Steam Deals & Total War: Shogun 2

There have been some pretty sick deals on Steam this week. I picked up Total War: Shogun 2 for a mere £7.50, which is a bargain seeing as the game is barely a year old, and not only that, it was one of the better games of last year.

Total War: Shogun 2

I've played a good few hours so far, and am very much enjoying it. There's one niggling thing that annoys me about it though: I don't know anything about the setting. It makes me wish that the game was set in one of the other time periods the Total War franchise has visited, just with the mechanics from this one. I loved the Medieval, Rome, Empire and Napoleon games, and part of that was probably because those are some of my favourite periods from history. One historical setting I would like to see from the franchise is Alfred era Britain, close to the formation of England as a single country. That would be cool.

In Shogun however, it's feudal Japan, and you take on the responsibilities of one of the multiple clans in the country at that time and embark on your quest to become Shogun. In terms of strategy games in recent times, I've been playing Civilisation 5 and Crusader Kings 2, so it was kind of a shock to come back to the all out war scenario. The game lacks the depth of those other ones due to the fact that the campaign is basically kill or be killed, rather than being able to forge alliances and win through diplomatic or economic victory. But what it lacks there, it makes up for by making the war element so damned fun. 

What has always set the Total War series aside from other strategy games is the real time battle system. Shogun's is just as good as it's always been (it doesn't seem like they've changed it much), and although I don't know much about the setting, it's still pretty awesome to see samurai and the like battling against each other. 

Square Enix Weekend

Today (Saturday through Sunday), you can get 75% off all the Deus Ex games, which, like Shogun, is another steal. £7.50 for Human Revolution, which, while it wasn't as good as we were all hoping it to be after the precedent set by the original, was still one of the better games of last year, horrible boss battles aside. (Which the developer outright apologised for, which I thought was pretty funny)

Speaking of that original, it's £1.50. That's basically zero pounds, come on.

Looks like Thief, Lara Croft, Just Cause, Dungeon Siege, Kane and Lynch and Hitman will also be on sale over the next few days, so be sure to check out what's going on in the Steam store if any of those tickle your fancy.

Remember to check out my new video series, Gaming News of the Week on YouTube! 

Also I'm in the middle of writing a Trials Evolution preview, which I am hella excited about. So look for that over the next week or so.

Thanks for reading, have a good one