Best Starter Pack For Steam

[lisalover1]

Well, I have never been much of a PC gamer since I was about 5 [I played a lot of P&C Adventure games back then!], and have been on consoles ever since. But, now that I am going off to college, I figure that it is best for me to start getting acquainted with computer-based gaming, as I can obviously not bring all my consoles with me. Thus, I have been looking through the library of games available on Steam, and have been somewhat impressed by the offerings available. I am interested in getting VVVVVV, Recettear [When the price drops], and Audiosurf as of now, but that seems to be about it that I have found. Does anyone have any recommendations for games for me to get? I am not interested in full-price games that are also available at retail; only relatively cheap games that tend to be exclusive to computers. Based on the titles I listed, do you have any suggestions?

[irixith]

While I'm not going to offer any suggestions for games, I will say that Steam is an excellent source for cheap games, because you -never- have to buy anything offered on it at full price. There are daily sales, mid-week sales, week long sales, weekend sales, a major summer/Christmas sale. It's almost ridiculous how they've trained us never to pay full price.

Sign yourself up, download the client, and start adding stuff you'd like to your wishlist. It's the easiest way to keep on eye on the prices of stuff you're interested in there.

[jeffro11]

Magicka

[J T]

Surely there will be another summer holiday coming up soon. Hold out for that, then keep an eye on all the packs. You can reap huge saving by buying the Valve Complete pack, the iD super pack, or the THQ pack... among others. And given the games you mentioned wanting to play, you should look for whatever specialty indie game packs they have at their next mega sale. At Christmas time last year, all of those games were in indie packs that were really cheap.

[lisalover1]

Surely there will be another summer holiday coming up soon. Hold out for that, then keep an eye on all the packs. You can reap huge saving by buying the Valve Complete pack, the iD super pack, or the THQ pack... among others. And given the games you mentioned wanting to play, you should look for whatever specialty indie game packs they have at their next mega sale. At Christmas time last year, all of those games were in indie packs that were really cheap.

So, the Summer Sale should be in a week or two? And there is a good chance that one or more of the games I mentioned would be on sale?

[J T]

So, the Summer Sale should be in a week or two? And there is a good chance that one or more of the games I mentioned would be on sale?

Yes, I would wait. Since you are new to Steam you save the most money by buying big packs. I already have a lot of Steam games, so even though I might recognize something like the THQ pack is a good deal, I will already have several games within the pack and Steam doesn't let you give away the extras, so it's not worth it to me. If I were in your position, I would save money now and wait for the Summer sale, then go crazy on the packs.

When the sale comes, keep in mind that the packs also go on a super low sale for a day if it gets featured. One holiday I bought the iD super pack because it was marked down for the holiday season, then it went down even lower for a day. Even though I got a good deal on it, I felt a little miffed because if I had only waited a couple days I would have saved even more.

[jfrost]

Last year I believe the Summer sale started on June 24th, so it should be around the same period this time.

It was absolutely ridiculous. Even games that had come out a couple of months earlier had discounts up to 75% (like Bioshock 2, I recall).

Keep in mind that the Summer sale is store-wide. Although I don't think it applies to everything, I'd guess 90% of the store will at least have some discount. Even just launched games usually go for 25% less than RRP.

So, you'll have daily ultra-low specials and even if the game you want is so obscure it doesn't get a spotlight sale, it'll definitely be cheaper.

By the way, a good starter pack is the Valve games. They're the ones that get most heavily discounted and I'm eagerly waiting to be unable to refuse buying Portal 2 (it's been hard to resist, but I'm persevering).

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Definitely not Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2 + Episodes, or the Portals.

[J T]

[quote="j
I'm eagerly waiting to be unable to refuse buying Portal 2 (it's been hard to resist, but I'm persevering).[/quote]

Right there with ya buddy. Stay strong.

[MrHealthy]

Just to clarify about how the summer sale usually works, since your new and all:

Basically everything gets some discount for the duration of the event. Then every day there are daily deals which drop prices even lower then before. Additionally, there are often several combo packs of more obscure indie games to buy.

So the basic rule of thumb for the sale is, make a list of everything you want (the wishlist feature, as mentioned, is great for this), then wait. If it comes up as a daily deal, grab it then an there, it will not be lower anytime soon. On the last day of the sale, if there is anything left on your list (likey since you seem to want indie games the most), then it is now safe to purchase said games.

There is one minor exception to this rule. If on on first day of the sale a publishers complete pack is marked down to a price that seems unreal, it is. They get priced down too low by mistake sometimes and you only have a small window of time, usually a few hours at most, to get the complete pack at such a low price.

One more thing. The last few sales (halloween, thanksgibing and christmas) have featured a number of Indie Packs as valve calls them. For the most part the packs have been of 5 games for 5 dollars. So look over the packs to see if they have more then one game in them you want, as then it is cheaper to buy the pack then it is to just buy the 2 or more games.

As for the games you mentioned in. They have all been on sale at some point. Audiosurf and VVVVVV tend to go on sale more often then other indies, so they will no doubt go on sale again. In fact, VVVVVV was a daily deal on June 1st. Recettear on the other hand may more may not get a good discount. I got it in one of those 5 for 5 indie packs I mentioned, the only other time its been on sale as far as I am aware, it went for 10 bucks.

And some recomendations:

Aquaria - Its a pretty good metroid-vania. About the only good one on steam to boot. Looks great and is worth a look if you like the metroid-vania gameplay, as it has enough differences to keep it safely out of the 'clone' area.

Super Meat Boy - Super hard, but super fun and rewarding platformer. If you like a challenge this game is for you. Controls are top notch (though may take some getting used to) and looks splendid. Play with a PS3 or 360 pad if you can. Keyboard makes the game much harder.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Do you like horror games at all? No? Too bad. You need this game. Even if horror games are not your thing, it is worth playing this game simply to experience how good the horror genre can be. Its games like this that give hope to the genre. One of the first truely frightening games in a long time.