What's this, every Total War title except Shogun and Shogun 2, with all accompanying DLC for just £8.74 / $12.49? What are you doing to us, Steam sale? I was planning to eat, and perhaps sleep this weekend but NO, you have to throw hundreds of hours of world class strategy gaming at me for a price that my buying finger can't not click on.

Wait, there's more? Gravity mangling platformer VVVVVV, for just 99p / $1.24? That's less than I paid for my cup of coffee this morning. The slick shouting-at-people-until-they-crack simulator LA Noire, which has only been out for two minutes, is half price. And Fallout: New Vegas and all its DLC packs are available at prices that make the upcoming Ultimate Edition seem a little redundant.

Also on sale today:

Red Orchestra series
Operation Flashpoint franchise
RIFT
Sniper: Ghost Warrior
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3: Platinum
Two Worlds franchise

 
The deals will change around again in six hours time, so keep an eye on the Steam front page. The Autumn sale will wrap up on Sunday, giving us some time to play everything we've bought before the big Christmas sale kicks off.

There are three problems with this, the last story-based New Vegas DLC pack, and two of them are in the title. It’s an almost relentlessly linear trudge from one side of a rubble-strewn canyon to the other, with only an endearingly bleepy new ED-E eyebot for company. There are few sidequests along the way, few surprises, and only a handful of secrets for you to discover.



All this offers little to distract you from the constant attacks by mutants and monsters at every step, and that’s the third problem. Instead of going out on a big, adventurous high, Lonesome Road is practically a Fallout FPS, complete with named minibosses, Deathclaws and the new Tunneler enemies liberally scattered around. There’s even one of those sequences where you have to stay alive on a slowly descending lift. Sure, they fit the setting, but not the role-playing action that New Vegas does best. It’s like Deus Ex: Human Revolution spawning a whole expansion based on nothing but bosses.



Your reasons for this suicidal insanity are oddly underwhelming, given the build-up to them in the original game and last three DLC packs. During the main New Vegas storyline, you discovered that your unlucky courier wasn’t the one meant to deliver Mr House’s Platinum Chip. The man who was, an infamous figure called Ulysses, passed on the job so that you’d get the assignment instead – and not to do you a favour.

Lonesome Road is the story of why he set you on the path to being shot in the head and left for dead, and why he’s still nursing a grudge – even if the best in-game reason he has for you actually running his gauntlet may as well be, “Because otherwise you just wasted £7.49, idiot.”

As a character, he’s shown up in name and action throughout the DLC packs, but this is the first time you get to meet him face-to-face… and he’s not worth the wait. His motivations are reasonable, but while he thinks he’s an erudite philosopher, he comes across as a pretentious, jabbering bore, obsessed with something that you as the player never actually did, trying to lay down a guilt trip that just feels hollow. He does at least vary his spiel based on the faction you support, and has a very good chance of kicking your arse if you don’t have the necessary skills to talk him out of his grand plan at the end.



And that’s about all you get, ignoring a few new toys such as a cool rocket launcher, some forgettable items and Perks, and another unnecessary boost to the level cap. None are particularly vital though, nor justify the expense if you haven’t already rushed to buy this. If you simply feel nostalgic for the Mojave and want to go back, get the Old World Blues DLC. After conquering that, walking the Lonesome Road isn’t the only thing that makes this last DLC a pedestrian affair.

Whoops, I seem to have accidentally put all the information in the headline, but it's still good news for those of us who didn't buy any DLC packs because we knew that it would inevitably end up bundled in a single, better value package. VG247 say that, along with the original game, the Ultimate Edition includes the Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier’s Stash, and Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC packs, and will be out on February 7 in North America and February 10 in Europe. No pricing details yet.

Our own Tom Hatfield insists that he'll be skipping Skyrim on launch and picking it up sometime later in a similar deal once the mod community's had a good crack at it and any bugs and glitches have been ironed out. My prediction is that he'll break within a week. What do you think?

Whoa. When did PC gaming become so damn... award-winning?

PC has cleaned up at the Golden Joystick awards with a wealth of exclusives. And the non PC exclusive games that took an award? We get to play most of those too, only more anti aliased, and in a better resolution.

The best bit? Gamers voted for these. Real-life gamers with strong opinons. A record-breaking 2.06 million of them in fact. Well done PC gaming community - you rose to the challenge and pwned.

Click through for the full results. Don't agree with some of the winners? It's time for a furious debate. See you in the comments.

PC dominated the Best Strategy category: Starcraft 2 took the number one spot, followed by Civilisation V and Shogun 2: Total War. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was awarded Best Action game and Fallout: New Vegas took Best RPG.

World of Warcraft took Best Subscription MMO, beating Rift and Eve Online. One of PC Gamer's faves - Minecraft - was awarded Best Downloadable Game. We'll have Notch's acceptance speech on the site as soon as possible.

League of Legends scooped Best Free-To-Play Game - considering the numbers and constant updates, it's hard to disagree.

Portal 2 took Ultimate Game of the Year at the prestigious ceremony. Seeing as we have the ultimate version of Portal 2, we'll take that as ANOTHER win for PC gaming.

Skyrim took the One To Watch award. We've been keeping a close eye on that one. And yes, it is indeed one to watch.

Best Action
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Runner Up
Portal 2
Third place
L.A. Noire

Best Mobile
Angry Birds Rio
Runner up
Fruit Ninja
Third place
Infinity Blade

Best RPG
Fallout New Vegas
Runner up
The Witcher 2: Assassin's Of Kings
Third Place
Dragon Age II

Best subscription MMO
Winner
World of Warcraft
Runner up
Rift
Third place
Eve Online

Best Fighting
Mortal Kombat
Runner up
Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
Third place
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

Best Racing
Gran Turismo 5
Runner up
DiRT 3
Third place
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

Best Sports
FIFA 11
Runner up
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Third place
NHL 2011

Best Strategy
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Second place
Civilization V
Third place
Total War: Shogun 2

Best Music
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Second place
Rock Band 3
Third place
Child of Eden

Best Free-to-play
League of Legends
Second place
World Of Tanks
Third place
RuneScape

Best Downloadable
Minecraft
Second place
Limbo
Third place
Dead Nation

Best Shooter
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Second place
Halo: Reach
Third place
Crysis 2

One to Watch
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Second place
Battlefield 3
Third place
Guild Wars 2

Innovation of the Year
Nintendo 3DS

Outstanding Contribution
Sonic The Hedgehog

Ultimate Game of the Year
Portal 2
Second place
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Third place
Call of Duty: Black Ops

Update: Bethesda US has contacted us to clarify that Lonesome Road will indeed go live on Steam today at 10AM Pacific time. No delay after all!

Whoops! Lonesome Road has suffered a last minute delay and will now be available later this evening. The Fallout New Vegas DLC was scheduled to be on Steam right now. There's even a post on Bethblog claiming that it's available, but a search of the Steam store reveals the DLC is nowhere to be seen.

When we contacted a representative of Bethesda for comment we were told that there had been a last minute delay, and that we could expect the Lonesome Road to arrive around "Mid afternoon, West Coast time", which is late evening to us here in the UK. It's a shame, but only a minor annoyance, especially compared to Batman: Arkham City being delayed by a month.

Lonesome Road will cost £7.49 or $9.99 when it finally arrives. In the meantime, enjoy the latest Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road trailer again.

 
The fourth chunk of Fallout: New Vegas DLC hits in five days. It finally puts you in direct contact with courier six, also known as Ulysses, who's fast becoming the Keyser Soze of the Fallout universe. The mournfully named Lonesome Road DLC sends you into The Divide, a wasteland between wastelands, overturned by constant storms, and completely lawless. Fallout: New Vegas has taken an interesting new approach to DLC, turning a loose end from the main game and spinning it off into its own gradually unfolding story, one that's set to conclude when Lonesome Road comes out on September 20. Based on previous packs, it'll likely cost £7.49 / $9.99.

A post on the Team Fortress 2 blog from Robin Walker tells us how to get how to get hold of the new TF2 Skyrim, Brink, Rage and Fallout items we mentioned yesterday. If you buy or pre-order the relevant game from Steam during Quakecon, they'll unlock automatically in Team Fortress 2.

Pre-order Skyrim to get the Heavy Nord helmet, pre-order Rage to get the Wingstick for the Engineer and buy Quake IV to get the Quake launcher for the Soldier. Owners of Fallout: New Vegas will get a Pip Boy for the Engineer and owners of Brink will pick up a hood and mask for the Sniper.

The deal ends with Quakecon, so you'll be sure to buy or pre-order the games you want before 10:00 PDT / 18:00 BST on August 8

In the same blog post, Robin Walker also talks about Team Fortress' debt to id Software and Quake in particular. Team Fortress started out as a Quake mod in 1996.

"At the time it only had five playable classes, no maps, and--believe it or not--no hats, writes Robin. "There wasn't even a concept of teams yet."

"That's right, we didn't actually get teams into a game called Team Fortress until a couple of releases after the initial launch. (The next time someone says their game isn't ready to release yet because they're missing a core feature, you can helpfully point this out to them.)"

"When Quake celebrated its 15th birthday this past June 22nd, we realized just how damn many of us at Valve are here because of id software. Some of us were inspired by their games' technical prowess, and others by getting their first taste of game development thanks to Doom and Quake's revolutionary approach to user-generated content."

Quakecon is happening right now in Dallas, Texas. To celebrate, you can play Brink for free this weekend and loads of id's game are on sale on Steam where you can also download and play Team Fortress 2 for free.

 
We're back! Welcome to our regular round up what new PC games are due this week in both Europe and America. A treasure trove of new releases lies within for those who still have some money left after the Steam sale.

Fallout: New Vegas: Old World Blues
July 19th
£7.49/$9.99
The third piece of Fallout: New Vegas DLC comes out this week, and it looks like an interesting one, at least if the totally mad trailer is anything to go by. There will also be a massive patch coming out along with it, so there's no better time to fire New Vegas up again.

Supreme Ruler: Cold War
July 19th
£24.99/$29.99
Have you ever wanted to play through the events of the Cold War from the perspective of any country in the world? Even Zimbabwe? Fearsomely in depth strategy sim Supreme Ruler: Cold War could be the game for you. Check out our preview, or get it on Gamersgate.

Runespell: Overture
July 20th
£7.99/$9.99
Runespell is an unusual RPG that combines poker mechanics, power ups and collectible cards with more traditional RPG gameplay. It's also on Steam at a budget price for those who like quirky mechanics.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars
July 21st (EU)
£21.99
Usually Europe is the one that has to wait for games to come over from the US, but this time it's the other way around with us getting Air Conflicts a full two months before the states. Fans of flight sims should check it out on Steam.

Anything we've missed readers? Do let us know in the comments.

 
"You will never survive my deadly robot scorpions!" screams a man in the middle of the new trailer for Old World Blues, the latest expansion for Fallout: New Vegas. The phrase "old world blues" conjures images of a seasoned old man on a rocking chair with a battered guitar, wailing on a mouth organ as he strums the slow day away. That image could not be further from the terrifying Twilight Zone style horrors present in the new video. On Big Mountain, deadly robot scorpions are the least of your worries. The strange robotic overlords of the facility have stolen your brain. You'll can get it back when Old World Blues goes on sale this Friday July 19.

The recent Steam Summer Camp Sale has brought new achievements and in-game rewards, along with a bumper selection of cheap games. Today is "Encore Day!" Unless Valve go for a stadium-satisfying multi-encore finish, it's your final chance to download a bargain. All the games are picked from the week's top sellers.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 for £4.99/$7.50, Terraria for £2.99/$4.99 and Magicka for £2.71/$3.39? Yes please. Click through for more details of today's deals.

You've got just over six hours to grab these bargains:


Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition - £7.50/$7.50

Just Cause 2 - £3.49/$4.99

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - £5.00/$7:50

Sanctum - £2.49/$3.75

Portal 2 - £14.99/$24.99

Dawn of War: Retribution - £14.99/$14.99

Total War: Shogun 2 - £17.99/$29.99

The Witcher 2 - £23.44/$33.49

Terraria - £2.99/$4.99

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - £14.99/$19.99

Fallout New Vegas - £8.99/$14.99

Two Worlds 2 - £8.50/$17.00

Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City - £6.24/$9.99

Magicka - £2.71/$3.39

 
What's the best bargain you've ever picked up in a Steam sale? Back in 2008, £6.99 was a great price for Team Fortress 2. How naive.