You have finally built your own PC gaming rig. You are ready to defend Earth from alien invasions, fight your way out of a city full of zombies, and become the world champion Zuma player. Well, maybe not that last one, but it is time to see what all the hard work has to offer you. But after building that new computer system, you are now down to a $100 to buy games for the newborn. Summer break just started and there just isn’t any room in your budget for games beyond what you are holding right now. How do you get the most game for your buck?
If you are new to PC gaming, on a tight budget right now, or just want some games to play while you wait for an upcoming release, I got you covered. I am a fan and user of Steam, so everything here can be found on Steam as of writing this article. I am 99% sure you can also find many of these items on Impulse or Direct2Drive as well.
Triple A ++
The new PC was just you gearing up for the upcoming Triple A releases due out by the end of the year. You’ve got the money, so its time to put down your cash for Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Brink, or Portal 2. I would make sure I am getting the game I have been excited about since last year’s announcement. Many of them were definitely worth the wait.
Obviously this will cut into our $100 budget by up to $60, but don’t worry about it. There are a variety of ways to spend the rest of the money get up to 13 games with what we have left. First up is a current Steam sale you just can’t hate.
The Potato Sack is a bundle deal of 13 of the biggest Indie hits for $38.72. This price is a mind boggling 75% off. The game include range from simple, fun time wasting to full narrative stories complete with graphical eye-candy. Lets just look at this list:
AaAaAA! – Reckless Disregard for Gravity is a game where you navigate your way through floating, futuristic cities after you base jump off the top. As you fall you rack up points by risking your life and graffiti tagging buildings. This is the one title on this list I have not played, but I have heard it is addictive fun for everyone.
1…2…3 KICK IT!, AudioSurf, and BIT.TRIP BEAT are all ways to turn music into games. AudioSurf uses old nostalgic musical tracks to control the pace and difficulty of a race course while you try to collect colored bricks for points. BIT.TRIP BEAT is pong on acid. As long as you do well, you get to listen to the great musical score. Fail, and get dropped back into the regular world of pong. It is a surprisingly difficult acid trip down memory lane. Finally you have KICK IT! which will use your music library to build stages. Imagine what it would be like if you were flying through the visualization window in your media player, and you got a good idea of what KICK IT! will be like to play.
Rush and Cogs (above) are both great puzzle games to tease your brain. Cogs combines the classic game of pipes with sliding puzzles while you attempt to build small devices to play music or fly. To top it off, this has to be done on 3D surfaces within a time limit. If you ever played Pipes in some form, this is the game for you. Rush is akin to Portal as it gives you some very basic rules of play. Then Rush lets you use those rules to solve complex 3D puzzles that will have you scratching your head for hours. It will be a great way to get Cogs out of your system for puzzle lovers.
Defense Grid: The Awakening is the greatest tower defense game you can find. This is a fully realized game that will put the hundreds of flash based tower defense games to shame. 20 different levels, 15 enemy types, 10 different towers with 3 levels each, and 3 $1.00 map packs if that ever gets old. I personally will never play a flash tower defense game again.