pc games

Ten Best Inexpensive Steam Games, 2024

March 28, 2024 Guides

The gaming landscape, now more than ever with the modern proliferation of indie games, has shown that great games can come in all sizes. There are low quality AAA games that cost millions of dollars to make, and there are fantastic games from one-man studios that were crowdfunded, and some not even that. Further, while all of us wish we had the kind of money in real life as we tend to end up with in our favorite video games, that’s not always the case. And even for those who do, there is no income limit where you are required to stop being careful with how you spend your money. So, why pay a lot for a bad experience when you can pay a little for a great one? For someone with a computer, there is a vast, wide sea of Steam games that are both high quality and wallet-friendly.…

Are WATA/VGA Video Game Gradings a Scam?

August 25, 2021 Guides

To save you time, if you define a scam to mean that you give someone money for a service and they do not do that service, then by all means WATA and VGA (Video Game Authority) are not scams. They’re legitimate companies that, if you ship your games to them, will grade your games and send them back based on what services you paid for. Maybe not very quickly, but they do what they promise to do. Now, is video game grading in of itself a scam? A fictional system designed to inflate the prices of retro video games that are becoming more scarce due to the fragile materials used to construct their boxes? That’s a deeper question with some actually quite odd answers. Furthermore, should you invest in graded games? That’s an even tougher question. We will dive into all of them below. If you’re wanting to collect retro…

Should You Reserve the Steam Deck?

July 16, 2021 Editorials

Steam Decks have just been announced and reservations will have opened up at 10AM July 16th. Assuming you have the chance to reserve one, depending on how much stock Valve has. You can reserve one on the following page at Steam and it comes in three models. A base model, a mid-tier model and a high end model. A quick rundown of the three: Base: 64GB of storage and a carrying case. $399Mid Tier: 256GB NVMe SSD (faster storage), the carrying case and a Steam Community Profile bundle. $529High End: 512GB NVMe SSD, anti-glare etched glass, the carrying case, the Steam Community profile bundle and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme. Note, there is a MicroSD slot for more storage. Great Overview If you want a solid professional unbiased overview of the hardware, checkout Gamer Nexus. History & Stock Shortages Valve has failed on almost every hardware release so far, with…

How Microsoft Is Killing Xbox and If Xbox Game Pass Comes to Switch It Will Be the Final Nail in the Coffin

March 1, 2019 Editorials

If rumors are true then pretty soon we’ll have to start planning the funeral of the Microsoft Games division and the Xbox consoles. For a while now MS has been making some………. let’s just call them questionable decisions in terms of supporting Xbox and their exclusive games. For example, Xbox Play Anywhere has been an exciting combination of both sides of their business, using Xbox games to push their PC audience to buy through the Microsoft store but where they started tilting the scales too far was making Xbox exclusive games available on PC. When MS made Xbox exclusive games Play Anywhere they killed any interest the average gamer had in getting an Xbox, especially the One X. While it is true that the Xbox One X is graphically one of if not the best-looking home console on the market the more cost-effective option is just to get a decently…

Do We Lose Something by Playing Together Online?

January 23, 2019 Editorials

In the beginning, if you wanted to play video games with someone, you had to do so sitting next to each other. As technology has evolved, so has multiplayer — not only can you now play with others online rather than in-person, playing online is now the multiplayer standard. PC games were the early adopters of online play due to the convenience of being on a system that inherently connects to the Internet by design. Consoles, however, had online play come at a slower pace. Many people were still playing splitscreen multiplayer on consoles when PC users were playing online. The turning point for online play on game consoles was Xbox Live on the original Xbox, most notably with Halo 2 becoming an online phenomenon. As times progressed, game consoles have caught up and are now fully online-enabled with streamlined services (including streaming), eliminating the need for in-person multiplayer. You don’t…

Epic Games Store is a Schism The Gaming Community Doesn’t Need

May 8, 2023 Editorials

Update: It’s 2023 and the following still remains mostly true. The EPIC Store continues to be a pain in the gaming community’s side. Fighting Steam is the past time for many people in this world it seems, as we’re now seeing the Epic Store vs. Steam battle keep raging on. Which is much like the golden ages of MMOs where almost every month a new WoW killer was coming to fight the champion, who won the war via attrition and investors tired of sending their money down a bottomless pit. Now Epic Games, Discord and even Kongregate the flash game site is trying to lure you into replacing Steam with their awesome storefront. This isn’t new, Razer started selling games in their zCoin software forever ago. Twitch has the ability to buy some games, but the purchases often help the streamer. Humble Bundle was once a monthly bundle of games…

Bethesda the Grinch that Stole Christmas

December 31, 2018 Editorials

With Christmas all wrapped up you would think the trauma of the yuletide flooding everything would be over and for some, you would be right; however, there are hundreds of children whose trauma is continuing into the new year thanks to Bethesda! My brother-in-law who is 14 really wanted Fallout 76 and it was the one thing he was looking forward to. He went absolutely ballistic with joy when he opened it just repeating “Thank You!” over and over again! That is until the trick came into play; Apparently, Bethesda thought Christmas was Halloween and opted for a trick instead of a treat. He could not play the amazing game he had just got because Bethesda in their wisdom decided to make Fallout 76 an online only game and require a separate subscription service. No adult should see a child suffer because the game they are most excited to play,…