Steam Summer Camp Sale

After an amazing week away in Madeira, I returned to find Steam has yet another crazy sale going on, with lots of games at very low prices.  Should I fear for my bank balance now?

Friends have bought me a few games: Star Wars – Battlefront II, SpaceChem and my own copy of Oblivion 🙂

I’ve added to this with two tower defense style game: Sanctum and Atom Zombie Smasher, as well as a rather large bundle of Paradox Interactive games.  The Paradox Fantasy Pack got my interest because of Majesty 2, which I tried a long while back.. along with DLC for this plus the original game, it also contains a strategy game called Elven Legacy, plus follow-ups.  As Majesty 2 itself cost £5.35, and the bundle £5.89, this was pretty much a no-brainer!

Along with the Summer Camp Sale, there are a large number of “Camp Activities”, which basically amount to earning specific achievements in a variety of games to earn tickets which allow you entry into the Grand Prize Giveaway, where 100 people will win the top 10 games on their wishlist.  The tickets can also be spent on random in-game content, including map packs, extra characters, missions or vanity gear such as the Sunny Shades for TF2.  I’m only now up to 7 tickets, with a good number of achievements to get.. the HOARD one in particular is eluding me!

As for TF2.. this game has now become free, which has meant a lot more people playing!  We now even have somewhere good to play, as Jason set up his Closed on Sundays TF2 server, complete with silly Roll the Dice mod 😉
So far, the server has filled up quickly whenever we’ve played, which has meant a few good games.  Roll on the weekend!

This is Magicka!

Magicka is an action-adventure game by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Paradox Interactive.  The game is set in a fantasy world with magic, goblins and trolls, a quest to help the King, a rogue wizard, and a heavy dose of parody.

In the single-player story mode, you put on your robe and wizard hat and combine elements to fire lasers, throw boulders and shoot lightning at your enemies!

There are eight elements to play with: water, life, shield, cold, lightning, arcane, earth and fire, and each of these can be directed straight at the enemy, applied to yourself, used as an area-of-effect spell, or even applied to your weapon.. doing this means you can use it on the enemies later, or just run around with a sparkly colourful sword 😉

One of my favourite defensive spells is a fire, earth and shield combination, applied as an AOE – this places a circle of fiery mountains around me which knock back and burning enemies.  Or friends, if they’re standing too close..

The game allows up to four-player multiplayer, in which you can play through the story or just blow your friends up.  Friendly fire is most certainly on in this game, and we ended up ignoring the story at the beginning of our session to just try and kill each other.

There is also challenge mode, which is survival mode with waves of increasingly difficult enemies.  On your own, you really don’t last long, but when playing with friends, so long as one person stays alive they can revive you with a quick spell.  I’ve not yet attempted Versus mode.. one for a little later maybe!

I think this would have been a good game without all the jokes, so the fact there are so many is a bonus.  Some of the achievements themselves are also jokes, such as the “This is Magicka!” achievement for pushing a soldier down a hole 😉