(even though you really shouldn’t be spending anymore money on video games)
By Wietse
Hey, me again. It’s that time of year again: the Steam Winter Sale! Time to be torn apart by the desire to indulge in the month of indulging on the one hand, and to be ashamed of your consumerist tendencies and less-than-great financial situation on the other. Luckily, I found the perfect solution to this: I write an article about it and shift the blame to you! Naturally, because this article rests solely on my opinion, you can regard all these games as objectively good. Failure to recognise this only signifies a lack of taste on your part. So, without further ado, here are my picks in no particular order.
1. Just Cause 2/3
Ah, the Just Cause series. The premise of both games is that you are Rico Rodriguez, you work for some American intelligence agency, and your task is to topple the regime of a crazy dictator. How? BLOW UP EVERYTHING! Yes, everything. That may sound like a lot, but that’s only because it is. These open-world games give you an entire island nation as your sandbox of chaos. Oh, and both games do feature a campaign: 2’s is great, 3’s is fine. Generally, Just Cause 2 is better (or I am nostalgic), but 3 does have more eye-candy. At just a couple of euros each, you can’t really go wrong with either.
2. Civilization VI
It should not come as a surprise this game is on the list: recently, for the first time ever, we played Civilization 6 (rather than 5) at the Koornbeurs. And of course, I want to see more people there next time (with both expansions, preferably)! Still, apart from these amazingly fun LAN-parties, this game is a lot of fun on your own. When the game came out well over six years ago, it was a decent continuation of the Civilization formula: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate (the 4x genre) as you guide your civilization from the ancient era to the modern era. Now the game has two major expansions that significantly expand and improve your gameplay experience, as well as a plethora of smaller civilization packs. Depending on how much you are willing to spend on the smaller DLC, you can at least get the base game and the two main expansion in a nice package somewhere between ten and twenty euros.
3. Rimworld
Haha, rim. Funny sex joke. Now that we have reached the ultimate 14-year-old catharsis, this game is great and probably one of my all-time favourites. At its core, the game is a colony simulator. With the default start, three colonists crash land on a distant planet (the rimworld) and it’s up to you to help them survive and ultimately escape. This sounds fairly straightforward, yet now the beauty of the game comes in: the game features an AI storyteller, who will throw random events at you, ranging from raids to crazy animals, sickness or goodies falling from the sky for you to take. Additionally, the game features a surprisingly good psychology system: is a colonist in pain? That’s not great for their mood. Did they witness all their loved ones get murdered? That’s also not great for their mood. Well, unless they’re psychopaths. If their mood drops too low, they might suffer from mental breaks: a mild break might just mean hiding in their room for a spell, a more severe mental break might mean your colonist suddenly being hellbent on destroying that one nuclear warhead you had lying around for special occasions. The base game is currently a little under 30 euros: that’s still not that cheap, but with a 20% discount it’s the biggest discount it has ever had – and well worth the price. The DLC’s (except for the most recent one) are also at a discount of a mere 10%, yet they are certainly not required – you can come back for them once you’re addicted. Finally, the game has an immense amount of mods, meaning you will always have something to come back to. Also, if you’re not convinced, I highly recommend the review by SsethTzeentach on YouTube.
4. Warpips
If you were a kid during the early 2000’s, there’s a good chance flash games are a core part of your childhood. They were for me at least! And, as a kid, I particularly loved strategy games: often these were tower defence games, yet sometimes they were tug-of-war games. In these games, the objective is simple: destroy the enemy base whilst preventing them from destroying yours, all on a 2D map where you don’t control your units, but only spawn them. Warpips has taken this flash game formula and upgraded it: you still have to spawn in the right unit at the right time, but with an extensive unit roster, a multitude of different abilities, a per-mission deck builder where you have to decide what to use in the mission, and a challenging roguelike campaign map, this game has more to offer than any old flash game. And for that bit extra, you now pay around five euros.
5. The Age of Empires Definitive Series
And another return to your (my) childhood! So, the entire franchise is on sale, but which game is right for you? Probably not the original – the second iteration is better in every way. So why should you buy AoE 2 Definitive edition? The eye-candy is nice, but the main reasons are the quality-of-life changes (no more manually reseeding farms!), the extra civilizations, more campaigns, and of course a functional way to play online. If you’re familiar with 2, or already own it, maybe it’s finally time to give 3 a go: AoE 3 never got even near the amount of popularity of 2, all on account of the bells and whistles it added. Whereas 2 was already just about perfect, 3 had to bring something new to the table. Still, that does not mean it is bad – far from it! AoE 3 is a great game in which you can get a lot more creative with your strategies than in 2 if you get the hang of it, and that’s a hill I will die upon. The definitive editions come in at 5 euros each, but there is another (well, two, if you count Age of Mythology as well): Age of Empires 4! Released almost two decades after the previous AoE, AoE 4 did not have the smoothest launch. However, one year later the game is as stable as it should be, better balanced, and even features two additional civilizations. The game is definitely a lot closer to AoE 2 in how it feels, but with more unique civilizations, more interesting base building mechanics, and an age-up system using wonders, the game certainly is more than a reskin. Moreover, the game features multiple well-made campaigns and an active player base. At just over twenty euros, it’s not a bad deal at all.
6. The Wasteland Series
Initially, I was debating putting either an Elder Scrolls or Fallout title here, however I think most people are already quite familiar with these titles. So, I opted for Wasteland instead! Whereas the first iteration of the series goes all the way back to 1988(!), this is not necessarily the version I’m recommending (though you get it for free with the deluxe edition of Wasteland 2). Wasteland 2 & 3, however, were released in 2014 and 2020 respectively. Now, personally, I must admit that I only played Wasteland 2, but I greatly enjoyed it. Whereas the other post-apocalyptic RPG behemoth, Fallout, turned to first/third person, Wasteland has stuck with the isometric playstyle, like the old Fallout games. The gameplay is slower: all dialogues feature more text since it didn’t have to be voice-acted anyway, and combat is turn-based. So yes, the game does require a bit more patience than our little hamster brains are used to but, if you persevere, you get an amazing post-apocalyptic squad-based, turn-based RPG that sucks you in for some quality story time. Around ten euros each, you at least won’t quite be breaking the bank with these games.
On behalf of the Redâkkie I want to thank every writer and reader of our articles for the amazing year we’ve had. Redâkkie lives! I hope to see you all again next year! ~ Mats, chair of the Redâkkie 2022-2023