Taking Advantage of Black Friday Digital Sales

I like to think I value my life too much to brave retail stores on what’s been dubbed America’s Hunger Games, and with many online retailers offering deep discounts on games from the comfort of my own home, why risk it, you know?

The only Xbox One game I picked up during Black Friday is the complete season of Tales from the Borderlands. I dig adventure games and Borderlands, but this year was pretty stacked with other things to play. Big things. Big things named The Witcher 3 that put a no vacancy sign on my free time.

I wanted to snag the 2nd season of Killer Instinct as well, since it’s one of my favorite fighters in recent memory, but I just don’t have the hard drive space to reinstall it. This isn’t the first time it’s been reduced either, so I know I’m not missing out on some once in a lifetime deal. Season three kicks off in Spring of 2016, and it’s only a matter of time before the same deal is offered in a weekly Deals With Gold or Spotlight Sale.

Amazon had a price flub that was live for about 20 minutes, which offered a digital PS4 copy of Batman: Arkham Knight and its usually $40 season pass for $15. Total. That normally goes for $116. Yeah, someone McFucked up. Not only can I now claim to have saved $100 on a single video game, but it’s about what I was willing to pay for the game in general.

A free season pass is just the icing on a cake shaped like Bruce Wayne’s dead parents.

I’m also really excited about the Michael Keaton suit.

No, not this one.

The rest of my fun-money went to Camp Playstation. I know I’m getting a Vita for Christmas (one of those saucy aqua blue models) so I wanted to grab a few indies that were included in their Black Friday Flash Sale–namely ones that were cross-buy on PS4.

I snatched up Titan Souls, which is a rad mix between the top-down perspective of The Legend of Zelda and the boss rush concept of Shadow of the Colossus.

With nothing more than a single arrow and a dodge roll at your disposal, you control a lone archer as you battle your way through challenging boss after challenging boss. Good thing your arrow can kill them in one shot, right? It just has to hit them.

I basically die repeatedly while learning more and more with each subsequent attempt. Eventually I time everything perfectly and manage to land a deathblow, but yeah, not before dying. It’s awesome.

Part of me loves quirky games, so I picked up Hatoful Boyfriend and Monster Monpiece for the PS Vita. Hatoful, if you’re unaware, is a mock dating sim surrounding different species of birds attending high school in Japan.

Monster Monpiece is essentially a dungeon crawling Magic: The Gathering, wherein the monsters have been replaced with scantly clad anime girls. It’s notorious for its level-up system, which requires you to hold your Vita like a giant cock (probably wouldn’t watch that if you’re at work, but don’t worry; it’s just gameplay) and rapidly stroke both the front and rear touch screen like you’re in the middle of an Asa Akira film. Each “stroke” removes more clothing until eventually your mostly naked monster girl becomes more powerful. Somehow.

Why would I support such “trash”? Because it’s silly. Sometimes you just want to play dumb, fun games, and apparently I’m not the only one. Some of my friends picked it up for a laugh as well (female friends, no less). And you could do worse for $4.

I picked up Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, although I’ve yet to finish the original on PS3. I hear it’s at its best on the Vita, and it’s cross-buy should I feel the need to play it on my TV instead. The soundtrack is killer, for lack of a better term, and so far it feels a bit more challenging than the previous entry.

I’ve wanted Axiom Verge since launch, and I know it would feel right at home on the Vita.. but there’s no release date yet. I also have no idea if they’ll offer it free to PS4 owners. I picked it up anyway and it’s pretty damn incredible so far. Very Metroid/Super Metroid, which is in no way a bad thing.

I missed Rocket League during its free PSN Plus run. It looks like a blast, and after being sick of watching every YouTuber run its course, I finally picked it up myself. It’s downloading as we speak, actually. My main concern is that I hear it runs like pickled dog shit when played on questionable internet speeds. That’s me. Fingers crossed, though!

The last game I picked up is Journey. It’s not even on a Black Friday sale, but I’ve wanted to play it for a while now and I had a coupon for 20% off. It’s also queued up to download on PS4, so now we play the waiting game. Not a fun one.

I really want to dive back in to Titan Souls. It’s brilliantly designed, and I love the strategy involved in having to make that one arrow count. There’s just something about a well balanced trial by dying game that gets the blood pumping, and its hooks are in me pretty deep.