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).

Assassin’s Creed Franchise
Just Cause 2
Borderlands GOTY
Battlefield: Bad Company 2

There are a bunch of games on sale too that you may have been waiting for to hopefully get a nice deep discount. Well, if it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen and you’ll either have to wait for Thanksgiving or buy it today. Look at how many games you bought though and decide if you can play/beat them all by the time Thanksgiving rolls around.

There are no freebie tickets today. Nor any tickets specifically for today at all. Just a nice, big countdown timer. Most people I’ve seen have anywhere from 10 to 20 tickets. So if you don’t care, don’t worry – one extra ticket isn’t going to increase your chances very much. Assume that one million gamers are participating. If you’ve got the average, you’ve got a 1 in a million chance of winning.

Prince of Persia Franchise
Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum
Hitman Franchise
Supreme Commander 2

For those eager for Duke Nukem Forever, it is on sale for 50% off ($25). However, realize that this game was released under a month ago. Why is it only $25 so soon? Ask yourself that question before parting with your money.

And today’s freebie is to write a comment on a friend’s screenshot. That was easy!

For those not aware, Crysis 2 was pulled from Steam due to EA and Valve acting like small children. So if you have it in your Top 10 Wishlist, you’ll need to replace it with something else or there’s a chance you might not win. The rules aren’t exactly clear on what happens in such an event. I’d assume the 11th item is selected, but better to be safe than disqualified.

Anyway, here are my recommendations:

Counter-Strike: Source
Company of Heroes
Lara Croft Franchise
Audiosurf
Quake Collection
Command & Conquer Franchise

And today’s freebie is: Download a trailer and then play it. Any trailer will do. I recall Valve attempting this the last time they had a similar contest and had to redact the particular event due to technical issues, so it was inevitable for it to come up again this time around.

Jamestown
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Left 4 Dead 2 (or get both if you don’t have the original L4D)
FarCry Franchise

For the strategy fans:

King’s Bounty Franchise

For the puzzle lovers:

RUSH

Jamestown just popped up on my radar thanks to this sale. I know, I know. I should know about these games long before big sales come along, but, while I’m a sucker for third-person shooters, I’m an even bigger sucker for anything that resembles ‘Tyrian’ or ‘Raptor: Call of the Shadows’. It is once in a blue moon that a good-looking, old-school, top-down, arcade shooter like this comes along for the PC. This looks pretty sweet and has a solid Metacritic rating.

Today’s freebie ticket is to play Spiral Knights and add a firecracker bomb to your arsenal. As much as I severely dislike MMORPGs, I tried Spiral Knights anyway a couple weeks ago because the first 15 levels of a character in MMOs aren’t TOO bad. The lag was incredibly bad and it took forever to start up with a zillion updates. So, while this achievement might seem easy and the game itself looks okay, get ready to pull your hair out over the lag. This “freebie” gets a pass from me.

Trine
Alpha Protocol
Bionic Commando Franchise (Not the best deal but decent)

If you’ve got nothing better to play, then maybe pick up:

Singularity
R.U.S.E.

There are still five days left, so if that game you are hoping will be on sale hasn’t shown up yet, it still might. Good rewards come to those who are patient. Usually.

Today is also July 4th, aka Independence Day. I generally celebrate by playing video games, hanging out with friends, eating good food, and ritually watching the movie Independence Day. Too bad Aridzona is so dry this year and fireworks are not a good idea. But plenty of fireworks can be seen if you play the right video games. Fireworks are usually used as a mini-victory dance of sorts at the end of something – a sort of mini-reward to the player for their efforts.

Half-Life 2 and all “Episodes” (A very nice set of games – if you have never played Half-Life 2, you can’t really call yourself a gamer)
Bioshock series (Woot! Bioshock 2 for $4.99!)
Darksiders
Battlefield Bad Company 2

And, for the casual gamer:

Plants vs. Zombies
Hoard

I’ve found a couple things in this set that I’m picking up. What are you adding to your video game collection as this July 4th weekend kicks off?

Today’s freebie ticket is: “Write a comment on a friend’s Steam Community profile page.” Are you doing the “Achievements 4 Tickets” drawing thing? I still have my “friends” from the last time Steam did this stuff so that makes it easy this time around. Hopefully they won’t get annoyed and cease being my “friend”.

Just 'Cause I can.

Just Cause 2, Braid, Devil May Cry 4, and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic are must-haves. If you are more into casual/thinking puzzles, there are Hamilton’s Great Adventure and SpaceChem. Everything else is a bit pricey. There are still tons of deals to be had over the next eight days, so if you’ve waited this long for some game to come down in price and still isn’t in range, you’ll probably pick up some fun games while you wait a bit longer.

Also, if you haven’t noticed, Team Fortress 2 is free. Actually, there are a number of “free to play” games where the catch is that you might end up buying stuff in-game to pad out your character.

There are also a number of achievements that will give you tickets that enter you into a drawing to win the top 10 items on your wishlist. You have to have a wishlist and have a list of ten games on it. Which is another reason to NOT buy the big expensive games right now – you might get them for free (maybe, probably not)! Fortunately, some of the tickets are easy to get. Today’s freebie tickets are: “Get set on fire and then take a dunk in some water in Team Fortress 2″ and “link your Facebook profile to Steam and lose the last bit of personal privacy you might have been holding onto.”

Dinosaurs with half a tank strapped to their backs and, er, dancing Nazi's?!?

No one said anything about this being a GOOD game. Don’t look for a deep title here. It is pretty clear that the game lacks the depth most gamers want in the video games they play and is clearly about tongue-in-cheek gameplay. In this case, spending $18 is more about the novelty of seeing and fighting dinosaurs that have weapons strapped to their backs, and less about actual gameplay, storyline/plot, and the quality of the graphics. There are also nine Steam Achievements for this game for those obsessed with achieving everything and nothing at the same time.

The player can also punch those pesky dinosaurs:

Which seems like something good to do to pass the time in a multiplayer video game. Then again, Dino Punching is traditionally viewed as a manly sporting event. So…have at it?

On a side-note, Dino D-Day appears to be the 70,000th item in the Steam store.

Just 'Cause I can.

I absolutely love the challenges in Just Cause 2. The difficulty of the game also ramps up nicely and there are lots of little Easter Eggs hidden throughout the game world.

This is Day 2 of Square Enix deals. Don’t forget that the Square Enix Complete Pack is available for $74.99.