Just wanted to let yall know about a few great deals happening in video games this Thanksgiving holiday and the blackest Friday of the year. If you have anything to add, post it in the comments and ill keep this post updated with the goods as I find new ones.

• Starcraft 2 digital is marked down to $20 on battle.net: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100001122


• Diablo 3 digital is $40 marked down from $60: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100002016


• Inflatable Personality Cores over at Think Geek. Not really on sale, but pretty awesome at $20. http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f128/


• The Steam Autumn Sale is in effect. Check back every so often for new flash deals. http://store.steampowered.com/


• Gamestop has some PS3 games marked down to $20 for Black Friday: Max Payne 3, Doom 3 BFG Edition, Fallout New Vegas & Batman Arkham City. http://www.theblackfriday.com/ads/gamestop/gamestop-black-friday-ad8.shtml


• GoG has a 5-games-for-$10 deal going on. Check it out: http://www.gog.com/pick_5_pay_10

Those are the most interesting bits I found. What are you guys getting?

Updated: @jaelte commented about the GoG sale.

Recently an update to Portal 2 included these updates:

Big Picture Support
- Added 2 controller splitscreen support for Standard Co-Op. Press X on the second controller inside the first Co-op menu to activate it.
- Fixed controller's ‘quick ping’ button causing the player’s movement to stop.
- Fixed not being able to exit Robot Enrichment or Create Test Chambers menus with the controller.

This is awesome news for people wanting to run Steam in the living room as adding the same console features to the PC version helps this. Recently Big Picture mode came to my Steam and my first thoughts of it were good. Over the next few days I plan on doing a bender of Lets Plays, showcasing the new Steam Big Picture mode is on my list!

http://store.steampowered.com/news/9423/

The episode sort of ups the writing ante and the results are good. I am one of those gamers that doesn't ingest every shooter that comes out so I think there is some truth to certain kinds of gamer stereotypes.

Plus its fun to laugh at game culture.

Recently I read a Google+ post from one of the Triple Town developers on why they didn't just make the game 99 cents on the App Store. He seems to think that buying games for a fixed price is a bad model and goes into detail on why. Ultimately because he doesn't see many indies survive in this way.

"Imagine free-to-play games as practiced by a private company that makes games with long term retention for passionate players in a tightly knit community. That fits my personal goals substantially better. So I'm experimenting. I'm learning. Spry Fox may not figure it all out this time, but at least we are driving in the right direction.

So why you don't see Triple Town being slapped with 99 cent price tag and being sold like any other disposable wannabe hit? Been there. Done that. This time around, I'd much rather work towards having a lot fewer customers that see my games as a lifetime hobby. So I can continue to make great games for them for the rest of my life."

What do you think?

https://plus.google.com/105363132599081141035/posts/Lce7wEJApEr

A new Humble Thingy was dropped today in "Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight." Clipped from the site:

"Tim Schafer is revealing Double Fine’s never-before-seen game jam process!
Contribute and vote for your favorite game ideas to be prototyped (week 1).

Then, Double Fine will create prototypes of the top four ideas and live stream the process (weeks 2-3).

Contributors get to download the finished prototypes for Windows (Steam keys too!) Plus, you get two protoypes from past jams right away."

Sounds like a cool way to contribute to the next steps of Double Fine's internal demo process. If you want to vote on any of the games they could prototype, head over donate and vote!

http://www.humblebundle.com/double-fine

Recently I made it to Hell mode in Diablo 3 and a night or so later I got an email from Blizzard saying this:

"You've proven your valor in the battle for Sanctuary in Diablo® III. Now take your skills to Azeroth with a FREE digital copy of World of Warcraft® Battle Chest®, which includes 30 days of game time, The Burning Crusade® and Wrath of the Lich King® expansion packs."

World of Warcraft Battle Chest free? The email came with a key. I thought this might be some kind of phishing, but the email seemed legit and the URL's matched up to Battle Net proper. Clicked the link logged in to Battle Net and I had World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King for free. It took me through the steps to pay for a subscription, so I declined that but I can do a free 30 days of the whole deal if I want.

I signed up for the World of Warcraft Starter Edition some time ago and stopped at level 9 or so. I went back into my Starter Edition account and poked around a bit. I created a Undead Mage or some such and called him... Wait for it...

SnuggyBunny.

It makes a lot of sense that Blizzard is hanging out free copies of WoW up to Litch King. Making the barrier to play NOT require the purchase of 5 games is a good idea.

Did you get this email? If you did would that prompt you to try out WoW?

-
Not the only one talking about this either:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/534914-world-of-warcraft/64652371http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500259
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500259

A few days ago I finally made it to Hell in Diablo 3 with "SnuggyBunny" my Witch Doctor. Beating Diablo in Nightmare wasn't too difficult. I sort of stopped going to the Auction House and only used the gear from game drops until I recently picked it back up. I think that made the game a bit harder than it would have been otherwise. After I started over in act one in Hell I decided to hit up the Auction House to see what kinds of things I could buy with all the gold I had. I had about 250k gold so I figured spending 50k on a weapon would get me something better than I had.

I had a two handed axe that hit for about 98. My total damage with modifiers and such was about 1200 damage. I found an two handed axe for a 50k buyout that hit for 1000. Its total strength and attribute modifiers took me from 1200 damage to over 10k. Its fun stomping the shit out of everything for sure but going from 1k -> 10k damage by dropping 50k gold seems a bit over powered. I wonder what I could get for 250k?

Snuggys recent look is above, check out all his stats and gear here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/jdodson-1332/hero/3331502

That said, it was fun to beat Diablo again and had fun doing it again. No secret Diablo 3 disappointed me a bit so its good to go back after taking a break and have a lot of fun with it. That said, coming back to grind every so often is fun and I look forward to playing the other classes as haven't really started with any of them yet save the Barbarian who is still in Normal.

After I beat Hell I got an email from Blizzard... More about that in my next post.

Moar DLC to whet your Borderlands 2 palate in Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage. According to Gearbox this DLC will be released next week.

Excited? Interested? Looks pretty bad ass.

Two new Starcrafts Animations. Episode 12 "She's The Bomb" above and Episode 13 "Spore Loser" you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3H7G5v75Dc&list=SP0QrZvg7QIgpoLdNFnEePRrU-YJfr9Be7&index=15&feature=plcp

For Aiur!

I now bring you the thrilling part 2 to my interview with the always awesome Panickedthumb.

You can read part one here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/738

jdodson: What was the last game you beat?

panickedthumb: This is kinda sad actually. I can't remember. I just took a scan through my Steam library to find out. Does Diablo 3 count? I haven't beaten Inferno with any character yet, but I've beaten Diablo himself quite a few times now. Otherwise, it's Deus Ex: Human Revolution I guess. Perhaps I'm going through a phase, but lately I've been having trouble holding my focus on a game long enough to beat it. This happens from time to time. I usually end up on a gaming hiatus for a while and then come back fresh.

Human Revolution was a masterpiece by the way. It's probably my favorite game I've played this year. Stealth, RPG elements, tight cover-based shooting. It's a good length too. Much longer and it would have felt like a drag, much shorter and you'd feel cheated.

jdodson: Beating Diablo 3 does count, yes. I don't care what the kiddies say, just because I haven't beaten inferno 50 times with all the characters doesnt mean I have beaten the single player aspect of Diablo 3. Feel free to respond to that but also I had a follow up there.

jdodson: Recently Linux users playing D3 through Wine have been permanently banned by Blizzard. Since D3 is only playable online and banning is permanent, I wonder what your thoughts are with this recent trend?

panickedthumb: I'm not 100% sure that's true. It seems there's conflicting information. I would certainly like to know the answer to that though. Blizzard says they aren't doing it, but people seem pretty sure they are. If it is happening, it's horrible. They have allowed WoW in WINE for years, why should this be any different?

jdodson: I don't know. I guess I believe people more than I believe Blizzard. No reason beyond it seems like Blizzard has more to gain being dodgy and a person has less to gain. I think my bias is showing, but if it all came out and those people really are dirty cheats then they deserve a perma-ban.

jdodson: Would it scare you to have you Battle.net account banned?

panickedthumb: Since D3 is online-only, yes. Especially because they seem unwilling to listen to any reason when attempting to get unbanned.

jdodson: Your Steam account banned?

panickedthumb: YES. More than Battle.net, but I think I'm less likely to get a Steam ban, and I think if it was erroneous I'd be more likely to get my account back than with Blizzard. That's one downside to digital distribution. Lose your Steam account, you've lost everything.

jdodson: I agree, I think Steam has a reputation of being a "good guy" over Blizzard. Why do you think people trust Valve more than say Blizzard here?

panickedthumb: They seem to be more willing to work with their customers. They aren't
quite Zappos but they seem to go a long way to make their customers
happy. This isn't always the case, of course, but they have a
reputation for being one of the good guys for a reason.

jdodson: The Mario franchise is pretty huge, even now. I wonder what you think was the game that stands out above the rest for you?

panickedthumb: Super Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the one that stands out above the rest. It was impeccable. No, it wasn't a big change over the first Galaxy, but it refined everything about the first one. It certainly isn't my favorite, that has to go to Super Mario Bros. 3. That may be because of nostalgia, I'm not sure, but it's definitely my favorite. However, the Mario franchise is 3D now, primarily, and Galaxy 2 is the pinnacle of the 3D series.

jdodson: Memes. They will always be with us. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. What Meme rubs you the wrong way? Is there one you absolutely love?

panickedthumb: I used to like memes, then I took an arrow to the knee. Yes, that one is my least favorite. It is funny, but it got so overdone it's like Ace of Base in the 90s. None stands out as being my favorite, but I'm quite fond of the STAHP meme going around right now. I'm sure it will get overdone soon enough. Here's an example. Bonus, it's video game related: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/388586-stahp

jdodson: What would happen if you actually took an arrow to the knee? Would you stop adventuring in video games?

panickedthumb: My hypothesis is that you knew I was going to answer "took an arrow to the knee" as my least favorite, and this question is purely baiting me. ;)

No, if anything else, it would make me game even more. It's not like I'm going for a run is it?

jdodson: What's the first thing you would do with a 3D printer?

panickedthumb: I would make this thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C9tOc47ceWQ

My wife thinks it's creepy though, so I'd have to keep it at work or something.

jdodson: I think its creepy if you don't like Spiders. So my Wife is out too on this one. Too bad I can hide it in a box, hopefully some kid doesn't come along an pin me for my non-alive spider fan thingy killing a student as I didn't open the Chamber of Secrets, I just kept a non-living spider in a box!

panickedthumb: I don't like spiders, but I still think it looks awesome. :)

jdodson: I imagine you have had some pretty bad experiences in video games. What one sticks out to you as being one of the worst.

panickedthumb: Losing my 100+ hour Final Fantasy VIII save file. I literally nearly cried. I feel like this question should have a longer, more detailed answer, but it's pretty self-explanatory.

jdodson: Wow, that sucks. My condolences. I can't say as I have lost a VG save... But one time in College I lost all my work as a Freshman. It mattered more to me then than it does now I think. After that I started my habit of backing everything up. Haven't lost anything yet.

panickedthumb: BACK UP EVERYTHING. Always. I can't stress this enough. If you don't
learn it before a disaster, you *will* learn it the hard way one day.

jdodson: In 6 words or less explain why we have 3 modern CG Chipmunk movies.

panickedthumb: Wait. We have three? I honestly had no idea. If I have to explain it though:

Kids have weird taste in movies.