This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor's note: Daniel's guide to the Steam summer sale is aimed at console gamers and people with underpowered PCs. In other words, people like me. List your own recommendations in the comments! -Brett
If you follow me on Twitter, then by now you probably think I’m a salesman for Valve: most of my tweets since Friday have been links to Steam deals from their Perils of Summer sale. Nope, I’m just trying to enlighten all the console-only gamers who are ignorant of the PC side of the industry due to a few fears and misconceptions.
Yes, a large chunk of PC games require powerful systems and intimate knowledge of how computers work. But that’s not the truth for every PC game. Plenty of this week’s deals on Steam are games that will run on any crap system from the last five years. A lot of them have demos for you to test out at no risk. Some of them will even run on Macs.
And yet I still find console gamers reluctant to play a game, even in places where the barrier of entry is just about nonexistent, just because it's a PC game. If you have the means to experience a great game, you should at least try it out, no matter what platform it’s on. What have you got to lose?
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
Audiosurf (PC, Steam link here)
Audiosurf is currently on sale for $5. In my opinion, the game is a must-have for anyone running a Windows system with a lot of music on it. I'd describe it as sort of a puzzle game that turns your music into roads that you ride while collecting colored blocks, but it really has to be played to be understood. Because of my ever-growing music collection, I’m always coming back to this game — years after I originally bought it.
Introversion Software Pack: Darwinia, Multiwinia, DefCon, Uplink (PC, Steam link here)
The Introversion Software Pack contains all the games from the developer Introversion — mostly strategy games with simple (and cool) Tron/War Games-style retro graphics. Darwinia has you managing little digital creatures inside a computer system, Multiwinia is the multiplayer version of Darwinia, Uplink allows you to commit corporate espionage, and DefCon lets you wage thermonuclear war with your friends. Not bad for $5.
Machinarium (PC/Mac, Steam link here)
Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure in the vein of those old LucasArts games, except with beautiful, high-resolution graphics — and it's only $10 this week. I haven’t gotten very far in the demo, but the story has something to do with robots falling in love in a steampunk world. Since the developers originally developed the game on Flash, if your computer can run Flash, it can run Machinarium.
Torchlight (PC/Mac, Steam link here)
Torchlight has been tiding over gamers eager for the release of Diablo 3 on sale for $10. It’s your basic mouse-driven, loot-whore affair that includes everything that has made the genre great (except multiplayer). Like Machinarium, the game runs on Mac, and developer Runic Games specifically built it to run on netbooks. If you have cold feet, there's a trial version available. The save file will carry over if you decide to buy the full game.
Mount & Blade (PC, Steam link here)
Mount & Blade is an open-world strategy RPG and probably the most complex of the games I've listed. But hey, what have you got to lose by trying the demo? Set in a fictional version of the 13th century, you must raise and manage a mercenary army as you balance alliances between several different kingdoms. If this game actually had real production values, it would eclipse anything you’re playing on consoles right now. Trust me, at the $15 sale price you'll get several orders of magnitude more play time out of Mount & Blade than you get out of most $60 console games.
And those are merely the very top tip of the iceberg. The Perils of Summer sale also includes other great deals on respectable, low-end-accessible PC games like:
Eufloria
The Oddworld Games
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Deus Ex
Half-Life
Plants vs. Zombies
Beat Hazard
Osmos
Dark Void Zero
The Whispered World
Truly, there is something on sale for every type of gamer. So console players, people with old computers, and anyone else who has been avoiding PC games: Click on a link above and dive in. And welcome to the world of PC gaming.