The Steam Holiday Sale is on now through Sunday, January 3, 2010. This year’s sale has begun earlier than years past so gamers can save big on last-minute shopping via Steam’s Gifting functionality. Gamers can save up to 80% on select titles, with daily and week-long specials running during the promotion.

I am getting a backlog of games to play on Steam as it is and at this rate, I’ll have enough gaming goodness to last me till I am 90.

Assume the role of The Witcher, Geralt, a legendary monster slayer caught in a web of intrigue as he battles forces vying for control of the world! Make difficult decisions and live with the consequences in a game that will immerse you in an extraordinary tale like no other!

Representing the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, The Witcher shatters the line between good and evil in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.

Get the Witcher for just US$19.99.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition takes all of the acclaimed gameplay that garnered the original game more than 90 awards, and perfects it with a number of gameplay and technical improvements.

• Superior dialogue and cutscenes – The developers have re-recorded and rewritten more than 5000 lines of dialogue in English and redone the entire German edition to create more a more consistent experience, while adding more than 200 gesture animations to make characters behave more believably in dialogue and cutscenes.
• Enhanced inventory – The new inventory system makes item use and organization less complicated by introducing a separate sack for any alchemical ingredients, as well as a simple sort-and-stack function. Spend less time managing your inventory and more time playing the game.
• Technical improvements – The enhancements made to the technical side of the game are too numerous to list, but a few of the highlights include greatly reduced loading times, greater stability, improved combat responsiveness, faster inventory loading, the option to turn autosave on or off, and more.
• Character differentiation system – To add more variety to NPC and monster appearances, we’ve added a new character differentiation system that randomizes the appearance and colors of dozens of in-game models.
• The Package – The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is more than just a better version of last year’s RPG of the Year. The premium packaging would usually infer some sort of Collector’s Edition… but at the price of a regular game, it’s simply a great value. In your download you’ll also get: Multilingual game disc, D’jinni Adventure Editor, Two new adventures offering 5+ hours of gameplay, Official Soundtrack, Music Inspired by The Witcher album, Making-of videos, Official game guide, Map of The Witcher’s world

From Bioware Forums:

Actually, just this afternoon, we finished up the deal, so I can now confirm that Dragon Age: origins WILL indeed come to Steam.
Now, before you all go running over to Steam to pre-order, the page is not up yet. Both us and the fine folks at Valve are working to make something for you ASAP, but I think it won’t be ready till next week. So just us a little time and we’ll let you know as soon as it is ready.
Stay Tuned.

Dragon Age: Origins is built apon a new game engine named Eclipse and like all modern game engines a toolset for creation of fan-made content will be included.

The Dragon Age Origins Character Creator is now available.

Dragon Age: Origins

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5St9phiHHE

Dragon Age: Origins is a dark heroic fantasy set in a unique world. As the spiritual successor of BioWare’s popular Baldur’s Gate series of games, it uses a pause-and-play tactical combat system. Play in over-the-shoulder mode, or the more tactical top-down view. Dragon Age: Origins features a stunning amount of cinematic dialog.  Players will be able to acquire unique party members. These party members will have their own motivations for accompanying the player.

Check out the Official Dragon Age: Orgins site.

The cheapest place to pre-order a Retail copy of Dragon Age origins Collectors edition again appears to be Fishpond and according to Whirlpool the coupon code READER gets you $10 Off making it just $70 Australian.

• Play Unreal Tournament 3 FREE this weekend Plus Save 60% on UT3 Black or the Unreal Deal Pack.
• Garrys Mod is 50% Off making it US$4.99
• The excellent remake, The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition is also 50% off with the same US$4.99 sale price.
• The second instalment of LucasArts titles is now available on Steam worldwide. You can purchase individually or just get the lot for $US 19.95
  The Jedi Knight collection includes:
  Star Wars: Dark Forces
  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
  Star Wars Jedi Knight II : Jedi Outcast
  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

With the addition of Dawn of War II, the pack also includes:

• Company of Heroes
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
• Frontlines: Fuel of War
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
• Titan Quest
• Titan Quest – Immortal Throne
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Gold Edition
• Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War – Soulstorm
• Full Spectrum Warrior* and
• Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers*

Full Spectrum Warrior games not available in Germany

The Interplay Steam store page will be made available at this URL when Gabe wakes up in the morning.

(August 17th, 2009) – Interplay Entertainment (Interplay), the publisher of many video game hits, and Valve Corporation (Valve), a developer of leading-edge technologies and software, announced today an agreement to bring Interplay titles to customers worldwide via Steam®, Valve’s leading platform for digital content distribution and management.

Beginning today, Interplay titles including Fallout, Sacrifice and Kingpin will become available for purchase via Steam, which makes PC games available online to more than 20 million users worldwide.

I have had most of the original Half Life series games since the won.net days, but now seems the perfect opportunity to gift some of my more stubborn un-Half Life playing friends.

]]> http://www.binarygamer.com/steam/66-off-the-half-life-universe/feed/ 0 http://www.binarygamer.com/steam/steam-down-6th-august-thats-tomorrow/ http://www.binarygamer.com/steam/steam-down-6th-august-thats-tomorrow/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:17:28 +0000 AzzX http://www.binarygamer.com/?p=1231 Steam hasn’t died!  Just some scheduled downtime taking place.  If you are in OZ, you will probably be asleep or at work anyway unless you are completing a marathon gaming session.

Beginning at 6:00 pm Pacific time Thursday August 6th, we will be performing software maintenance on some Steam servers. We expect the resulting downtime to last three hours at most, putting the end of the window at 9:00 pm Pacific time.

Some Steam services will be offline during this time. Affected services will include the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers, and making purchases from the Steam store. Games that do not rely on Steam matchmaking services should remain playable.

News updates and any further information will be posted in this space.