11 overlooked PC bargains in the Steam Summer Sale

It’s that time of the year when digital distribution platform Steam launches another one of its crazy sales for lucky PC and Mac owners – this time it’s the Steam Summer Camp sale, and almost everything in the service’s massive library has seen some sort of discount.

From June 30 to July 10 there is a selection of irresistible daily deals, but on top of that there’s also a load of great bargains that could easily slip by unnoticed. After spending a morning digging through the Steam catalogue, here are 11 overlooked bargains that you’d be crazy not to own. If you think there’s anything missing from the list, however, let us know in the comments – we’ll all get through this utterly ginormous sale together.

Time Gentlemen, Please! and Ben There, Dan That! Double Pack – £0.74

Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! are two utterly wonderful point and click games from developer Size Five games (formerly known Zombie Cow Studios) that you really should own. Featuring lines of dialogue such as “I’ve never trusted you, Hitler!” and a sharp, ingenious script full of hilarious, rude jokes, along with some absolutely brilliant puzzles, anybody who ever moans about the state of modern gaming owes it to themselves to buy at least two copies.

Jamestown – £4.68

Jamestown is another recent darling of Steam; it’s a top-down shooter with snappy colours, wonderful 2D art, and a joyous sense of pace and rhythm as you fly your craft around a crisp, colourful rendition of the red planet.

The game advertises itself as a neo-classical top-down shooter set on 17th-century British Colonial Mars, and Jamestown throws up an intriguing take on the classic shmup formula. While it works competently in single-player, there’s also a 4-player co-op mode that allows the whole team to progress provided one of your flying quartet remains alive.

The Tiny Bang Story – £2.38

The Tiny Bang Story (which, for some reason, sounds a little bit rude) is a charming game that mixes point-and-click gameplay with Professor Layton-style puzzles. The game’s quaint watercolour planet has been hit by an asteroid, and in order to patch everything back together you need to perform a series of tasks and puzzles for the splintered populace. As you do.

Toki Tori – £0.87

Toki Tori was originally a puzzle platformer released by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. This modern port to Steam adds swanky new graphics but retains the classic formula of using a limited selection of tools to successful gather all of the eggs on each of the game’s many stages.

The Steam version also features the ability to rewind and fast forward through mistakes, which helps remove any frustration from having to replay levels due to your mistakes. For less than ninety pence it’s an absolute bargain.

Shatter – £1.75

Sidhe’s Shatter was originally released on Sony’s PlayStation Network, but the PC version is an absolutely excellent port of a great game. Consider it a contemporary take on Breakout or Arkanoid jazzed up with a brilliant modern soundtrack – kind of like what Lumines did to the puzzle genre, but with brick-busting. Shatter is much better than it sounds, trust me; in action the trippy visual effects and colours are almost hypnotic.

The Longest Journey + Dreamfall – £3.74

The Longest Journey is widely regarded as one of the best adventure games nobody knows anything about. It revolves around protagonist April Ryan and a twisting narrative that involves parallel universes and some fantastic puzzles. If you’ve only ever played the LucasArts point and click games, or are getting into the genre after playing some of Telltale’s work, this is a great way to spend a few pounds.

But Dreamfall isn’t as good, mind you.

The Oddboxx – £4.41

The Oddboxx had a bit of an awkward launch when it came out in December 2010, but thankfully a lot of its teething problems have been ironed out by now. You get all four Oddworld games in the pack, including the timeless Abe’s Odyssey and the excellent Stranger’s Wrath – one of the most underappreciated games from the last console generation.

Valve Complete Pack – £24.99

This is probably the most publicised deal of the list, but if you’re just checking the daily deals it might manage to pass you by. I could write about them but I don’t need to, because the list speaks for itself.

You get: Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat, Day of Defeat: Source, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Source, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, Portal 2, Ricochet, Team Fortress 2 (which I know has gone free to play), and Team Fortress Classic.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent – £6.49

Is Amnesia: The Dark Descent the scariest game of recent years? Probably; I’d talk about it but I’ve had to undergo an extensive bout of hypnotic therapy to lock away the memories of the game in a dark, forgotten corner of my mind.

Aquaria – £3.75

If you’ve ever sat awake at night thinking about combining Metroid and Ecco the Dolphin, your creative energies were in vain – it’s already been done, sorry. If it’s any consolation it’s been done fantastically in Aquaria, which has you schlepping around a rich underwater world.

VVVVVV – £1.99

I’ll admit: I can’t get enough of VVVVVV, Terry Cavanaugh’s indie platformer with a gorgeous minimalistic art style that mimics the Commodore 64 period. There’s no jumping, but instead you flip gravity at the touch of a button – a feature well tested over the course of its many platforming challenges.

It’s also got an absolutely amazing chiptune soundtrack, but that’s just icing on the cake. I’ve been trying to get everyone in the VideoGamer.com office to play this for absolutely yonks, but so far only Pearson has decided to give it a whirl. He’s glad he did.