Steam currently has thousands of games, and if you browse the 'new releases' section of the store page, you'll notice that the vast majority of them do not come from top-tier publishers. Some of them are little gems to be discovered, but then there's the ones that, for one reason or another, are just terrible.
Even when you know they're bad, there's the part of you tempted to say "it's 90% off, it's only a dollar now, might as well". For these games, please, don't. Just avoid them. There's a lot of unscrupulous companies trying to get you to buy junk during the happy hour of the Steam market.
With that being said, here's 5 games you should dodge this Summer Sale.
1. The Slaughtering Grounds
A zombie apocalypse shooter with randomly generated environments. Sounds cookie cutter -- and it is. You go through towns, shoot zombies you get the drill. What's striking about this game in particular though is just how bad some (all) of the in-game assets are. You can see the white outlines on the blood from where they photoshopped it out of an image. The weapons are generally blocky, the environments flat, the zombies have varying artstyles, and the shooting is wonky at best. This is likely due to most of said assets coming from the Unity asset store, and there being very little original content within The Slaughtering Grounds.
The worst part is how defensive Digital Homiside is of the game. For a while it was heavily criticized on youtube, prompting Digital Homiside to try to shut down as many videos as possible.
Normally The Slaughtering Ground is $0.99, but currently it's on sale for $0.49.
2. Day One: Garry's Incident
A survival game where your character, Garry, is trapped on an island with a population of natives, and is forced to fend for himself. There's a mix of supernatural horror along with the terror of just trying to stay alive in a very hostile environment. The sad thing about Day One: Gary's Incident is that you can see the ambition in the game. Wild Game Studio clearly wanted the game to be a grand experience,, but one of the game's chief issues is a lack of optimization. Getting it to run at a decent framerate is a challenge, and it doesn't look good enough to deserve its taxation on your computer.
Similar to what happened with The Slaughtering Grounds, Wild Game Studio decided to go to town on any critics on youtube, most notably TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit.
Normally Day One: Garry's Incident will run you $2.99, but during this summer sale it's $1.49
3. Infestation: Survivor Stories Classic
If you're a fan of DayZ, then you've likely taken note of the many ripoffs that populated Steam after it gained a large fanbase. Infestation: Survivor Stories Classic is one of those. Stranded in a large, persistent world with a number of other players, you must scavenge for weapons, ammunition, food, supplies, and so on. All of which are in limited supply, and other players are probably going to try and kill you for them (or just shoot you on sight).
Though its developers OP Productions LLC didn't go after any critics, it's still been up to some shifty stuff. Originally the game's 'terms and conditions' text was identical to that of Riot's League of Legends. Also, this game used to be called The War Z, clearly an attempt to bank on people mistaking it for DayZ. Though it was probably it was changed in an attempt to distance itself from its shameful reputation, OP Productions LLC gave the official explanation that they didn't want copyright confusion with World War Z.
As if they wouldn't have loved that.
Normally Infestation: Survivor Stories Classic goes for $19.99, but this summer sale has it with a whopping 90% off, making it only $1.99. Don't take the bait!
4. Dinner Date
So there's been an influx of games that barely care about gameplay, and are much more concerned with the story. Some examples would be Gone Home and Firewatch. And while those are fine experienced for the crowds that enjoy them, there are some that don't really deliver on anything.
Dinner Date, by Stout Games, is one of those. You get to experience the thrill of being a man waiting for his date to show up to dinner. And waiting. And waiting. While that's a simplification of the meaning of the game, my issue is that there's simply no payoff. Nothing happens. At least in other 'walking simulator' games there's a climax or conclusion.
The issue from a purely storytelling perspective is just that nothing changes for our main character. You hear him complaining about his situation, and that's it. Nothing shows up to change it, despite the game teasing the notion. You can't even change his course, your actions in the game are inconsequential to the internal monologue. Even slice of life stories have characters making decisions. It feels like it would have been more suited to being a short film than a video game.
It also only lasts 20 minutes.
Usually you'd be shelling out $3.99 for Dinner Date, but the sale has it down to $1.79.
#5 Revelations 2012
It's Left 4 Dead but during the proposed Mayan apocalypse that would occur at the end of their calendar that everyone was crazy about a few years ago, and you have to stop it. That doesn't sound like a bad concept to me, and yet Revelations 2012 managed to be dull. It's not that trainwreck kind of bad like some of the other games on this list. You can play it.
It's just... why would you, when there are better, similar games out there? You already have Left 4 Dead and its sequel, which have an AI specifically designed to make sure you have a tense session every time. If you're digging something more melee orientated, you have Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide. The setting starts to fade when you're acquiring futuristic weaponry and armor by the end of the game.
Revelations 2012 will run you $2.49. It's not actually on sale. Perhaps Dark Artz Entertainment just wants everyone to forget about it.
Published: Jun 29, 2016 04:01 pm