Steam Charts: High Difficulty Edition
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Are you strong enough to read the Steam Charts? Do you have what it takes to read all the way to the end? Can you defeat the Plunkbat final boss? NO! NO YOU ARE TOO WEAK!
10. Battle Chasers: Nightwar
I swear I'm not being "cute" when I say I read this as "Battle Chasers: Nightwear". Not least because that would make perfect sense on an online store that offers an eclectic range of games that will show you a cartoon lady's boobies. It is, however, a very interesting-looking RPG that has so far rather passed us by, in which I feel fairly confident most of the characters have on their daytime clothes. That said, RPGs with characters in the jimjams sounds like to bad thing to me. In fact, I'd now like to see Pyjama Mode up there with Big Head Mode in silly gaming unlocks.
I just installed it to take a look.
9. Total War: WARHAMMER II
Surprised to see this almost out of the charts already, although it did sell an awful lot of copies as pre-orders, because no one can do as they're told.
Or it could be a result of people doing as they're told, and everyone correctly refusing to buy the game until they change the name to Total: Warhammer! 2.
8. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
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7. Dying Light
A welcome return to parkour zombie deaths after last week saw the game 66% off its frankly idiotic (for a nearly three year old game) £40 full price. And, rather splendidly, it's only gone back up to £25. Adam loves Dying Light in a frankly upsetting way, so I asked him how he felt about the game's chart moment.
"Dying Light has hundreds of weapons, a grappling hook and zombies that sometimes lean against walls and just let out a sad sigh instead of trying to eat your brains. It's very tiring being dead. Very frustrating. It has a terrible opening, in which you're taught to run across planks and there appears to be a Very Important Plot, but then it lets you run around and have fun and take things at your own pace.
It's one of my favourite big silly games and Techland have made it more silly and more enjoyable on a regular basis. I'm glad people are still discovering its gory charms."
I'm not entirely sure that Adam's not a robot (run ed.exe PRINT "[I am definitely not a robot - ed]")
6. Grand Theft Auto V
Ladies and gentlemen, just exactly What Are Rockstar Spending All The GTA V Money On?
What Are Rockstar Spending All The GTA V Money On?
5. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War
Well thank goodness, it's good! Our review is very positive. And perhaps more exciting, Warner - the second* most stubbornly tiresome publisher in the world - sent out review code ahead of launch AND allowed reviews to go up before the game went on sale!
It's bewildering to my tired old eyes that this is exciting and unusual. This used to be the norm. Companies had confidence they'd made a good game, and confidently allowed critics to tell people if it's worth a purchase, before the game went on sale. Most games! To the degree that when a game wasn't given this treatment, it was a sure sign the publishers knew they had a duffer. Like today when a movie offers no press screenings, you know it's going to be a stinker.
So kudos to Warner for remembering how it used to work - and work it clearly still does.
(It's Bethesda.)
4. Divinity: Original Sin 2
Look at this one sticking around! Single-player games (yes, this has co-op, but you know what I mean) very rarely stick around for multiple weeks. Even GTAV's longevity is likely due to its extensive multiplayer shenanigans rather than its big daft story. As for Divinity, what a pleasure it is to see such an extensively fantastic game doing so incredibly well.
Of course, if it sticks around much longer I'll start being rude about it, for lack of anything else to add.
3. Total War: WARHAMMER II
Wait what?
But I'd had opinions about this being at #9!
I've absolutely no idea what's going on here. The Steam Charts are an archaic construct, loosely held together by xml and witchcraft, and they do occasionally blip. But the same game holding two positions in the chart is, er, odd. It's usually explained by a vanilla version of a game being sold alongside silly more expensive versions with a bonus cartoon hat, but so far as I can tell there's only one £40 option for buying TWARHAMMER II.
So, er, got any nice plans for your holidays?
2. Cuphead
This is pretty huge, you know. It was last week's #4, and for a platformer [it's more of a boss 'em up -robo ed] to stick around for more than one week, let alone climb to what might as well be the top of the charts, is unheard of. Finding itself at the centre of controversies it cannot have had any interest in being part of certainly must have helped; Cuphead was a centerpiece of the fuss about gaming difficulty, putting the name in front of a lot of people.
It helps that it's a properly great, super-tough platform game, with what could likely be described as gaming's best ever cartoon animation.
1. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds
I dunno, why not enjoy some appropriately named tUnE-yArDs?
