Tag: Steam

Valve Changes CS: Go Keys To Combat International Fraud


Counter Strike: Global Offensive is making some changes to its keys this week and you can thank international fraudsters for that. Starting today, Counter Strike container keys will no longer be traded or sold on the market. Players are able to earn cases that contain weapon skins while playing Counter Strike but must buy keys in order to open them and see what loot is inside.

According to a statement put out by Valve, the keys recently became the preferred method of cleaning money by international fraud networks to the point where almost all key purchases are believed to be fraud-sourced.

“Why make this change? In the past, most key trades we observed were between legitimate customers. However, worldwide fraud networks have recently shifted to using CS:GO keys to liquidate their gains. At this point, nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace are believed to be fraud-sourced. As a result we have decided that newly purchased keys will not be tradeable or marketable.”

This update does not affect keys that were already on the market.

(Source: Counter Strike)

Free Steamy Sundaes: October 20 Edition


Today’s Free Steamy Sundaes is brought to you by caffeine, toxic consumer advocacy, and viewers like you. I don’t know how to casually introduce a new column I had the idea for while shopping for a new coffee grinder, so I’m just going to refer to Free Steamy Sundaes like it’s been going on for weeks and you’re all very familiar with it. So naturally everyone knows that this column is a weekly list of free to play games and demos that released on Steam last week.

Destiny 2 Explodes On Steam, Six Figure Traffic


This may come as a massive surprise, but Destiny 2 has launched on Steam alongside its free to play update and players are flocking to the game in droves. The PC servers have attained over 220,000 peak concurrency in the past couple of days and people seem to be pretty happy.

Current review scores for Destiny 2 put the game at a 75% “mostly positive” rating with a lot of the negative feedback surrounding players whose characters didn’t transfer over properly or people who have a problem with Bungie’s changes to characters (everyone starts out at 750 power now). Destiny 2 is currently #12 on the Xbox most played list and is no doubt doing just as well on PS4 if not better.

Play Funcom’s Conan Threesome Free Over The Weekend


If you’ve ever wanted to play all three of Funcom’s Conan games and not have to pay anything for the privilege, you’re in luck. Starting September 19 and running through September 23, you can download Conan Exiles and Conan Unconquered. You can also play Age of Conan which was already free to play, but just pretend that it’s one of those play now keep forever deals that you can play whenever and also keep.

So if your taste is MMO, tower defense, or survival sandbox, you’re in for a treat this weekend.

Steam Library Beta Shows Life After Clickbait Spam


The new visual update for Steam is here! Well the beta is, anyhow. You can download the beta by going to your settings and opting into the beta branch of the Steam client. It’s very simple and doesn’t require any external downloads unlike the previous trick to get ahold of the early version.

The new Steam is all about ease of use. Click on any game and you’ll see all sorts of information provided by the developer. See your achievements, your trading cards, DLC releases, timed events. Anything your heart desires and more that you might have had to navigate through multiple windows to find before is now in one easy place. What isn’t there? The clickbait spam.

One big complaint that users have had of the Steam News section for each game is that Valve thought people really wanted to see clickbait spam from bloggers like Rock, Paper, Shotgun, PC Gamer, etc. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed that pulls stories based on certain websites that Valve trusts (for some reason) tagging their articles with the games in question. The result? An embarrassing deluge of articles that have little if anything to do with the game they are tagged in.

Well those of you unhappy with Valve’s handling of the Steam News will be glad to know that the clickbait spam newsfeed is officially gone as of the new library. It will be interesting to see how the traffic to the websites is affected once they are no longer getting free advertising on a massive platform for their clickbait.

Microtransactions: Workhard Is Definitely A Game


I wanted to talk about Workhard because I spent money on this and I’d honestly feel bad about refunding it.

Microtransactions is the latest column idea I had here for MMO Fallout because I can either play some incredibly cheap/short indie games with what little free time I have nowadays, or I can do the sensible thing and acknowledge that I’m not actually legally obligated to be publishing stuff on the internet even though I’ve been doing just that for nearly eighteen years now.

So I picked up Workhard because it was $1.79 on Steam and looks like a Gameboy game. Shallow, yes, but so is the game. You play as a secret agent assigned to liquidate a gang. With your guns. Sure, why not. So you travel to the right over several levels and shoot people as they aimlessly walk toward you. To aid in your liquidation you have a pistol, an automatic, and a one-shot shotgun that fires one bullet before it needs to reload. The shotgun has a very satisfying punch and can take out pretty much everyone except for the final boss in one hit. Admittedly this is the highlight of the game.

All in all, Workhard will take roughly 10 minutes to beat and obtain all of the achievements. I actually thought that the game was having problems because I kept killing the final boss off-screen without realizing it and the game just goes right back to the main menu.

I’m not angry that I spend the cost of a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target on this game or the fact that it was ten minutes long, but I am starting to wish I had taken that money and gotten a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target.

Steam Cleaning: Banned Developer Creates Shell-Accounts


Where would we be if Steam’s worst developers weren’t so stupid?

There have been hundreds of developers banned from Steam for various reasons of scumbaggery, and Valve doesn’t do a fantastic job of vetting the identity of creators so many of them have come back in one form or another. The latest developer to do this is apparently Sun Lucky Industries who have taken to creating numerous shell accounts to put their copy-pasted, low quality games on Steam.

Thankfully they aren’t very intelligent. Their games Monster Planet, Urban Riots, Desert Monsters, Animal War, Alien Creatures, and Desert Lost contain the exact same price (99 cents) and the exact same product description. They also look like exactly the same game but with different assets packs.

“This is a third person action game,The player is surrounded by a group of monsters represented by the leader,Players can explore the surrounding area freely, but need to kill the monster or avoid the monster’s attack, the leader of the attack and vitality is very high need attention,Players need to survive as long as possible.”

Will Valve react? More than likely.

Big thanks to the folks at Sentinels of the Store for their diligence.

Last Week On Steam: Slightly Less Rancid Shrimp Edition


Digging through Steam’s weekly release list is like being a septic worker, only more people appreciate what their septic worker does for them. If you can’t tell, it’s not a column I like to spend too much time on because it makes me want to pick up the phone and call my mom and ask why she had to have me, but that’s not what we are here for.

Roughly 275 games were listed on to Steam in the week between August 25 and August 31. Nothing in this list is meant to be a recommendation unless I specifically say that I am recommending the title. Otherwise it is merely a list of games that by my own tastes do not look like an absolute waste of time and money. There are no hentai puzzle sliders, RPG Maker games, or Unity asset flips here. I will not shill your early access title, nor will this list feature games that look like they were made in Flash, ported from mobile phones, and definitely if it doesn’t support English.

If you want the Steam list whittled down to something more manageable, this list is for you. If not, feel free to not read it. The fact that I’m not hosting the images on this server and publishing this at 2a.m. should tell you everything.

#1: Crazy Driver (SRS Games) $.99

Crazy Driver looks like a game from my childhood, at least in the sense that the description makes it sound a lot like the endless mode in Driver. I loved Driver, and seeing how long I could keep my car from being totaled by the police while driving around a very quiet city seemed like the recipe for greatness back in 1999, a good two years before Grand Theft Auto 3 launched.

The cars in this game also look like Micro Machines, so double that nostalgia and stick it right into my veins. Oh and the game runs one whole dollar.

#2: The Castle (Ishtar Games, Inc.) $5.99

I’m not fully convinced that The Castle isn’t some long lost title from the MS DOS days, but Ishtar Games says that it’s a recently developed game and I’m not sure why anyone would lie about that. You’ll need to recruit a group of heroes among the list of available characters to explore a castle, find out its secrets, and most importantly give the stake and the rope to Peter. He knows what to do with it.

If you’re really dripping on that Tales From Monkey Island nostalgia juice and want something actually new to play, check out The Castle.

#3: River Legends: A Fly Fishing Adventure (Dantat Studio) $14.99

But Connor, I hear you shout into the void of space, I don’t want to be a DOS-era nun and have to click “use” before I use something. I want to be a dad and do things that dads do, like fish. Well this next game is right up your airspace.

River Legends is a game with no in-app purchases and no DLC, unlike other fishing games. Despite what the art style may imply, it’s also not one of those artsy-fartsy games that pretends to be one thing and then OH LORD IT’S TWISTED AND EVIL. It’s just fishing, and the four reviews are pretty happy with it. Go fishing, and catch some fish.

#4: Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword) $19.99

If Knights and Bikes looks like a Double Fine game, that’s because it is published by Double Fine. Some of its creators also developed Tearaway. Knights and Bikes looks adorable, it also has an oddly specific soundtrack about riding bikes. It stars two kids in what is referred to as a Goonies-style adventure.

The two new friends, along with their pet-goose and the pickled-head of an undead knight, form the Penfurzy Rebel Bicycle Club, and are ready for anything this adventure throws at them. They pedal into danger to face threats head-on with frisbees, water-balloons, video game controllers and the powerful beats of an amplified boom-box.

Did I mention there is couch co-op?

#5: Minoria (Bombservice) $17.99

I normally pass right by Metroidvania-looking games when looking at titles for this column, since they tend to be absolute trash. Minoria on the other hand immediately drew my attention with truly fantastic looking animation quality. Minoria is an action platformer game with witches, witchcraft, and low gravity that makes boobs bounce a lot. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Girl check out this body. She works out.

The animation quality alone has effectively sold me on this title.

#6: Wayward Souls (Rocketcat Games) $14.99

Yea, we’re going into the procedurally generated 16-bit roguelike games again. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten tired of the genre already!

But hey, this one comes to us from Rocketcat Games, a company that has actually made a name for itself with good quality games. Seven heroes, each with their own abilities, each available for you to take into the dungeon and slaughter countless monsters. What else could you possibly want out of your gaming life? Other than less microtransactions in Call of Duty and for nobody to mention Fortnite ever again anywhere.

#7: Hotel R’n’R (Wolf and Wood Interactive Ltd.) $19.99

I don’t think I have ever had my first impression of a game based on its graphics reversed to this extent and as quickly as it did with hotel R’n’R. Despite your character having disgustingly long and thin arms, Hotel R’n’R is a destruction-based physics game where you take on the role of a failed musician who happens to make a deal with the devil. In return for fame, fortune, and untouchable talent with the musical instrument, all you need to do is smash up a few hotel rooms. In short, you’re just like any other heavy metal band from the 80’s.

Cocaine not included.

#8: Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise (Yak & Co) $8.99

Agent A is probably a stretch, but I’ve just gone through several pages of utterly unsalvageable trash and frankly I’m just looking for something that looks close to palatable. It’s a puzzle game with a nice art style and interesting looking puzzles. Yes, it looks like an Esurance commercial and I’m not entirely convinced that it won’t end up selling you on simple, fast, and affordable rates.

#9: Blair Witch (Bloober Team) $26.99

I have a feeling that I know where Blair Witch is going, since games that play on the whole “hero with a heart of gold but a tormented mind and a violent past” also tend to throw their “child went missing” stories into the realm of “oh b-t-dubs, your character is totally the killer,” but I’m reserving my hopes that Bloober Team is more creative than that.

Being one of the few games that I have actually played on this list, I will heartily recommend Blair Witch from my first impressions of the games opening hours. One thing that sets this game apart and may turn some gamers off is the camera which actually has a use. You will find tapes that can be rewound in order to find clues and hopefully track down this missing brat. Also, Blair Witch has a handsome doggo that helps you find your way through the spooky woods. You can pet him.

If you have Xbox Game Pass, just download Blair Witch there for free.

#10: Timmy’s Cooking Show (Bmc Studio) $1.94

Normally I would tell you to avoid games like this, but the guy playing Timmy looks like he’s really not enjoying this food he’s cooking. Two bucks to watch a bunch of Canadian dorks putz about won’t give you much of a game, but just think of it this way: When the game ends you’re that much closer to the great sleep you’ll be looking forward to even more after sitting through a Bmc Studio game.

#11: Graveyard Defender (Kitty Cattus) $1.79

Did I list this game because of the developer’s name? No. It should be evident by now that I am a sucker for DOS-era stylized games. Protect your home from waves of zombies. Fourteen levels, less than the cost of whatever is $2 at McDonald’s nowadays.

[Not Massive] It’s Time For More Interesting Steam Games


Get that toilet out, it’s time for more Steam releases.

What can I say about this week’s Steam releases other than to say it might be the worst week I have seen in a long time. Over 250 releases of which nine might be worth looking into. If you’re a fan of hentai puzzle sliders and trashy Unity games, this list unfortunately won’t cater to your tastes. For everyone else, you might find something worth playing or at least adding to your wishlist until the next Steam sale.

#1: Pixel Shinobi Nine demons of Mamoru / Ametist Studio

Pixel side scrolling action games are a dime a dozen these days, so in order to stand out from the crowd you really have to have a good presentation. Pixel Shinobi, at least judging by the trailer, seems to have fluid animations, fast pace gameplay, and a ton of challenge. Pixel Shinobi promises to combine stealth, platforming, and RPG mechanics in a game where you play as a ninja to stop a demonically possessed military leader on a campaign of bloodshed.

89% of 126 users agree that this game is worth the $8.24 asking price. Check it out.

#2: Warfork / Team Forbidden

Warfork looks like a cosmetic overhaul of Quake 3 and plays a lot like Quake 3. If you really like Quake 3, you’re probably going to enjoy this game as 91% of 137 reviewers on Steam agree. Even better, the game is free to play. Check it out.

#3: Devious Dungeon / Woblyware Oy

Devious Dungeon looks like a quaint little game. I initially assumed that it was a roguelike given the graphics and user interface, but it appears to be more of a platformer with RPG elements than a Rogue Legacy type game. It’s $4.24 and oddly enough the developer is already talking about the sequel coming out in Q4 2019. It promises five worlds, 68 levels, randomized levels, and plenty of loot.

Check it out.

#4: Ikeda : The Scrap Hunter E.P. / Trent Kaniuga

Ikeda is a free to play side scrolling hack and slash game that challenges you to obtain hard to reach scrap in order to achieve 100% completion. The only DLC for the game is a $5 gold patron badge that doesn’t do anything except support the developer and get you a fancier menu screen.

Following a tip from an old friend of his landlords, Iggy Ikeda infiltrates an abandoned Neptune Facility in search of the remains of a decommissioned Warthog Mk II tank. You’ll need to wall jump, and slash your way through 6 stages of challenging narrow saw blade corridors, security droids and lasers while grabbing as much scrap as you can.

Check it out, because there is not a whole lot of quality that came to Steam this week.

#5: Last Knight / Enoops

Last Knight looks a lot like the Go! games developed and put out by Square Enix: Tomb Raider Go and Hitman Go. This should be a positive, since those games were very well put together. It looks like a fun game and at 59 cents, what do you have to lose other than your spare time?

#6: Brewer / Slava Victorov

Brewer looks like it takes an established genre and throws a rather unique spin on it. A business strategy game where you open up pubs and brew your own beer. Brewer looks like it has all of the micromanagement aspects that strategy game lovers will pour through for hours. Hire employees, brew the beers, change every aspect of your pubs from the snacks on menu to the number of seats and strength of the drinks. It also looks like the game lets you be a gigantic asshole and ruin the competition by scouting out competing pubs, provoking fights on their property, and even spoiling their beer and calling in the health inspector.

If only you could fill the pub with drunk minors and then call the inspector like in that episode of Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Brewer will set you back $3.59.

#7: DARQ / Unfold Games

You may be familiar with DARQ simply because the developer got in the gaming press over their refusal to sign an exclusive deal with the Epic Game Store. You may not know about the game itself, or that it launched. DARQ is a side-scrolling game that looks right out of Tim Burton’s nightmares. The game is heavily puzzle-based, requiring you to use physics and room manipulation in order to navigate through the dream world.

DARQ tells the story of Lloyd, a boy who becomes aware of the fact that he is dreaming. To Lloyd’s misfortune, the dream quickly turns into a nightmare and all attempts to wake up end in failure. While exploring the darkest corners of his subconscious, Lloyd learns how to survive the nightmare by bending the laws of physics and manipulating the fluid fabric of the dream world.

DARQ is $20 and may constitute the only real “Must Buy” on the list this week. On second thought…

#8: Ion Fury / Voidpoint LLC

Ion Fury is freaking fantastic. As one of the games on this list that I personally own, Ion Fury is a collaboration between 3D Realms and Voidpoint to go back and create a game on the Duke Nukem 3D engine. Yea, this game is running on a (modified) version of an engine older than many of the people that will be playing it. Ion Fury, or Ion Maiden as it was formerly titled, stars Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, a character that was originally supposed to be a sidekick to Duke in Duke Nukem Forever. Ion Fury is the latest title to star Shelly, with the first being the not-well-received 2016 game Bombshell.

Those familiar with the Build engine games will see Ion Fury as more of the good stuff. Shelly is equipped with a wide array of weapons from her ridiculous handgun (pictured above) to bowling bombs, submachine guns equipped with incendiary bullets, shotgun, and more. Ion Fury is a true successor to Duke Nukem 3D, and even features Duke VA John St. John as the villain Heskel. 95% of the 1,569 reviewers on Steam agree that this game is a hit.

If you’re looking to scratch a retro-shooter itch, you can do so for $24.99.

#9: Wanna Survive / PINIX

Wanna Survive looks like a blend of something old and something new. It is a turn based strategy top-down strategy game that seems to combine Fire Emblem with The Walking Dead. Judging by the trailer, it pits your team of heroes against a massive mob of zombies in a game that is a little bit more fast paced than you might be used to. Help your cast of characters escape the city, deal with permadeath, and manage rations of food as you try your best to survive.

And at $10.79, it won’t break the bank.

Wasting Time: The Designers Curse: Chapter One


Today I played The Designers Curse: Chapter One.

Continue reading “Wasting Time: The Designers Curse: Chapter One”