When I was a kid, the highlight of Halloween was, of course, free candy. Now that I’m an adult (well, man-child) I have two more reasons to look forward to Halloween: unnecessarily sexy (but not unwelcome) costumes, and deeply discounted horror games on Steam.
Over 80 games are on sale through the end of October 31st, ranging from everything to big-budget action-horror rollercoasters like Dead Space 1 and 2 (for only five dollars!) to smaller indie hits like the retro styled, subtley creepy adventure game Home (which is currently only a buck-fifty.) There’s even a few non-horror games in the mix, like the excellent action-strategy hybrid Orcs Must Die and Bioshock and its sequel. You can view a complete listing of the games included in the sale here.
I’d like to use this opportunity to recommend TellTale’s series of Walking Dead episodic games. I wasn’t a big fan of TellTale’s previous output, but Walking Dead is substantially better than their older work, and it’s definitely the best adventure game to come out in the last few years. Despite being a point and click adventure, the game is easily just as tense and exciting as any action game, and the game’s excellently written story perfectly recreates the nihilistic tone of the original comic and TV show perfectly.
In related news, Team Fortress 2 is currently in the midst of the “Scream Fortress” event, where you can earn special horror-themed items to customize your characters with. A number of new gameplay modes have also been added, included new Halloween-themed variations on King of the Hill and CTF. The robots in Mann vs. Machine mode have been replaced with zombies as well.
