During the holiday season, the GG Network Crew wanted to keep the hallowed, time-honored tradition of drawing names from a hat and giving each other funky, jank gifts—also known as “Clandestine St. Nick” or to the normies: “Secret Santa”.
For a twist, since we’re all cool G@m3rZ, we wanted to give each other games on the Steam and stick to a budget of 200 PHP (4 USD) in order to force us to scrimp and scrape the very bottom of the video game barrel to find the craziest, jankiest, best value games of them all. We were not disappointed.
Here’s what we all got each other!
Raffy | Super Drink Bros. and Mess Adventures
If there’s two things I know about Juabe it’s that he loves absurdity and fighting games—and that goes double for absurd fighting games. So I scoured the entirety of Steam for ten whole minutes and found the perfect pair of bonkers bidyo games for our resident BREG: Super Drink Bros. and Mess Adventures.
Super Drink Bros. offers to answer the age old question of “What is the most powerful drink in the Universe” by pitting them against each other in a 3D Fighting game— a question my victim lucky gift recipient has often wondered, presumably. I have no earthly idea what’s going on with Mess Adventures. He’ll love it!
Juabe | Panzer Ball
I drew our honorable leader Degolas, thus I gave myself a few precious moments to ponder and wonder what would be, should be, the perfect gift. Therefore, I ask myself, “What do I know about Christer, the boy Degonnaire?”
He is a man of machines, capable of maneuvering across the treacherous roads of our nation’s capital, using only his feet, bike, and courage. He has traversed literally hundreds of miles to conquer time and nature itself.
A man of many talents, he has blessed the ears of many a person with his smooth yet vicious swagger on the drums. However, like a true musical ronin, he never stays in one place, preferring his talents be utilized in as many groups and performances as possible.
All of this, while being a venerable, wise head of the GG Network gang. Even though we mere gamers are but a bunch of rowdy rabble, he has led us to a future that’s brighter than ever before.
Panzer Ball. It’s a game about a ball that jumps. It has the word “Panzer” which is tank in German, I think. Pretty good.
Degs | Anime Standing
While Brian, our lovely video editor, is still gathering resources for his gaming PC, I gifted him this so that he can play a Strand-type game without having to have a decked-out gaming PC. Anime Standing is basically a way-mature version of my personal GOTY Death Stranding.
<Trailer Redacted>
I’d like to believe that this is the perfect middleground of Brian’s interest in anime and Hideo Kojima’s video games. Also, this is NSFW 18+. Kids, please don’t play this unless you are of age.
Brian | UNO
I am bad at choosing presents and to make it worse the person that I had to give it to was my boss, Mo. I swear to god I was losing my mind because knowing her she already bought all the games on Steam and I have no idea what kinds of games she likes. Good thing I remembered that she’s a competitive sadist and found the perfect game for her, UNO.
Now, I’m obligated to buy a copy myself and probably the whole editorial team. Someone just kill me already.
Mo | Ruby Heart
A few weeks ago I did some voice over work for GG. It was Donna’s content contribution about Otome games. And I have to say, I learned a lot! I even ended up downloading one of the games and trying it out for myself since she mentioned it was “better than a real boyfriend”! Not gonna say which!
Anyway, when I drew her name I decided to get her an otome game for Christmas. Maybe we’ll finally find out if Otome games really are better than real boyfriends!!
Donna | Enter the Gungeon
With only 200 pesos as a budget for this ‘Steamy’ Secret Santa thing, I drew Paolo and at first I really lost. I didn’t know what to possibly get him. I knew him as a fellow Persona fan and he’s also into single-player JRPGs and action games like Yakuza. But those tend to be on the more expensive side of Steam. If I asked him what he wanted, it would give my identity away.
Not one to give up just yet, I tried to dig around for info—a reconnaissance mission, if you will—and discovered that he’s into Rogue-lite games! Enter the Gungeon (get it?), which seemed to be right up his alley and on sale for 210 pesos. It’s about four adventurers who need to find their own gun and kill their past. Every level presents harder bosses and you get to die repetitively from trying. Sounds like fun! I have a soft spot for colorful 8-bit graphics and bullet hell crawling, so I pulled the trigger and ‘added to cart’. Done and done! May Paolo enjoy a peaceful holiday season while descending into bullet hell madness.
Paolo | Yakuza 0
With a 200-peso limit for our Secret Steam Santa shenanigans, the Steam Winter Sale came at just the right time. I drew Raffy’s name and immediately went over to his profile to see if he already had a copy of the actual best game you can get on Steam for 199 pesos: Yakuza 0. Its regular price is 799, but the Winter Sale had it up with a 75% discount making it the perfect gift at just one peso below our limit.
I definitely considered looking for a novelty game to give to Raffy as a gift, and I even found one where he could overcome his fear of spiders by going HAM on them with a machine gun. But as a hardcore Yakuza fan, I believe it to be my mission to get everyone else to play Yakuza, and there’s no better gateway to the series than 0. This game is a gift that’ll keep on giving the more you play it.
Are you interested in any of the games that we rattled off at all? WHY THOUGH? For more GG Network Shenanigans check out last year’s Gaming Resolutions! and The Games That Defined Our 2020
And while you’re at it leave us a like on the GG Network Facebook Page so we can keep you entertained with more videogames and geek stuff! Take care and stay safe out there!
Let’s make this New Year a better one!