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Steamfeed: What’s New on Steam This Week

Written by Raven Poplar

The past week has seen some interesting things over at steampowered.com. There have been indie game packs, big AAA releases, a few new titles from smaller development houses, and even a movie! Quite a mixed bag from our favourite PC digital distribution service. Let’s see what they’ve got for our hungry minds…

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

As far as real-time space empire building and tactical wargames go, Sins is top-tier. Not technically a “new” game, this installment in the 2008 franchise is a stand-alone expansion which builds on past successes and brings a lot more new content and features.

Take the battle for galactic supremacy to its ultimate level in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion – a standalone RT4X game that combines the tactics of real-time strategy with the depth of the 4X genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate).

Indie Game: The Movie

That’s right, Steam isn’t only for games anymore! This Sundance Award-winning feature length documentary chronicles the journeys of Super Meat Boy, Fez, and Braid from inception to realization. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t comment on it’s awesomenity, but it’s top on my list once I do get some couch time.

After almost two years of painstaking work, designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes await the release of their first major game for Xbox, Super Meat Boy—the adventures of a skinless boy in search of his girlfriend, who is made of bandages. At PAX, a major video-game expo, developer Phil Fish unveils his highly anticipated, four-years-in-the-making FEZ. Jonathan Blow considers beginning a new game after creating Braid, one of the highest-rated games of all time.

Krater

Fatshark Games has come up with what appears to be a mashup of particular styles (I’m thinking Fallout meets Diablo III here) while also pushing some new and exciting gameplay to the forefront of this experience. This game is something to watch with its unique RPG meets RTS gameplay and gigantic world.

The game brings you far into the future of a post-apocalyptic Sweden. Once home to IKEA, Vikings and Minecraft, today its primitive inhabitants scavenge the broken overgrown world for technological artifacts. At the rim of an impact site known as the Krater, three factions vie for control over the wound opening up into the world below. Consisting of an endless series of caves and tunnels filled with old world treasures and perils, the Underside stretches into the depths of the fallen Swedish civilization.

The Potato Sack Reunion

This bundle of games comes with a compliment of 13 well-known and sleeper games including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Super Meat Boy, and Killing Floor. If you’re a fan of saving money on loads of awesome games, or possibly you just recently got a Steam account and want to fill out your library for only a few bucks, this $20 bundle is for you.

Rune Classic

Rune is an older, Norse-inspired action/adventure title which is here redistributed with all of the expansions included and full multiplayer support. If you missed it when it was new, here’s your chance to smash the faces off your friends and enemies, Viking style!

The classic Viking third-person hack-and-slash melee action game is now available on Steam. This release, known as Rune Classic, contains the original Rune content, plus the multiplayer expansion pack Halls of Valhalla. Experience an exciting single player storyline where you thwart Loki and his minions from bringing Ragnarok to Midgard that will keep you entertained for hours. Eat meat and lizards, drink mead, as survival food. Call upon the power of the gods to enchant your weapon with Rune powers.

Adventures of Shuggy

Previously only available on XBLA, this cute 2D platformer has finally made the jump to PC. Beautiful in it’s simplicity and it’s hectic-as-fork gameplay, Shuggy deserves attention. I’ll be giving this game some Raven-time this week for certain.

Shuggy has just inherited a castle full of goblins, ghouls, zombies, and robots. Help him clear out over 100 rooms to make his new home liveable again! Every room in the castle is different, letting Shuggy fly, float, swing, spin, change size, time travel and more as he explores the Dungeon, Boiler Room, Clocktower, Gallery, and Graveyard.

Splice

This casual puzzler looks unique and I’m not sure I completely understand it. With the highly minimalist visual style and cool soundscape, this one looks like a neat little game.

Splice is an experimental and artistic puzzler. Immerse yourself in its microbial world and start splicing! Every level (“strand”) consists of a number of cells that you will need to rearrange into a target structure in several moves (“splices”). Exploration and experimentation are key in determining how the curious little cells react to each other. Predict the sequence of splices you’ll have to make in order to successfully arrange each strand. Re-sequence, mutate, and splice your way through this unique puzzle experience, and you’ll exercise your ability to visualize sequential series of shapes over time. Solve your way to the final strands and you’ll be left with a heady sense of mental accomplishment!

Well, that’s the Steamfeed roundup for this week. Promising titles are promising! Stay tuned for reviews of some of the aforementioned games as I eventually get around to playing them… Eventually.

About the author

Raven Poplar

Early Childhood Educator and video game journalist. First console game: California Games for Atari 2600. First PC game: Commander Keen on my IBM 286. I suppose I'm old!

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