Game news Steam sales: legendary series (Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead) for less than 1 euro per episode
Published on 28/12/2022 at 17:45
Christmas has just ended and it’s already time to think about gifts… that we could give each other! The problem is that with the money spent on both presents for loved ones and end-of-year meals, it is sometimes difficult to indulge yourself at a lower cost. Thanks to the Steam sales, we offer you a small selection of games costing less than a traditional wand that belong to series that have marked the history of video games. For information, these promotions will end on January 5th.
Half-Life
A legendary series among legendary series, Half-Life turned the world of first-person shooters upside down when the first installment landed on PC in 1998. In the shoes of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who opened a portal to an alien world by mistake, the player must flee the center of Black Mesa infested with warlike creatures and traversed by military men determined to cover up the affair (by reducing silence everything that moves). The title developed by Valve impressed with the quality of its single-player campaign, which is both varied and takes place without an intrusive cinematic scene.. Technically sound for its time, it won over critics with its particularly convincing artificial intelligence of enemies. Its extensions Opposing Force and Blue Shift have extended the experience by offering to live these terrible events in the shoes of a soldier and a Black Mesa security guard respectively.
Released in 2004, Half-Life 2 also struck a blow when it arrived on PC. He was able to take what was the strength of the original software (uninterrupted action, varied sequences, original arsenal) while adding more open environments, vehicles to drive and an extremely fun weapon to use: the gravity gun. With this equipment, the player has the possibility of testing the physics engine by sending decorative objects to the opponents, or by creating passages to facilitate his progress. Contrary to what was done with Opposing Force and Blue Shift, the two expansions of Half-Life 2 directly continue the main epic and leave the player behind Gordon Freeman’s glasses.
With rare exceptions (hello Half-Life: Alyx), all episodes of the Half-Life saga are available below €1 (per unit) during the Steam sales. Half-Life is €0.81, Half-Life: Opposing Force is €0.39, Half-Life: Blue Shift and €0.39, Half-Life 2 is €0.97, Half-Life 2: Episode One is $0.77 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two is $0.65.
Portal
A veritable video game “UFO” when it teleported onto our hard drives in 2007, Portal is an FPP (First Person Puzzle) as ingenious as it is diabolical. The player wakes up in a glass cell while a robotic voice speaks to him. This voice will haunt him until the end of a journey punctuated by increasingly complex puzzles. Equipped with a Portal Gun, the user, who has become a laboratory rat, can create an entrance portal and an exit portal wherever he wishes. With this mechanism, the subject will have to manage to overcome a series of more or less thorny situations under the mockery, and sometimes the encouragement, of the cybernetic voice of GLaDOS. Short but intense, abominably catchy, the first Portal is a mustespecially if you like the mysterious atmosphere that emanates from the movie Cube.
Four years later, GLaDOS and its infernal puzzles have returned to play some dirty tricks. Portal 2 takes place a hundred years after the events of the first episode. The player comes to his senses in a personal enrichment center in poor condition. His mission: to escape. Unfortunately for him, the artificial intelligence that governs the place will try to prevent it by developing a series of rooms with devious enigmas. While all the mechanics were based entirely on the Portal Gun in the first episode, Portal 2 adds a whole bunch of new elements with lasers, optical cubes, bumpers, light bridges and especially colored gels. The blue is a repellent gel, the orange gel accelerates the movements while the white gel makes it possible to transform any surface into a receptacle with a portal. Mixed together, these elements will make the brains of many players smoke. Even today, Portal 2 is surely one of the most original, funny and intelligent games that the video game planet has been able to offer us.. Simply an unmissable.
Portal as well as Portal 2 are currently €0.97 during Steam sales.
Left 4 Dead
With its infected running, climbing, jumping, Left 4 Dead has created a surprise by offering horrific scenarios to (sur)live up to four in cooperation. Let’s be clear, this coop FPS from Valve only exists by and for cooperation. Players must indeed always found a united team like the fingers of the hand to cross different zones ravaged by the zombie apocalypse. Running around alone like a selfish hero only leads to one thing: certain death. L4D (for short) encourages mutual aid in its mechanics, in addition to rewarding skilled soldiers with the trigger. With its gripping atmosphere worthy of the best films of the genre, its intelligent multiplayer gameplay and its good feelings, Left 4 Dead is an undeniable success.
It only took a short year for Valve to develop a sequel to its zombie game, which caused some complaints from players who thought they were dealing with a simple disguised add-on sold at a high price. Left 4 Dead 2 is very similar to the first title with a different atmosphere (it takes place in Louisiana), more monsters, more weapons and more modes. The great strength of this sequel lies in the quality of its 5 main campaigns. Varied, better scripted and offering specific phases (gathering cans of gasoline, finding soda for a barricaded survivor, etc.), they have memorable sections. If it changes almost nothing of the gameplay of its elder, Left 4 Dead 2 appears more attractive thanks to the winning choices made by the developers.
Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are both $0.97 during Steam sales.
Tomb Raider
One of the most famous virtual personalities in the world of video games, Lara Croft is an adventurer who for a long time had no equal in exploring temples in order to recover buried relics.. After the creations of Core Design (the last episode of which is the unloved Angel of Darkness landed in 2003) and before the reboot commissioned by Square Enix (in 2013), Crystal Dynamics released three games featuring Lara Croft with Tomb Raider Legend (2006), Anniversary (2007) and Underworld (2008). The first looks at the legend of Excalibur, the second is a remake of the original Tomb Raider, while the third takes Lara on the trail of Thor.
Legend managed to relaunch the series with more dynamic and flexible gameplay. No more platform phases that you have to start over a dozen times, goodbye complex architectures that are difficult to read, goodbye cold sweats to know when to save. Here, everything has been done to put the player at ease. The grappling hook, for its part, brings a real plus to the gameplay. No need to turn around the Grail, with this trilogy, Crystal Dynamics managed to dust off Lara’s costume in a beautiful way by drawing on what made her strong while modernizing what needed to be..
The episodes of this trilogy are all on sale during the Steam sales. Tomb Raider: Legend is €0.97 while Anniversary and Underworld are both €0.98.
