The steam christmas sale has BEGUN

[cowfields]

Also what is the best Gamepad for PC gaming? I see they sell X360 pads these days with USB connectors.

A lot of PC games have the 360 pad specifically in mind when supporting the joypads. So much so that if you start using the pad to play with, the tutorials and so on will say things like "Push B to do this, push the left trigger to do that" with a picture of the pad in the game.

Some windows live games also make use of the 'X' button in the middle to bring up the live interface. Even though live is a pile of buggy shit.

I can imagine it being frustrating with any other pad and I'm sure there are some games out there that refuse to support any other kind of pad. It's a nice pad anyway so, yeah, it's the best choice.

[vcassano]

I'm pretty sure Resi 5 was £15.

Play.com have the xbox 360 controllers for windows quite cheap, or at least they did a month back when I bought one.

Any old wired 360 controller works perfectly on PC, by the way.

[Chopsocky]

About to pull the trigger on all this in my cart:

Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box

Indigo Prophecy

Trine

The Chronicles of Riddick™ Assault on Dark Athena

The Void

Broken Sword III: The Sleeping Dragon

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

Machinarium

Oddworld Pack

I think the only other thing tempting me is Call of Juarez/ Bound in Blood.

[SaintM]

I'm waiting for Trine and Machinarium to be on daily discount.

I can see it happening.

[layten]

Just bought Burnout to replace my yarr edition. Also anyone who does not already have Orange Box and does not buy it at the current price needs to give up on gaming.

Layte's top tip: I changed my download region from UK to Central Russia yesterday afternoon, download speeds went from 100-200KB/s to 1.8MB/s

[champloo]

I'm waiting for Trine and Machinarium to be on daily discount.

I can see it happening.

Haven't they already done Machinarium?

I'm hoping for Bionic Commando Rearmed, The Void, Empire Total War and Mount and Blade myself, although if they don't go down I'll probably just buy them at their current prices.

[giant_frying_pan]

Nobody should be buying anything outside of the daily deals until the last day of the main sale, at which point you can make your mass purchase without the fear that it'll be reduced again.

For a week or two, at least

[phresh]

Just bought Burnout to replace my yarr edition. Also anyone who does not already have Orange Box and does not buy it at the current price needs to give up on gaming.

I've never played either Half Life so am obviously very tempted by the Orange Box but my only concern is that they will have the complete Valve pack in one of the daily deals.

[Vimster]

I've never played either Half Life so am obviously very tempted by the Orange Box but my only concern is that they will have the complete Valve pack in one of the daily deals.

I very much doubt it. It would either be The Orange Box or Valve Complete pack. They're more likely to do Half Life 1 for 50p. Of course I'm here to be proven wrong.

[daveodeth]

I've never played either Half Life so am obviously very tempted by the Orange Box but my only concern is that they will have the complete Valve pack in one of the daily deals.

Valve let you gift extra copies of games out, or at least they did.

[Valiant]

Sorry to barge this thread but does anyone know where I can get a Black Wirless X360 Controller for Windows? Everywhere seems to be out of stock

[Dudley]

The "wireless controllers for windows" are just a pack containing a normal 360 controller and a wireless dongle for the PC. Both are available separately if you're desperate.

[Vimster]

Just fired up DOD:Source, crikey it's a bit hard. Despite being tactical and not just running about I never got near any points. Maybe it comes with more play. It's certainly not as accessible as TF2. £1.50-ish though, can't really complain.

[therealjohnpeat]

I'm waiting for Trine and Machinarium to be on daily discount.

I can see it happening.

Machinarium has already been cheap on Steam - and D2D and some other places (under £7 cheapest IIRC)

Trine was £6-odd somewhere earlier this week too - which is about all it's worth IMO

About to pull the trigger on all this in my cart:

Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box

Indigo Prophecy

Trine

The Chronicles of Riddick™ Assault on Dark Athena

The Void

Broken Sword III: The Sleeping Dragon

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

Machinarium

Oddworld Pack

I think the only other thing tempting me is Call of Juarez/ Bound in Blood.

You realise there's no incentive to buy everything at once - you can just buy a few things today and some other bits later...

There's no discount for bulk and all that

[Chopsocky]

Yeah I know. I don't really see these going any cheaper and even if they do it won't be by much.

I took out the Void and Machinarium just in case though.

Also Riddick as Steam informed me I already owned it

[therealjohnpeat]

Oddly, Prey is gone from today's deals to be replaced with Bioshock.

My guess is they ran out of keys for it (happened last year with Unreal) but it's a shame cos it was a steal at £1.74

p.s. the Steam checkout now appears completely totalled - cannot buy a damned thing - I think it's melted...

[Madness]

Yeah :

Our sale on Prey was so popular we ran out of keys!! If we can get more, we'll try to bring this deal back. In the meantime, 2K Games has added BioShock to the set of daily deals on Steam, at 75% OFF today only. Happy holidays!

[Valiant]

My Orange Box is at 60 percent and 20Kb's

[Vimster]

My Orange Box is at 60 percent and 20Kb's

What, the whole thing? Crikey! With the updates Team Fortress 2 is about 9gb.

[fragglerock]

Is Burnout much good?

[Valiant]

I'm on wireless from the main computer upstairs however the signal is quite poor and my main computer has decided to die.

Also I just bought Bioshock as it seemed rude not to at that price and am downloading the demo of Torchlight and King Arthur.

[RubberJohnny]

Yeah it is, especially since they added instant restarts with some of the free DLC.

[tronied]

I bought Torchlight yesterday and played it today. Thought i'd play for an hour, but it quickly turned into 4. Very addictive game, and well worth it if you like games with lots of loot / levelling buffs. Shame it doesn't have a multi-player aspect, as this in co-op would be great. I also bought Prototype the other day and am impressed by that too. Well worth the £15 I spent on both.

[MrPogo]

Oddly, Prey is gone from today's deals to be replaced with Bioshock.

My guess is they ran out of keys for it (happened last year with Unreal) but it's a shame cos it was a steal at £1.74

Vaguely related, but I'd been wondering how these sales were set-up. Are Steam busy negotiating sales deals with various companies, or are they just cutting into their own profit margins (and always give the developers something less than the £1.99 I've paid for titles usually retailing at £6.99)?

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Developers need to give assent to deals/pricing. It's why CoD4 is has stayed so bloody expensive on Steam.

[therealjohnpeat]

Checkout working again - download servers are, however, almost totally dead - even 'Central Russia'

God forbid they do something really really amazing in the deals dept - I couldn't even login to Steam earlier

p.s. a mate is holding out for a deal on Railworks - I told him he's dreaming AND he's a bit sad and yet I know if he gets it I'll probably play it

[Pupponvesh 2]

I'm loving these sales.

One thing though. Bioshock on PC (using Steam) won't work for me. I've got a pretty decent quad-core Vista setup and it won't get past the title screen. I brought the game a while back when it was £3-odd in an earlier sale. Pretty shodding version.

[Valiant]

Orange Box is at 85 % and 65 KB/s

[donpeartree]

Is Killing Floor worth it if you'll only really play 2player?

[Isaac]

Just bought Killing Floor and the Lucasarts Adventure Pack, I considered Burnout for a while, but I own it already on the 360 so it'd be a bit pointless.

I hope there are some good deals tomorrow, too.