During the dreary post-holidays period, with snow on the ground and nary a break of pace in sight until Lent, I pondered how to occupy myself. Spending 5 hours rearranging my homes in Skyrim has its charm, but would that really accomplish anything? ("Look at my immaculately decorated house!" "Meh. Where's all the cheese wheels?") I was browsing Steam's catalogue when inspiration hit.

"I bet not many people review the cheap games on Steam, and $10 wouldn't put me in the hole that much, even if it's a clunker. What if I wrote a review of every $10 (or less) game Steam releases?"

After the first 3 reviews, I have decided this is not some fleeting interest, but instead the first steps on a long road to madness. That means it's time to announce my condition to the world, so gawking bystanders can watch my trail with morbid interest (and provide heckling motivation from the stands if I gain a brief moment of sanity and reconsider this).

Here's the guidelines I'll follow:

1. Review each new release on Steam that starts at $10 or less, at least.

2. Play the game for at least 8 hours or until I beat it, whichever comes first.

3. In the review, say how long I played it, how much I think I should've paid for it, and its current Steam price when I wrote the review.

4. No Multiplayer. (This isn't from some squeamishness about competition on my part, but because a 50% packet loss on uploads makes it unplayable at best and gets you accused of lag hacking at worst.)

And here are the first fruits of my labors:

Q.U.B.E.: 3 stars, 2.5 hours, worth $10

Unstoppable Gorg: 3 stars, 7 hours, worth $7

SOL: Exodus: 4 stars, 4 hours, worth $10

According to the Steam release schedule, the next candidate is Dear Esther. Wargame: European Escalation may also qualify, although it looks a tad too professional for that.

With you mentioning snow and also say clunker, I instantly got reminded of A Christmas Story.

Anyways, your basically reviewing the indie games that are 10 or less right and are more or less under the radar righr? Not a bad idea at all.

Great idea! looking forward to it

I really like this idea! This could be a neat little blog series if you wrote a blurb about each game (though I'd imagine that this'd get expensive for you in the long run).

Bravo, props, or golf clap, which ever you prefer but what a great idea. I have been wallowing through a lot of puzzle games and have had the same thoughts. Send me a PM if you are interested in a collaboration of sorts.

Awesome idea, though it sounds pretty expensive in the long run.

This is a pretty cool idea. Followed. Maybe post a blog with a link to your review every time you finish another one?

Expensive for me in the long run? Perhaps. But it's still cheaper than buying a new game every month. (An average of 1-2 $10 releases per month vs a $60 purchase per month.) Odds are I pay more eating out than I do buying these games for review.

And I plan on posting a notice to this thread whenever I have a new review ready, or have a new game pegged for review. I could make a parallel blog post as well; we'll see.

Speaking of new games, I notice that 2 of the games on sale this weekend caught my interest earlier: Detour, and Space Pirates and Zombies. While the Detour sale only lasts 1 more hour, the SPAZ sale lasts until Monday; if I got a review up quick enough, people could take advantage of the sale.

Hmm... I think I have my project for the weekend.

New review added: S.P.A.Z.

In summary: this game is big, complex, and brutal. It's also well-worth the $10 if you have any fond memories of the old top-down 2D open-galaxy space combat sims. It's on sale for $4 until Monday, which seems almost criminal.