The holidays are upon us and many Tom's readers are looking to find ways to keep occupied during some well-earned time off. Valve Software's Steam service has just the remedy with the just-launched Steam Holiday Sale, its traditional end-of-the-year blowout that offers gamers up to 80-percent off on select titles. Why not get caught up on some classic games for just a few bucks?
According to Valve, the sale offers daily and week-long saving on featured titles, publisher game packs and compilations. "In addition to the usual savings specials, each day of the sale will feature a special Holiday Bonus on one select title," Valve said. "The twist: Players must qualify for the Holiday Bonus by owning another Steam game. For example, the first Holiday Bonus is Portal--save an extra 10-percent if you own Half-Life 2. If you already own the title, Steam will automatically detect this and offer you the 10-percent savings during check out."
Monday's initial one-day-only deals include the FEAR Complete Pack for $9.97, Titan Quest Gold for $4.99, the Deus Ex Collection for $2.99, Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition for $20.09, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $6.79 and a few more. As of this writing, just over three hours remain on this particular selection of PC games, so expect a different batch by 1pm EST on Tuesday.
As for the Mega Packs, The Epic Unreal Deal costs $14.99 and consists of Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition, Unreal 2: The Awakening, and Unreal Tournament 3 Black. Other mega packs are provided from 2K Games ($79.99), THQ ($49.99), Bethesda ($69.99), Rockstar ($39.99), Valve ($49.99) and a few others.
For those who can't purchase the mega packs, each publisher is offering a discount including 50-percent off all Valve titles, 50-percent off all Square-Enix and Eidos games, 50-percent off most LucasArts games, 25-percent off Sega games and so on.
Valve's Steam Holiday Sale ends on January 2, 2011. To see the full 31-page spread without the Steam client, head here.