AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA-a-reckless-disregard-for-gravity posts

We were wondering what was going on at Valve this week when it didn't have any major sales on the Steam download service but late today Steam finally showed its hand. The service has cut the price of 13 indie games under the new Potato Sack bundle.

This new bundle has the following games on sale for 50 percent off their already low prices:

1... 2... 3... KICK IT!
AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
AudioSurf
BIT.TRIP BEAT
Cogs
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Killing Floor
RUSH
Super Meat Boy
The Ball
The Wonderful End of the World
Toki Tori

If you buy all 13 games at once you will be able to get them all for just $38.72, a 75 percent price cut from their normal prices if sold separately. There's no word on when this sale will end.

There's just a couple of days left before Steam ends its massive annual holiday sale event. Remember that nearly every game is on sale on the download site to some degree and that even more savings can be found with special publisher bundles. From now until 1 pm Sunday you can get the following PC games with even deeper price cuts.

Company of Heroes series - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Football Manager 2011 - $26.79
Zeno Clash - $3.75
Medal of Honor - $29.99
Swarm Arena - $2.50
Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga - $19.99
Half-Life series - Save 75 percent off all games in series or 85 percent if you own Left 4 Dead 1 or Left 4 Dead 2.
The Settlers 7 - $24.99
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - $2.50
Bionic Commando Pack (Bionic Commando/Bionic Commando Rearmed) - $12.49
Mafia 2 - $12.49

Like clockwork, the Steam PC game download site has started the second chapter of its Treasure Hunt contest and sale. As with the first chapter that started this whole thing on Monday, there are four new objectives to solve. Each objective completed will automatically generate a new entry for a drawing will be held every two days. 20 people will get their top five Steam wish list games for free as a result. On December 20 three grand prize drawings will be held for those folks who have completed 10 of the promotions' objectives with those winners getting a whopping 100 free Steam games of their choice.

Here are the objectives for the next two days:

• Have 10 friends on your friends list
• Complete Ol' Buddy Ol' Pal achievement in Fallout: New Vegas
• Set a leaderboard score of at least 22,600 on the level 'Mash Face Against Mountain' in AaAaAA!!!
• Play the demo or game The UnderGarden

Also both The Undergarden and AaAaAA!!! are on sale for the next two days on Steam. The Undergarden is priced at just $4.99 with AaAaAA!!! priced at a mere $2.50.

We are down to the last days of the baseball season. Any predictions on who will win the World Series?

• New Steam bug updates are now available for Fallen Earth and Worms Reloaded.
• Gamasutra has a new (and funny) post-mortem for the hit indie game AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity.
• Civilization IV's catchy theme song now has some lyrics. Really.
• You can read or listen to an except from the upcoming novel of Star Wars The Force Unleashed II.
• Derek Smart gives his very detailed version of the timeline of his involvement in the ongoing Alganon MMO saga.

Yep, it's yet another PC game sales news post (hey, they are time sensitive). This time we want to alert you to a new indie games bundle deal from developer Lazy 8 Studios. The deal will either net you six or 12 acclaimed indie PC game titles for one low price. You can actually take your pick of two bundles that are each priced at $19.99 each, which is a savings of at least 70 percent off.

One bundle has the titles AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, BrainPipe, Cogs , Captain Forever, Saira and Space Giraffe. The other bundle contains And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Osmos, Aztaka, Eufloria, and Machinarium. If you can't decide you can get both bundles and save even more money overall. The mega bundle prices all 12 games together for $29.99. The bundle sale ends on September 22.

If you wanted to get into the indie games scene but were afraid to do so, Direct2Drive has just revised its Indie Games Bundle sale for its customers. For a limited time you can get 10 of the most well known and acclaimed indie games in one shot for just $29.95. That's compared to a price of $134.50 if you had to buy each game individually.

The games in the bundle include World of Goo, Puzzlegeddon, Gish, The Maw, Braid, Cogs, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, Osmos, Machinarium and Crayon Physics Deluxe. All of the above games are good in our opinion and some are true classics. It's a deal that you don't have to steal.

The Direct2Drive download site has offered up bundles of a number of indie games for limited times on a couple of previous occasions. Now the service is doing it again as it puts together 10 of the most well known indie games together in one downloadable package from now until March 12.

The bundle costs just $29.95 which is a massive savings compared to the $134.50 that you would have to spend for each game separately. The list includes the puzzle game Cogs which just won $100,000 in GameStop's first annual Indie Game Challenge. The full list of games in the bundle is below:

Braid
Osmos
World of Goo
Cogs
Machinaruim
The Maw
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Aaaaa!
Puzzlegeddon
Gish

It's been quite a while since GameStop's Indie Game Challenge was announced, but today the list of 12 finalists (six professional, six non-professional) was announced at long last. Unlike the Independent Games Festival, there is also a public vote on the competition's web site that determines which of the finalists look the best to them (via a video only) and then they vote for which game they think should win the $10,000 Gamer's Choice prize. However the two big grand prizes of $100,000 each (one for the pro selections and one for the amateur selections) are selected by a panel of judges from GameStop, The Guildhall and Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. There are a few other prizes for specific areas of excellence (technical, art, design). You can check out the list of games, vote, and watch game videos on the official website.

The list of games covers many different genres, from puzzle to arcade. Four of the IGF finalists have a spot on the IGC list as well: Cogs, Miegakure, Vessel, and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Some other notable games include Gear, which was an honorable mention in the IGF student showcase, and the multiplayer arcade game Altitude, which had a recent launch on Steam.

A year has gone by, and we find ourselves once again looking at our family and wondering just what to get them for Christmas. While you can certainly get them such stellar titles as Dawn of War 2, you may want to shift your focus to some cheaper and more interesting games. For the price of three indie games, you can get one triple AAA title, and many of these games exceed the games put out by major studios. Excellent gameplay at a third of the price always sounds like a deal to us, and with massive sales going on in the spirit of Christmas, the deal is even sweeter. We have 15 indie games that we think you or someone you love will absolutely adore this holiday season, and most of them run around or under a $20 price tag. Take a glimpse at some of these titles, and see if you want to go back to the big budgets of more mainstream games. After all, every year indie gaming only gets better.