It seems pretty clear to me that “ludicrous hot air balloon battles with flame-cannons and grappling-hook boarding actions” needs no exposition or back-story, but Air Buccaneers has a rather amusing one anyway. Finnish developers Ludocraft send word that their story trailer (and presumably new game intro) has appeared, and you can watch that below. It’s time to coincide with a Christmas sale over the Steams, where the game is a threesomely 33% off. I’m not saying you should buy it, but you should play it. And if you buy it, that will help with that.

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I’m not saying my trusty Saitek Cyborg flightstick is old, but…

It has ‘MADE IN SIAM’ stamped on the base. It came bundled with a bottle of laudanum and a photogravure of an eagle. The hat switch has three corners. The Force Feedback mechanism involves burly shrews. The manual foreward was written by Pliny the Elder. Altering the deadzones without first placating Anubis, voids the warranty.

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Some games stand in the light, and allow us to examine their mottled skin. Others cower back in the dark, fearing the searing beam of our critical gaze. But which of these is Game Twenty-One? YOU DECIDE!

No, actually, we will decide.

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The new Groupees bundle includes loads of games but I haven’t even heard of most of them. It’s a ‘pay what you want’ deal, although the minimum price rises as you add more games from the selection. Two games will set you back a minimum of $1.50 and the reason I’m posting about it at all is that buying any two adds La Mulana to your order as a freebie. If you don’t know about La Mulana, I’ll consider that at least partly my fault because I’ve been meaning to write down wot I think about it for months but, somehow, I always fail. I am a failure. La Mulana, however, is a roaring success. If you like Spelunky*, Metroid or Dark Souls, you should spend $1.50 to buy La Mulana.

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There probably aren’t enough capital letters in that headline. Gaijin Games’ rhythm action releases do insist> on themselves. It’s all ‘BIT.TRIP this’ and ‘BIT.TRIP that’ in the titles, which is odd because the games themselves are much more careful about making a racket. Void was the third entry in the series over in Nintendo land and it’s the third released on PC as well, although the fourth was released as the second. Forget all that though because there’s sod all continuity between entries and little plot to speak of, as the video below demonstrates.

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Atlus have released a video to promote their new title, God Mode, which doesn’t look entirely dissimilar to Serious Sam and Painkiller. They player, armed with guns rather than swords, is marching through Hades killing hordes of monsters, accompanied by a spirit guide whose running commentary made me hate the very concept of audio before the end of the minute long trailer. He does have one good line though, describing the setting of Hades as “Hell in a toga”. Is that actually a good line? How low are my standards at 8:30 on a Friday morning? I’m eating a dry slice of bread for breakfast because I was too hungry to bother with spreading or toasting, and I’m perfectly content. That’s how low.

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Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt is the next wedge of DLC for Borderlands 2. A big game hunt could be a sort of man-shooter shooter, but spiffy old Hammerlock is more concerned with blowing the pelts off the hordes of beasties that populate Pandora. The new post-campaign story content will introduce a new villain and, most exciting, a new continent that is covered in jungles and swamps. Although any ‘Sir’ worthy of the title is sure to doff a cap occasionally, the DLC won’t be raising> the cap. The level cap that is. In an interview with IGN, 2K did suggest that the level cap will increase in the first quarter of 2013, possibly in a second season of new content. A video-trailer follows, as is customary.

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Michael “Brog’ Brough, the cleverbrain behind Glitch Tanks and Vertex Dispenser, has gone and made a free puzzle game for you and me, on Mac or PC. It’s called Corrypt, and it’s got one of those simple game mechanics that grows up through the levels to produce brain-curdling complexity as you go on. Nor is it simply about puzzling – there’s a map to explore, and creatures to encounter and help out with their woes. As is typical with Brog’s work, it is lo-fi and beautifully conceived.

And even there’s even Some Noise>. (Which made me laugh out loud.) Go play it.

TF2′s Christmas update is a Big Rock one. The new Big Rock map will contain the Mecha-Engineer, expanding the roster for the Mann Vs Machine mode. Valve explain: “These Grinch-like Smissmas cakewalk destroyers can skip huge areas of the path with their teleporting ability, and also teleport other robots forward instantly with their “telling other robots about the teleporter” ability.”

There will also be new weapons. But you knew that. Right? There’s also a new comic. Hooray for holidays!

Yes, that’s right. It’s that time of year again. If you’ve been a good girl or boy, then Santa Gabe will slip down your chimney and deposit some really rather decent prices for PC games. The Steam Holiday Sale has begun, with the usual shennanigans of voting for deals, daily offers, flash sales, and astonishingly cheap publisher packs.

Mirror’s Edge for £3.24, Arkham City for £4.99, every Valve game in one pack for an utterly mad £25… You know the deal.

And an odd Easter Egg in there – for utterly bemusing reasons we’ve still not been told, the entirely finished, already in multiple languages Scribblenauts Unlimited, is at 33% off with an EU release date of the 15th February next year. Bonkers.