Steam Summer Sale

It's kinda hard to get massively excited over a Steam Sale after I've witnessed so many. The first is always the one that has you overcome with emotion and sudden inexplicable poverty, but after several dozen things start to lose their speciality, particularly when you basically own every game that sees a huge price cut every season. We spoiled for sales, and besides a couple of games I'm waiting to see through Early Access, I don't actually imagine I'll find myself buying much besides House of the Dying Sun. Still, for those who have yet to pop their Steam Sale cherry, you're in for a colossal treat, a shower of negative percentages, and a few weeks of poverty when the mass panic ends.

The Steam Summer Sale begins on Thursday the 23rd June.

Deadlight: Director's Cut Release

I was actually quite the fan of the original release of Tequila Works' Deadlight. I dare say I'd choose playing that over This War of Mine, simply because the genre appealed to me far more. The Director's Cut is still being published under Deep Silver, and sees a couple of additional modes added to an otherwise solid sidescroller.

Aside from the usual things that come from a severe spring clean, like new animations, new controls, and slightly shinier base texture resolution increases, the game now features a new survival arena mode and some a Developer Diary. The survival arena aspect involves endless waves, unlocking and barricading new areas, and paves the way for a few new weapons and a ranked leaderboard, kinda similar to CoD Zombies. The new Director's Cut also features a digital art book, and of course all the glory of the original campaign mode.

Deadlight: Director's Cut releases on Tuesday the 21st June.

Mighty No. 9 Release (for reals this time)

As if by some miracle, Comcept's Mega-Man successor is at long last coming out after its fair share of dramas and delays. Yet another title published by Deep Silver, Mighty No. 9 is actually properly releasing next week, despite very little information coming out of the studio regarding its sudden official release.

The game has spent the last few months either being totally silent or getting poked and prodded by devs and testers alike, stating that the gameplay simply isn't up to scratch. By the sounds of things, it's been an incredibly rough few months for the developer, but the end is in sight (maybe), and the game, regardless of its current state, will be released to the world. It desperately needs to live up to the hype and the legendary standing of the source inspiration, otherwise this will have all been in vain. It was a grand undertaking, and I'm sure plenty of us have a vested interest to see it succeed. I'm a big sidescoller fan, so I'm rooting for them.

Mighty No. 9 releases on Tuesday the 21st of June (hopefully)

Syndrome Release

In case you haven't had enough survival horror for that last three months, Camel 101 are launching a fairly shiny looking title by the name of Syndrome next week, only this one actually has weapons. I can always get behind a horror title when I have a gun/wrench in my hand to panic and flail with.

The game is set in a sci-fi setting on some form of science ship, and while it features weapons and the like, ammo and resources are scarce, and best used only in critical situations. There's stealth mechanics, whether or not they're well developed is yet to be seen (stealth is hard to pull off in the best of games), and mention of "reactive" enemies. Basically make a noise with a brick and they'll investigate, Hitman coin-tossing style. It's all suitably horrifying and dark, and there is some word of a storyline too. The end-goal is yet to be explained though.

Syndrome releases Q2 of 2016.