I own one game that came out this year.

Ever since they limited it to new games (because those are the ones they really want to sell), it's kind of been shit (okay, it was always shit). They're basically encouraging people to nominate stuff they've never even heard of before.

I'll happily put Terarria in the Labor of Love category... I guess I can throw BL3 a bone and nominate it for one other. Maybe I should nominate skeezy, low rent, porn games for every other category as a form of protest shitpost shitprotest.

The Steam Awards, as a measure of quality, are almost as useless as the Golden Joystick Awards.

 

What annoys me is you can only vote for a game in one category. Like, HaloMCC can easily fit the "Better with Friends" "Best Soundtrack" "Sit Back and Relax" categories. But you can only nominate it for one of them.

And that's just one example.

 

Just like only being able to choose games released this past year, this is another symptom of the same problem: Valve/Steam want to use the awards essentially as endorsements for games.

"The thousands of Steam users who nominated this can't be wrong, so buy it! Buy it on sale AND at full price! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy all the things!"

If an old game wins, they can't really sell it for as much (unless it's NieR:Automata; ten years from now it'll still be full price, and I still won't have played it). If the same game wins more than one category, that's essentially fewer games they can advertise.

In the meantime, I keep nominating Terraria for awards it never wins due to a general lack of good taste in the world, and recommend to anyone who doesn't have it to just buy a 4-pack and give the extras to their friends.

Now, If you'll excuse me, I need to go find a game with no music to nominate for best soundtrack.

 

Honestly the only category I take seriously is Labor of Love because I nominate Total Annihilation for that every year. The rest I just try to pick games as obscure as possible.

 

Seven: Enhanced edition is free on humble. It's an isometric action rpg, heavy focus on stealth over combat, set in a cyberpunk influenced post-apocalyptic world. The studio that made it was founded by some ex-CDProjekt devs that decided to take a break from AAA development and go indie after Witcher III. I had a blast with the game when I played it earlier this year, 100% recommend.

 

Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda are on sale in a bundle for less than $22 AUD atm.

 

That is a hell of a deal. Andromeda is 100% worth it at that price.

 

These are the editions with all the DLC too, so you're getting a lot of content. I already own DA: I through Origin but it was cheaper to buy the bundle through Steam than to buy all the DLC through origin.

 

Unfortunately no. The mad fans got what they wanted and Bioware abandoned it.

 

Frostpunk is also on sale at the moment. Base game for 10 euro or game plus all extra content for 29.

Can't really speak for the dlc´s, but the base game is a solid 8/10 for me - easily 30 hours if you just want to explore what it has to offer, but 100+ if you are an obsessive perfectionist, that wish to tell the game whos boss.

 

Stellaris for 1€ with differing amounts of DLC for ~8€-12€. Open for another 10 hours.

 

Civilization 6 Platinum Edition is $12 on Humble

 

Titan Souls is free on Steam currently.

 

Hellpoint is free on GOG.

 

Shadownrun Trilogy is free to claim for the next 72h on GOG.

 

Syndicate Plus, Syndicate Wars and Ultima Underworld 1&2 are free on GOG.

 

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/3748/Darkest_Dungeon_Ancestral_Edition/

offer ends on the 17th.

 

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is free on steam.

No idea if its any good, but hey its free ¯\_(ツ)_/¯