The last few rounds of video game deals have been quite pathetic. It was looking like a sad, sad year for PC gamers. Until today. It has taken me a bit to sift through all the deals on Steam and figure out what is worth having and what is worth waiting for a better deal on. In addition, one really lucky person will get every game on Steam. Every. Game.

To be honest, I’m really tired of most newer M-rated games. WAY too much cussing/foul language exiting the various characters’ mouths. And none of it helps the main story – in fact, such language really detracts from the story in nearly all cases. So you’ll find I’m leaning heavily away from such games this year and favoring those games that go out of their way to have an actual story or just focus on having fun. Without further ado, today’s deals:

Portal 2
Portal
Bunch of Heroes (Gift Pile game)
Orcs Must Die (Gift Pile game)
Just Cause 2

Deals that will be going on the entire time:

Sega Complete Pack (80 games for $100)
Warner Bros. Complete Pack
Various Capcom games
Valve Complete Pack
Various LucasArts games
Dirt 2
GRID
Overlord and Overlord 2
Mirror’s Edge (Maybe other EA games? But they’re really being stupid right now with their Origins service, so don’t give them money. Plenty of other games to be played.)
Magicka Collection
Terraria
From Dust (actually looks interesting – seems Darwinia-ish plus a physics engine)
Introversion games (Darwinia)
THQ Hit Collection (Mostly M-rated games here – okay price)
Square Enix Eidos Complete Pack (okay price – lots of DLC)
Various Atari games
Nail’d
Darkstar One

Looks like there will also be a high-resolution daily wallpaper too.

Cave Story can be picked up over at humblebundle.com for less than on Steam. Plus, you get Jamestown, a bunch of other games, and all the soundtracks for all the games in the process (even if you paid for the Humble Bundle already) and everything is DRM free and comes with free Steam keys (should you want them).

The House is amending and voting on SOPA (H.R.2361) today. Your freedoms are at stake. You, an ordinary citizen, could land in prison.

Watch the SOPA discussions live. Or listen if you are at work.

http://keepthewebopen.com/sopa

Currently recessed (no audio during recess).

Despite the seriousness of the bill, there are some entertaining comments that crop up every so often:

“I’m not a nerd, I aspire to be a nerd.” – Zoe Lofgren (Democrat – CA)
“Let’s bring in the nerds!” – Jason Chaffetz (Republican – UT)

There are two bills in the House (SOPA – H.R.3261) and Senate (PROTECT IP – S.968) both aimed to attempt to stop online piracy and much, much more. SOPA is being voted on in the House today. If you like YouTube for watching videos (for any purpose) and like being a free citizen and outside of prison, then you should drop what you are doing right now and make a phone call to your representative. There is now a very easy way to do that for this particular piece of legislation:

http://engineadvocacy.com/voice/

As written, these bills will hurt small businesses and individuals alike – there is no benefit to anyone but lawsuit-happy lawyers and large corporate interests. That is all.