The third and final round of Sega's weirdly generous Make War Not Love promotion is here, which means a new bunch of games has been made available for free. If you already have Gunstar Heroes, Viking: Battle for Asgard, and Renegade Ops in your Steam library, then there are zero reasons for you to be excited, but if you don't, well, I have some good news.

Gunstar Heroes, Viking: Battle for Asgard, and Renegade Ops are free for the next few hours, though it will probably take a little while for you to receive the keys. Unlike the first round of Make War Not Love 3, you have to visit this site and sign up for Sega's newsletter, though it should be easy enough to unsubscribe afterwards. It's the same procedure as round two, meaning you'll need to input your email address and wait for Sega to email you a Steam key, something that could take up to three days. (If, like me, you already signed up for round two of the promo a couple of days ago, you should automatically receive round three's games without having to do anything.)

So yes, if all goes to plan your Steam library will soon devour another trio of old/classic games. There's also some Dawn of War II: Retribution DLC available for free from the same link.

If you want even more free Sega games, consider booking tickets for the PC Gamer Weekender in a couple of weeks.

Renegade Ops just received a new campaign map called Coldstrike, and another slice of DLC that adds two new charactes. Coldstrike adds three new story missions in which you drive into new snowy locations and explode them until there is nothing left to be exploded. Expect hordes of new enemies, including low flying attack drones and "monstrous Golems." It's available now on Steam for £2.99 / $4.99.

The Reinforcement Pack is a separate download that adds two new heroes, Blazemo and Crystal. Crystal's special ability throws up a huge defensive bubble that can protect allies huddled beneath it. Blazemo prefers to use his special weapon, The Incinerator, to destroy everything in an all-consuming spiral of flame. That's also on Steam for £1.79 / $2.99. The new characters will have to work hard to beat the antlion attacks off their silent co-worker, Gordon Freeman.

Get a peek at the new DLC packs in the screenshots below. The snowy ones are from Coldstrike, the rest show the two new vehicles.

Do you hear that faint wailing in the background? That's the sound of a thousand bank accounts going "noooo!" at the appearance of the Autumn Steam Sale. Thankfully for our wallets, it only lasts until Sunday, with dozens of new deals every day. Consider it a warm up for the monolithic Steam Christmas sale next month.

The sale kicked off yesterday, but you've still got six hours to grab some of the fantastic day one deals. The marvellous Orcs Must Die is just £2.99 / $3.74 (we gave it a score of 90 in our Orcs Must Die review). Portal 2 is selling for just £6.79 / $10.19. If you haven't played Mass Effect yet, the first game is £2.49 / $4.99, and Mass Effect 2 is 75% off at £4.99 / $12.49.

If you're more partial to an arcade explodathon starring Gordon Freeman, Renegade Ops is £4.99 / $7.49 (or you can grab a four pack for £9.99 / $14.99). All of Dejobaan's games are also on sale as well, including AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome.

These games are also on sale for the next few hours:

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Duke Nukem Forever
Test Drive Unlimited 2
Risen
Sam & Max series
Men of War series
Oddworld series

 
These deals will switch out in 5 hours and 42 minutes from the time of writing. Keep an eye on the Steam front page for the next set of deals then.

I’ve left a wake of devastation in my path, caused more explosions than there have been in the history of mankind, and driven over cliffs at ludicrous speeds. But between all the mindless, wanton destruction, twin-stick shooter Renegade Ops is reminding my brain of something it can’t quite put its synaptic finger on. Exotic setting. Isometric viewpoint. Crazy amounts of explosions. Stupid, stupid plot. It’s coming to me slowly. Something about 1993. “I know,” screams my brain. “This is just like Jungle Strike, but with cars instead of helicopters!”

Within seconds of that thought, Renegade Ops thrillingly chucks me an armed-to-the-teeth chopper, and for a few minutes it’s not just like Jungle Strike, it is Jungle Strike, and I fly off to obliterate a humongous warship. For those of you who are too young to remember the ’90s (lucky buggers), Jungle Strike gave you a ludicrous chopper to deal death to hundreds of thick terrorists in a florally unkempt setting.

Developer Avalanche Studios has already proved itself in the field of sandbox mayhem with its absurdly wonderful Just Cause series. Renegade Ops is built on the same engine, and even though the topdown view doesn’t let you see the skies, you can be guaranteed that they’re the same technicolor azure hue as Just Cause 2’s.



This isn’t a Just Cause 2 spin-off in the same way as last year’s Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, though. Some assets, like the water and trees, seem to have been nabbed wholesale from Just Cause 2, and it maintains a familiar air of general ludicrousness as you plough through buildings and blow up explosive barrel after explosive barrel. But despite the obvious similarities, it’s very much its own game.

Rather than just driving or shooting, you’re doing both. Mouse and keyboard give an obvious advantage to the shooting, but a disadvantage in the driving. I found the best way to play was to switch between good old mouse and keys when accuracy is required, and then to go back to an Xbox controller for the drivey bits.

There’s a limit to the format, though. After a while, spinning your beefy truck through the wilderness and executing anything that casts a shadow becomes a tad tiresome, in a way that it didn’t in my 86 hours of doing exactly the same thing in Just Cause 2. Thank goodness for the co-op mode, then. It’s here that just a little bit of RTS love has been thrown in. Each of the four characters (well, five, but wait a second... ) has a special ability, such as the ability to turn into a static cannon or unleash an EMP charge.



That fifth playable character is, um, Gordon Freeman. He’s got an ‘Antlion’ special ability that can deal an inappropriate amount of damage to steel-based vehicles, but he just doesn’t fit in. You can imagine him inside his knackered Half-Life 2 car. “Seriously, has that teleportation thing gone wrong again? Whatevs, Gabe.” At least he doesn’t utter a word or show his face.

Despite the tackiness and slightness of the game, it’s still worth £9.99. It’s an open world like Just Cause 2’s – albeit from a dinkier perspective and with much less interaction. But it seems to have a different target audience in mind: during Renegade Ops’ opening cutscene, the evil tyrant Inferno threatens the cities “where your children go to school”. The kids of 1993 are old enough to care about the fate of their sprogs now, and have fewer spare hours for lengthy timesinks. Fortunately, Renegade Ops’ short-term sessions are still a complete blast.

So now we know that Gordon Freeman will return in Renegade Ops. We can't say exactly why, but we can show you what he'll look like. See three new screenshots of Gordon's buggy in action below, along with some new artwork in which Gordon has a bit of a glare, perhaps a bit irate at how long it's taking for Episode 3 to come out.

 
Gordon Freeman will be a playable character in the PC version of Renegade Ops. The top down blaster will let us play as the Half Life hero and drive around in the Half Life 2 buggy, firing off rockets, taking out tanks with mounted machine guns and unleashing swarms of Antlions to quickly wipe out dozens of enemies at a time.

Renegade Ops is the latest from Just Cause and Just Cause 2 developers, Avalanche studios. A far cry from the sprawling, open world action of their previous titles, Renegade Ops will be a more traditional co-op shooter, with a very, very strange Gordon Freeman shaped twist.

“Working with Steam and the Half-Life team makes this game extra special.” said Sega's director of digital, John Clark. “Gordon Freeman is a deeply-established character in the gaming world and we are proud to have him included in Renegade Ops.”

Renegade Ops is out on Steam on October 14, and will cost $15.00 / £9.99 / €12.99 / AUD$ 20.00. Catch the first screenshot of Gordon in his buggy below, with more to follow on the site shortly. The One Free Man is back!