Today's Steam Sale is bringing a lot of lengthy games so if you value your free time, beware!
That said, let's start with my Steam Sale recommendations for December 29:
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - Legendary Edition (-75%)
Its like Fallout 4 but with swords! Except not really, but it does follow the by now very familiar Bethesda formula. You will be able to explore an absolutely huge map filled to the brim with treasure and draugr infested dungeons. Vanilla Skyrim had a lot of flaws but the good thing about buying games years later is that almost everything has been fixed through mods. If you ever find a part of gameplay that you didn't like, maybe it was too easy or maybe there wasn't enough weapon variety, there is already a mod available that addresses that issue.
This version of Skyrim comes with all of the DLC which will greatly extend your playtime as well as bring in a lot of cool additions such as the overpowered Vampire Lord. In short, if you want a game that will devour your life, much like the Vampire Lord when you think about it, Skyrim is there for you.
Hitman Collection (-75% for each game)
The Hitman series is one of the best stealth games around. My suggestion is to start with Blood Money and onward since Hitman 1 and 2 haven't really aged as gracefully as Blood Money did. While you have the ability to shoot your way through all of the missions I suggest you resist that temptation and do them instead through clever use of the environment. One of the coolest moments in the entire series was in Blood Money where you get an actor shot by replacing the fake gun with a very real one after a lot of sneaking back stage. You could just shoot him yourself but its far more entertaining to see the crowd cheer at the realistic death effects while you walk away scot-free.
If you enjoy stealth games and don't mind a good but fair challenge then Hitman is for you.
Do you hate free time and wish to never see your friends again? If so I'd suggest you get Crusader Kings 2 and stick through the early difficulty hurdle. Once you understand how the game works you will have the whole world of politics, intrigue, assassination and selective breeding on your hand as you try to have your lineage maintain control of the country. You're probably going to lose often early on but consider all of it a part of the learning process because soon enough you'll be having your in-game cousins assassinated because they dared look at your throne the wrong way, the scoundrels!
There is also a huge boatload of DLC available though its mostly nonessential and adds various factions so if you want any of it make sure you pick and chose your favorites rather than buying all of them.
Dishonored (-75%) and Dishonored GOTY (-66%)
Dishonored on its own is an excellent game but its DLC contains some of the best designed stealth levels around so if you don't mind paying a little bit extra go for the GOTY edition and if you're really on a budget you won't go wrong with the base game. Clarifications aside Dishonored is yet another stealth game that allows you both a violent and nonviolent way of playing but unlike most of them it does both routes competently. I am and always will be a stealth guy but even so I was jealous of the various "murdery" tools I never got to use.
Luckily stealth has access to some really fun abilities such as teleportation and time freezing, stuff you would think makes the game incredibly easy, but the later levels can get really, really tricky. Especially on the DLC and especially if you want to go for a full stealth playthrough which means no killings as well as not being seen.
Best game to figure out which of your friends are worthy being in your posse if a zombie apocalypse hits. On a more serious note L4D2 is one of my favorite party games ever made. You can tailor the difficulty to whatever your skill level is and handicap yourself even further through the custom challenge options. All of this results in a game that is always full of tense decisions and hard fought victories after which you all will let out a sigh of relief.
If you can I'd suggest you buy this to play with friends because while the game is good on its own it gets elevated to a whole new level when you have voice communication and you can hear the friend you left behind in a spooky cornfield scream because he's being attacked, fun times.
This bundle contains both the original Metro as well as Last Light in their upgraded versions which feature better graphics, gameplay and various other nifty features. I hesitate to call them survival horror games as the fear factor is fairly low though they can get quite nerve wracking as you sneak through a Nazi camp with only a small knife and good intentions to protect yourself with. From an FPS standpoint they are in the middle of the pack, nothing really great or bad about them but it is the atmosphere and the world the Metro series inhabits that makes it stand out from other FPS games.
If you don't mind subtitles I'd suggest playing with the Russian voice acting, it will up your immersion to a whole new level given how well done, and most importantly how well it fits the world.
As I mentioned above this sale has a lot of very, very lengthy games so don't feel pressured to buy all of them. Pick your favorites and have fun, the rest will show up on the Christmas sale anyway. I'll see you tomorrow with the next set of Steam Sale Recommendations, have a nice day!