Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. Recettear is better than Skyrim. There, I’ve said it. And you can pick up Recettear for $5 on Steam today.

After having played it through (twice), I can safely say I’m a fan of Recettear. First off, it is an Indie game. Not some AAA hotshot title that everyone talks about incessantly. It is budget-friendly. While not a AAA title, it is still a lot of fun. It doesn’t have a ESRB rating, but if it did, it would probably be E10+ – due to some mild innuendo, cartoon violence, and a few drinking/alcohol references. It has a better Metacritic user rating than Skyrim. There is no cussing or other foul language. There is no gore/blood. The story – it has an actual story – is charming, entertaining, and will touch your heart. It is a different type of RPG: You play from the perspective of an item shop owner in a RPG where you open an item shop to pay off a debt your father left behind (probably deceased). And it offers an actual challenge to players. When was the last time a RPG actually forced you to put on your thinking cap? Plus, Recettear has educational value in critical-thinking skills in regards to finances – but that is secondary to the fun you’ll have learning those lessons.

Now that I’ve got all the Skyrim fanboys riled up, onto today’s Steam deals worth getting:

Recettear (seriously – go get this game right now)
Half-Life Complete (or Orange Box)
LEGO Batman (or just get the WB Complete Pack)
Chantelise (older game by the same authors as Recettear, actual RPG though)
Costume Quest (Wrong holiday…LOL – but it supposedly has magical unicorns with rainbows – nothing can possibly go wrong with that, right?)

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 Humble Indie Bundle is one of the best ideas some video game industry folks have come up with that takes your average publisher (e.g. EA, Ubisoft) and kicks their business model where the sun don’t shine. Basically, you say, “I want to pay ‘x’ dollars and cents for 5 to 7 games, sometimes their source code and game music, multiple platform support, and extra Steam licenses beyond the DRM-free downloads. Plus, I get to help a charity or two!” They’ll even take less than $1 but will display an image of a hungry programmer. And you don’t want to see that.

This Bundle has the following games – in order of awesomeness:

Jamestown
Cave Story+
NightSky HD
Shank
Super Meat Boy
Bit.Trip Runner
Gratuitous Space Battles

Disclaimer: Order is of my own personal opinion (aka what I’ll be buying it for).

Steam is still doing their ‘Wishlist Giveaway’ thing. The prices haven’t been spectacular except for VVVVVV – and I seriously can’t recommend that game. It was insanely difficult for no good reason that made any sense. Twitch gaming doesn’t work well on the PC and the default controls were hideous. Methinks that this is just a warmup to some real end-of-year deals to keep people logging into Steam every day.