategy and role-playing gameplay. It presents an engaging and lengthy singleplayer campaign, complete with sidequests, and along with the included Dragon Storm expansion pack it’s good for more than 80 hours of gameplay. With both Spellforce 2 games included in one cheap bundle, this is a deal you don’t want to miss. It should be noted that multiplayer is no longer officially supported for these games although it may be possible to run multiplayer through GameRanger or Hamachi. - The Saboteur on EA Store – Save 25% Deal – 7,49 EUR
Take up the mantle of a freedom fighter in occupied Paris during World War 2 in this excellent open-city first person shooter. As an Irish racecar mechanic (yes, the protagonist is based on war hero William Grover-Williams) trapped in Paris you’ll take revenge on the occupying Nazis while sabotaging their plans through blowing up bridges, derailing supply trains and neutralizing the occupying force. An interesting visual style displays your progress through zones, as occupied zones are depicted in black & white and color returns to the world as the occupying forces are weakened in that area. It does suffer from exaggerated voice acting, predictable storytelling and some AI bugs, but the good overwhelms the bad and it’s certainly a game worth playing. - Trine on Green Man Gaming – Save 76% Weekend Deal – 3,99 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. - Ubisoft Collection on Good Old Games – Save 50% Weekend Deal (30% Individually) – 62,- EUR
This is a bundle of 17 Ubisoft games, but you’ll probably want to buy only a few of these individually. The excellent action-adventure game Beyond Good and Evil is up for grabs here, along with the classic sandbox FPS Far Cry. Similarly excellent are the best game in the Settlers series of city-building/strategy games Settlers 2 Gold and one of the best World War 2 flight simulators of all time IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946. There are also the tactical shooters Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six up for grabs, as well as the excellent first three games of the Heroes of Might & Magic turn-based strategy franchise and the entire Might & Magic franchise of RPGs. Add in the celebrated 3D platformer Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and the excellent top-down wargames of Panzer General 2 and Panzer General 3D and we’ve listed the good games in this package. The remainder is either downright bad (Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings) or sees very divided opinions (Silent Hunter 2).
Action
- Beat Hazard on Green Man Gaming – Save 77% Weekend Deal – 2,24 EUR
An arcade space shooter similar to Geometry Wars but with a neat twist: everything is based around your music. Enemy wave spawns, firing rates and visual effects are all based on the musical track you’ve selected, much like the racing tracks Audiosurf forms around your MP3s. It’s fun and intense. - Miner Wars 2081 on Impulse / GamersGate – 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. - Ninja Blade on Green Man Gaming – Save 73% Weekend Deal – 5,29 EUR
Ninja Blade is a game for fans of over-the-top action with some truly crazy situations. Walking on a plane’s wings while deflecting missiles with a sword, surfing on a rocket in a clown suit, it’s all in this game. It unfortunately suffers from being a straight console port with practically zero improvements for the PC version – even the menu items still display the Xbox 360 keys. There’s also an overabundance of Quick Time Events to be found here. In essence, this is a cheap and inferior version of Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden for the PC. But even a cheap and inferior version is more than we had until now, so this might still be worth looking into if you’re a true action game buff. - Zombie Driver on Impulse / GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 3,63 EUR
Drive in a variety of different, upgradeable cars and annihilate the local zombies with mounted flamethrowers, miniguns and more. It’s short and more than a bit repetitive, but if driving around town killing zombies sounds like your thing then you’ll probably like it. The game has seen a lot of updates recently that have added a lot of new features to the game, such as the Blood Race game modes.
Adventure
- Broken Sword: Director’s Cut on Get Games – Save 33% Deal – 9,99 EUR
This is a re-envisioning of the original Broken Sword adventure game with new content, a new hint system and more. It’s an adventure game classic that involves a conspiracy tale surrounding the Knights Templar and locations around the globe. - Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon on Green Man Gaming – Save 61% Weekend Deal - 4,95 EUR
The latest entry in the Broken Sword franchise that features George Stobbart and Nico Collard being drawn into yet another conspiracy. It’s considered the weakest Broken Sword game primarily because of its awkward control scheme (no point-and-click, but specific buttons for specific situations) and poorly handled character movement in general. Still the story is certainly worth it for fans of the series, but I’d give the Director’s Cut version of the original a try before grabbing this one if you’re new to the franchise. - Machinarium on Get Games – Save 25% Deal – 11,24 EUR
An independently developed adventure game with a very unique art style. It stars a little robot who find himself trapped inside a prison of sorts and features fairly standard point-and-click gameplay mixed with very non-standard story exposition: there’s not a single word of dialogue. It’s a bit short and can be quite difficult at times, but otherwise comes highly recommended for anyone who digs point-and-click adventure games set in strange and interesting worlds. - 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. - Syberia Bundle on Green Man Gaming – Save 50% Deal – 14,95 EUR
The first Syberia game is an excellent adventure games involving the young lawyer Kate Walker who finds herself in a remote town that will soon lead to her life being turned upside down as she searches for the genius inventor Hans to unlock the secret of Syberia. Syberia 2 is also included, which builds upon the story portrayed in the original and presents a similarly immersing storyline with deep character development that spans interesting locations across Europe. It should be noted that the Good Old Games versions (Syberia #1 and #2) are actually less expensive than this bundle deal. - The Whispered World on GamersGate – Save 50% Deal – 14,95 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
- Crysis: Warhead on EA Store – Save 25% Deal – 7,49 EUR
Warhead is a stand-alone expansion pack to the excellent first person shooter Crysis. It’s easily the best looking game to date and adds in good first person shooter gameplay on a tropical island that gets frozen partway through. This expansion pack improves upon the original with better performance, better graphics, more varied setpieces where Koreans actually fight Aliens and generally better pacing. Unfortunately it does suffer from a totally redundant story and putting the player in the role of the most annoying character in the Crysis franchise. It’s still a game well worth grabbing at this price point, which is notably well below retail pricing. - Medal of Honor: Airborne on EA Store – Save 25% Deal - 3,74 EUR
Airborne follows in its predecessors footsteps by presenting yet another World War 2 shooter. It adds a little twist to things by making the player a paratrooper, so that it’s always possible to choose your own insertion point at the start of a mission. This makes for a more varied singleplayer campaign, which when combined with the competently executed shooter mechanics makes for a decent FPS. It never really rises far above mediocrity, but it doesn’t really need to at this price point. - Mercenaries 2: World in Flames on EA Store – Save 25% Deal - 7,49 EUR
This first person shooter puts you in a wide open game world set in Venezuela. Numerous different factions are vying for control over the country and you get to decide who you’ll work with to win the war, while stealing cars, helicopters, etc. Also includes some nice environmental destruction as buildings can be destroyed, which makes this a fair budget game despite the bugs, ridiculous story and over-the-top action ensuring that it never even remotely comes close to its direct competitor Far Cry 2. - NecroVisioN: Lost Company on Green Man Gaming – Save 83% Weekend Deal – 5,01 EUR
The latest title in the NecroVisioN franchise is actually a prequel that puts you in the shoes of a German soldier fighting off hordes of monsters during World War I. A good deal if you’re into arcade first person shooters with hordes of mindless monsters to blast your way through. - Painkiller: Black Edition on Green Man Gaming – Save 52% 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
- Beyond Divinity on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 3,99 EUR
An older isometric action RPG that presents a large open world to explore with tons of quests and hundreds of hours of gameplay. This is backed by a fairly interesting plot and an unusual setup of two heroes, a Paladin and a Death Knight, bonded together so that they can’t survive without the other. It’s unfortunately hampered by poor inventory management, bad voice acting, punishing difficulty and an overly complicated skills system. There’s fun to be had with this 2D isometric RPG, but it’s buried beneath a heap of bad design. It should be noted that the patched up and goodie-packed Good Old Games version is only a few cents more expensive. - 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). - Eschalon: Book I on GamersGate – Save 55% Weekend Deal – 8,49 EUR
Eschalon: Book I is an isometric turn-based RPG set in a large fantasy world. The gameplay is unusual in that the character seems to move in real-time, but there’s really a turn-based base underneath that more blatantly pops its head up during battles. Eschalon is good for dozens of hours of solid gameplay and even presents an interesting fantasy story, but does suffer somewhat from outdated 2D graphics. - Eschalon: Book II on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
Eschalon: Book II plays a lot like its predecessor, but improves the visuals and presents an even larger game with 60 new features. It improves on the original in nearly every regard and the animations in particular ensure that the dated graphics aren’t quite as much of an issue anymore. Definitely worth a look if you like storytelling and gameplay over production values in your singleplayer RPGs. - Gothic 2 Gold on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,99 EUR
Gothic 2 is an open world RPG that presents a lively and detailed game world with a wide breadth of gameplay options. It does suffer a bit from sub-par voice acting and somewhat outdated 3D graphics, but otherwise presents an excellent fantasy RPG for fans of open-world role-playing games with little direction or emphasis on storytelling. - Gothic 3 Gold on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 14,98 EUR
Gothic 3 is generally considered to be inferior to its predecessor despite its fancy graphics and impressive world design. It builds on the free-roaming nature of its predecessors, but doesn’t really change much about the formula. The game was notorious for its bugs at release, but in later patches and the included Forsaken Gods expansion pack these were largely resolved.
Real-time Strategy
- Darwinia on Green Man Gaming – Save 80% Deal – 1,19 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. - Grand Ages: Rome on Green Man Gaming – Save 80% Deal - 3,99 EUR
A city-building real-time strategy game set in the Roman era. - 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. - Sins of a Solar Empire on Impulse – Save 25% Weekend Deal – 10,98 EUR
Real-time 4X space strategy at its finest. SoaSE doesn’t come with any form of singleplayer campaign, but extensive tutorials and excellent skirmish game modes, as well as multiplayer support, are included. It’s an absolute must-have for fans of large-scale real-time strategy and 4X gameplay. The excellent Diplomacy and Entrenchment digital expansion packs are not included. - Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943 on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,50 EUR
A historical tactical war game that takes place during the defensive stage of the battle of Kursk during World War 2. Take command of either the German or Soviet forces as you try to win this historically accurate battle. Theatre of War 2 does not function properly in Windows 7/Vista with UAC enabled.
Turn-based Strategy
- 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 Get Games / Green Man Gaming – Save 38% Launch Deal – 31,99 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
- World of Goo on Green Man Gaming – Save 80% Deal – 3,39 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
- Poker Night at the Inventory on Steam – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 3,59 EUR
With Poker Night at the Inventory Telltale Games takes a stab at creating a funny poker game on the PC. You’ll sit at the poker table alongside these gaming icons: Team Fortress 2‘s Heavy, Max from Sam & Max, Homestar Runner‘s Strong Bad and Tychus from Penny Arcade. It also ties in to Valve’s Team Fortress 2 with a few pieces of winnable in-game equipment. - 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. - Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 7,32 EUR
Space Rangers 2 is a varied game that mixes countless genres into an engaging and over-the-top space adventure that you can’t afford to miss. The game combines text-based adventuring, planet-bound real-time strategy, arcade space shooter and role-playing game elements into a cohesive whole. This unfortunately doesn’t include the Reboot expansion pack that expands and improves upon the game in every regard. - Uplink on Green Man Gaming – Save 80% Deal – 1,19 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.
http://www.gog.com/en/promo/jowood_collection
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