#SteamWinterSale: Aark's 2016 Recommendations!

Winter 2016 has come and with it, Steam's Winter Sale kicks off with 3 days to spare until Christmas! I've found myself listing recommendations on twitter for games I think are a steal, but I decided to list them all in one place this time around! Dust off your wallets, and have a happy holiday!

• The Elder Scrolls Online ($14.99 at 50% off): ESO has received a lot of shit due to having a bad launch, but after quite a few updates, new content, balance changes, and subtle details, the game has turned in to a welcome addition that maintains its Elder Scolls roots, but still manages to nail what makes MMORPGs popular. It walks a limbo in between Skyrim and World of Warcraft, with a bit of Guild Wars 2 thrown in. Overall, at just $15, I can't NOT recommend one of my favorite time sinks.
• Elte: Dangerous ($20.09 at 33% off): The fourth installment of the Elite series of Space Sims currently stands at the top of my games list on Steam with over 1000 hours invested in it. While the content expansion Horizons will run you another $20 on top of the base game, even just the base has tons of content for people willing to devote some time to learning the game and some imagination in to justifying the seemingly dull nature. Once you get over the "im just grinding" hump that a lot of people fail to overcome, Elite turns in to a spectacular and extremely unique game that nails the majesty of what Space Sims can be.
• DOOM 2016 ($19.79 at 67% off): This doesn't even need much of a description. Do you like killing demons? Do you like guns? Do you like gore? Do you like killing demons with guns and leaving puddles of gore? You'll love DOOM, and it's less than twenty bucks. 
• Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade ($19.99 at 60% off): Like Elder Scrolls Online, Eternal Crusade has received a lot of shit for a bad launch, and really the launch wasn't even that bad. The issue was that the game was very transparent about it's development and so when features that were talked about early on didn't make it in to the end product, people felt lied to and cheated. All that aside, and taken as what it is, Eternal Crusade is a solid, third person arena shooter set in the 40k universe. Gunplay and Melee is fluid and fun, progression opens up a wide array of customizations and combat options, the class-based loadout system covers a wide variety of player roles, and matches are intense, fun and emphasize team strategy. For $20, it's WELL worth it.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ($19.99 at 50% off): A challenging RPG with many ways to approach gameplay, hundreds of hours of content and loads of replay value to try new builds and make different story choices, and DLC that could be entirely new games all by themselves, Witcher 3 is a masterpiece and one of the best games to come out in the Action/Adventure RPG genre. Worth far more than the $20 you can grab it for right now.
• The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind ($7.49 at 50% off): Graphics-wise, the third installment of the Elder Scrolls series is outdated. It looks old, feels old...but by god is it still an amazing game. Much more open-ended than Skyrim in terms of possible player builds, much more challenging (and frustrating) in terms of combat, and dungeon design is far more complex and thoughtful, and there are no quest markers. You find your way around the good old fashioned way and find your quests by talking with random people. For less than $8, a game that I've sunk hundreds of hours in to as a kid, and still holds up in every aspect aside from visually is worth it.
• Dark Souls ($10.99 at 45% off): YOU WILL WANT A USB CONTROLLER FOR THIS. TRUST ME. If it's nearly 2017 and you still haven't played the dark, intense, challenging quest of despair and "fuck you, player" that inspired a cult following, 2 sequels, and an endless supply of top-quality memes? Then git gud and buy it so I can invade you.
• Dragon Age: Origins ($7.49 at 75% off): Not as visually stunning or open-ended as Dragon Age: Inquisition, Origins still manages to capture the world of Thedas in a complex and thrilling RPG. My Blood Mage was one of my favorite characters I've ever played in an RPG and the story, while stagnant at times, was still one that kept me engaged and interested in moving forward. 
• No Man's Sky ($35.99 at 40% off): BET YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D HEAR THIS ONE, HUH?! To be honest, while I am disappointed with No Man's Sky, I can't deny that I had fun with it, even before the latest update which brought in quite a lot of content and new mechanics. It's like the exploration aspect of Elite: Dangerous, one of my favorite aspects of the game, released as it's own thing. On top of that, there's also been 2 new modes of play added, one that's essentially god-mode and lets you fly around and build whatever for free and just explore, as well as a hard-core survival mode that people have described as a brutal nightmare. Honestly, I think it should come down in price a bit more, but at less than $40 I think it's nearing the price that it should stay at. It's not worth $60, but it's definitely worth playing if you like exploring for the sake of exploring.
• Space Hulk: Deathwing ($33.99 at 15% off): A fun, creepy left4dead style FPS taking place in the Warhammer 40k universe and following the traditions of the original tabletop game, Space Hulk. It doesn't have much replayability beyond going back for higher difficulties and 100%ing the game, but the story, the environment, and just the feeling of walking around ancient derelicts clad in Terminator armor and wielding Stormbolters made me want to stand up on top of my house and scream praises to the God Emperor. It's a new release with some bugs, but if you're a 40k fanatic then you'll enjoy this simply for how well it nails the aesthetic.
• Battleborn ($14.99 at 75% off): THEY. WERE. NOT. COPYING. OVERWATCH. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. Battleborn came out at a bad time and got overwhelmed by the launch of Overwatch, and of course fanatics had to shit on the game that they didn't decide would be the grace of God almighty years before its release, and so Battleborn got shat on. Hard. But it doesn't deserve it. It's a fun, zany, unique combination between arena FPS and MOBA that nails the fun aspects of both. It includes a storyline and tons of unlockables and achievements to keep things interesting. Overall, I had WAY More fun with Battleborn than I ever did with Overwatch, and would love to see more people playing the game. At just $14.99 it's well, WELL worth it.
• Dead Space 1 & 2 (Bundle for $8.74, at 75% off): Less than $10 to get BOTH the first (and best) Dead Space games is a steal. Dead Space was what got me in to survival Horror, and while it seems pretty cliche in hindsight, it can't be denied that Dead Space is an iconic franchise that EA can go fuck themselves for turning in to an action shooter and then dropping because people didn't like that their Horror game was being turned in to the next Battlefield. Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are amazing games that should be enjoyed by anybody who's a fan of Survival Horror.
• Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords ($2.49 at 75% off): Another blast from the past, KOTOR2 was my favorite Star Wars game ever. I loved the story and the much more mature and dark tone of the dialogue over KOTOR1. Games that give me ancient secrets and lore to uncover are always among my favorites and KOTOR2 is no exception. The game might not be up to standard graphics-wise, but less than $3 for a game like this is a steal.
• Thief: Deadly Shadows ($2.24 at 75% off): The game that made me love Stealth in pretty much any other game that allows it (and also left me with a phobia of abandoned insane asylums that persists in to adulthood), Deadly Shadows is a dark, mysterious, and surprisingly advanced stealth game that offers plenty of challenge, and for pocket change? GET. IT. Fuck the Shalebridge Cradle level, though. Just...just fuck that place.

There's tons of other games out there that are on sale for dirt cheap, but of my library, these are the ones that I just can't say no to. I might add some more as I find some, but for now enjoy this list of games I think everybody should pick up during the steam winter sale! Happy holidays, and happy shopping!

#NoMansSky: What the hell Happened?

    When No Man's Sky was first teased in 2013, it was well received and and immediately began generating hype. "An infinite procedurally generated universe filled with all sorts of strange flora and fauna and terrain features to discover on countless worlds" caused it to fit right in with the likes of Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen as people have been scrambling to get their hands on the perfect Space Sim. As short and vague videos of zooming over gorgeous planets and wandering through alien forests, shooting down pirates and blowing chunks out of asteroids out in space were released, people went crazy and with the continued vagueness about the game's actual game play as well as the typical indie studio mistake of making ambitious promises they don't have the ability to keep, they hype train for No Man's Sky reached biblical proportions. As the years dragged on and people got more and more eager to get their hands on what they believed would be a game that would bring about the second coming of Christ, the hype train reached speeds that would only result in a catastrophic crash...and that is exactly what happened.
    People believed that a dev team with only a couple completely unrelated games under their belt comprised of only 15 people would be able to do in just 3 years with barely any funding what Triple-A studios with hundreds of people and millions of dollars behind them have been unable to. So when the game finally launched just a couple short weeks ago, people were met with the harsh reality: No Man's Sky was very obviously a game made by an inexperienced indie studio with just 15 people behind it. Optimization issues, crashes, bugs, laughable generation of creatures, the rubiks-cube syndrome (in which yes there might be a quintillion combinations but they all just look like a rubik's cube, so to might there be a quintillion planets in No Man's Sky but only a handful of those will be distinguishable from any of the others), and a lack of easily noticeable depth to the game. It was a video game, not the answer to world peace, and that is what people need to realize about hype: the end result will NEVER live up to the expectations of  years worth hype, so declaring "there ain't no breaks on the hype train" will only result in your experience being far less than it could be. Hype killed No Man's Sky's first impressions.

    So is No Man's Sky any good? Yes. It actually is in spite of everything that has happened. No, there is no multiplayer, no the game looks nothing like the trailers, and yes, it is disappointing compared to what the hype made it seem like it would be, but in the same way that Elite: Dangerous is a niche title that requires a certain kind of person to enjoy it, so to does No Man's Sky require a special kind of person to truly appreciate what it offers. Pictured here is a planet that I discover in what I dubbed the "Horizon System". The planet, Horizon 1, was a lush tropical forest world of large islands and shallow oceans teeming with life and filled with rare and valuable resources, protected by highly aggressive sentinels. The world had frequent rain storms and gorgeous sunsets that reminded me of mangos, which only added to the feeling of being in a tropical paradise. Deep caverns filled with glowing crystal formations, as well as being dotted with the ancient ruins and monoliths of the Vy'Keen race of aliens ensured that I had hours upon hours worth of content to explore here. And that's really what No Man's Sky is about: exploration. Finding something you haven't seen before, something that catches your attention and imagination and makes you say "I want to see everything on this planet!". The game's narrative and ultimate goals might be shallow, but the lore and interactions with the various alien races and the exploration of planets is very deep indeed. Somebody who truly loves the journey of a game rather than the destination and finds relaxation in wandering aimlessly wondering what they're going to find next will find endless enjoyment in No Man's Sky.

    If people would learn from history and stop getting so hyped over things, and realize that it's okay for people to like things they don't, disappointment like what happened to No Man's Sky would be kept to only the truly atrocious games such as Arkham Knight, Ride to Hell: Retribution, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and anything Konami produces post-Kojima, then niche titles such as No Man's Sky will get the praise and attention they deserve. On top of that though is also another underlying problem: the fact that publishers and studios have banked in on preorder culture as hard as they can and are now purposefully trying to drive the hype up and then suppress pre-launch reviews to make sure that their day-1 sales are as high as they possibly can be, so that way even if day two sells four copies because the game turned out to be utter garbage, the company can still say they had a successful launch and then move on to the next project to do the same exact thing.

DO NOT GIVE IN TO HYPE CULTURE.

No Man's Sky can be purchased on steam for $59.99 here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/

How NOT to Live Stream 2

No further explanation needed. This "HelenaLive" is yet one more example of obnoxious camgirls acting like sluts on camera to try to con little kids out of their lunch money while doing everything you're not supposed to do in a popular video game to try to maximize their audience. They have no personality, nothing interesting about them, all they do is sit there dressed like sluts and 10 year old kids eat it up.

World of Warcraft is Coming to Steam!

     That's right! And you can vote to have the worlds most popular MMO available through steam right here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=694488420! Hm? What's that? This isn't actually World of Warcraft? This is just some random schmuck uploading the Russian version of the "Arthas, my Son" cinematic trailer for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King? CONGRATS! YOU ARE MORE INTELLIGENT THAN THE ENTIRETY OF VALVE!

     In the latest chapter of the long and bloody history of Steam Greenlight, we see one of the single most idiotic submissions to ever show up. This isn't an asset flip, this isn't some trash meme game, this isn't even another submission of Shooter Tactics, this is literally some buffoon uploading World of Warcraft thinking "this is totally okay to do". And why wouldn't he think that? So much other garbage is allowed on to greenlight that he probably thought his idea would be pretty good compared to some of the other putrid slime of degeneracy that infests that section of Steam. And it is for this reason that I actually voted this game up. That's right. I WANT this to get greenlit. Do you know why? Because if this actually manages to make it on to the store front, Blizzard will send it's army of lawyers dressed up like the god damn Scourge to Valves door step to have a long and very violent chat about "Copyrights". And when that chat is finished, Valve will have no choice but to start having a dedicated quality assurance team overseeing greenlight submissions.
     I'm thinking something along the lines of "you submit your game and then it gets reviewed, and if the QA team thinks your game is high enough quality to be sold, then it will be allowed on to greenlight to be voted on by the masses". I like that idea. It would certainly stop the majority of Shooter Tactics and Slaughtering Grounds and MLG 420 GOTY and your WORLD OF WARCRAFT SUBMISSIONS.

World of Warcraft? Seriously? Of all things you chose World of freaking Warcraft?

#Battleborn Vs #Overwatch: Are they the same thing?

Having played both games, I can safely say no, they aren't. They are similar, but in the same way that Metroid Prime and Call of Duty are similar (here's a hint: they aren't really). Allow me to explain why, and to do that I will start by talking about what Battleborn is:

     Battleborn is the team-based arena shooter developed by Gearbox that released on PC, PS4, and XB1 not too long ago.It advertises itself as being a badass game filled with badass heroes for badass players and just really REALLY loves that word "badass". But then again, these are the same developers who brought us Borderlands, so that's not too difficult to comprehend. In practice, Battleborn is a first-person arena shooter that uses MOBA elements to create a unique and cartoony multiplayer experience, as well as a Borderlands-style story mode. Each of the games current 25 heroes is completely unique, has their own skill set, and a colorful array of dialogue. The game uses comedy to great effect in order to make the game feel like it doesn't take itself seriously and therefore neither should the player. Normally I would say this is a bad thing for a competitive shooter but Battleborn manages to do it in a way that comes off as "look bro, we're just here to have fun. Don't be toxic to your team, don't worry so much about winning, just get the hell out there and blow shit up".      The game's painted landscapes and colorful visuals, as well as intentional censor bleeping of swear words makes it come off as a cross between a television show and a video game, which is true to the standard Borderlands design that is to be expected from Gearbox.
      As for actual gameplay, it's a lot like a MOBA: each character is pre-made with their own theme, personality, and set of 4 skills and a passive, as well as augments you can get as you level up in a match to alter their abilities to suit the situation or your own playstyle. There are 3 pvp modes: a 1-lane + jungle MOBA map where you push minion waves and capture objectives to destroy the enemy teams sentry robots, of which their are two. But instead of lasting as long as it takes somebody to win, each match has a maximum of 30 minutes. If the timer runs out the match either ends in a draw or the team who has the highest total percentage of sentry health (each sentry accounts for 50 points for a total of 100) wins. There is also a traditional 3-point king of the hill mode, as well as a minion-pushing mode where the goal is to push your minions to the enemy teams altars and sacrifice them, with each minion sacrificed giving you points depending on how big it is, with the first team to reach the goal or whoever has the most points at the end of the timer winning the match.
     The solo campaign follows traditional Halo-style "point A to point B with enemies and objectives between you" linear maps with the story about how an evil interdimensional force is destroying all the stars in the universe and a coalition of several factions populated by the last living races in the universe fighting to prevent the last star in existence from being destroyed as well. Cliche, but imaginative. All in all it's a solid, fun, goofy shooter meant for MOBA players who like Shooters as well.

As for Blizzard's latest addition to the Battle.net launcher, Overwatch is still a team-based arena shooter but the way it approaches things is a lot more akin to Halo multiplayer or Quake than a MOBA. Matches are attack/defense/payload (as far as the Beta has shown) on asymmetrical maps filled with twists and turns and buildings and all sorts of other potential avenues for tactical advancement. Each hero is, like Battleborn, given their own unique theme, personality, dialogue, and skillset. Each hero has a basic attack with their primary weapon, two utility skills, and an ultimate which charges over time passively and by damaging and killing enemies. The time-to-kill in Overwatch is tiny, with many heroes possessing ultimates that can easily wipe out the entire enemy team if positioned properly. The balance to this is that respawn times are very short and do not get longer. They are essentially as long as it takes you to watch the kill-cam of how you died which is a fixed length of several seconds, and then you are back in the game. The atmosphere of the game is still colorful and full of life and action, but the mood of the game is a lot more serious than Battleborn. Overwatch has the air of a comic book, while Battleborn has the air of a late-night comedy show. I only played the Open Beta for a few days, so I can't give too much else about Overwatch, but I liked it enough that I did preorder it and look forward to playing it on the 24th, and so will give a much more detailed overview of the game when I get my hands on the full version.

To summarize:
Battleborn is a shooter for people who like League of Legends and shows aired by Adult Swim.
Overwatch is a shooter for people who like Team Fortress 2 and Marvel movies.

You can buy Battleborn from Steam here for $59.99: http://store.steampowered.com/app/394230/
You can pre-order Overwatch from Blizzard here for $39.99: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/buy/

Asteroids

Ever on the hunt for scenic vistas that I can snap some cool screenshots of in Elite: Dangerous, I came across a T-Tauri star with a stellar ring system and decided to drop in for a peak. My original intention was to get a neat shot of the star from within the rings, when I turned the Classified Camera around, however, this was the view that awaited me. This has to be one of my favorite screenshots I have ever taken of Elite, and I've take a hell of a lot of screenshots.

Earth-Like World

Still on my way back to inhabited space in Elite: Dangerous after my trip out to Sagittarius A*, I came across a rare sight indeed: a completely undiscovered Earth-Like World. I snapped these screenshots of the discovery to immortalize one of my biggest finds as I make my way back to sell the scan data and get my name permanently attached to the system and the planet.