• Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs on Steam. Save 35%.
• Arma 3 on Steam. Save 40%.
• Borderlands 2 Game of the Year on Steam. Save 75%.
• Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons on GamersGate. Save 50%.
• Castle Crashers on Steam. Save 50%.
• Complete Wing Commander on GOG.com. Save 75% on all or 50% on individual games.
• Contagion on Steam. Save 75%.
• Dead Island Riptide on GamersGate. Save 75%.
• GRID 2 on GamersGate. Save 75%.
• Napoleon: Total War on GamersGate. Save 75%.
• Pressure on GamersGate. Save 90%.
• Realms of Chaos + Volgarr the Viking on GOG.com. Save 60%.
• Reus on Steam. Save 75%.
• Shadowrun Returns on Steam. Save 40%.
• Teleglitch: Die More Edition on GamersGate. Save 75%.
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist on Steam. Save 50%.
• Trine 2: Complete Story on Steam. Save 80%.
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution on GamersGate. Save 75%.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown on GamersGate. Save 75%.

The Farm 51 website has word on Get Even, a new first-person shooter planned for release in 2015 from the developer of Painkiller Hell & Damnation, Deadfall Adventures, and NecroVisioN. A translation of the Polish side of the site indicates they are stressing realism, saying the visuals will include scans of real people and places, and that its graphics achieve "prawdziwy fotorealizm" (true photorealism). There's a bit more on this including a couple of images on the game's newly launched Facebook page, and word is we should expect more details about this next month. Thanks NeoGAF via VG247. Here's a translation of a Polish quote which outlines their goals:

" We do not seek direct confrontation with the giants of the FPS market. Even if we had the opportunity to take the glove in the battle for the marketing and production scale, does not interest us," said The Farm 51 boss Wojtek Pazdur. "In this genre can still offer something fresh, and now the market has opened up for unusual solutions. players become hungry for new experiences that are not based on the Hollywood model of narrative and game design story and lapping challenges in two separate domains. Especially for such players create GET EVEN."

Bugbear announces Early Access to Next Car Game for all who preorder the demolition derby extravaganza through their website. They say all who preorder will get "to play Early Access and Technology Sneak Peek 2.0 right away," though there is contradictory word on Early Access through Steam, as they seem to indicate this is available right now, but later note "Steam CD keys will be distributed once the Steam version is available" (the game does not seem to actually have a Steam listing at this time). There is also a technology demo for the game they are offering to anyone who signs up for their newsletter. Here's word on that: "Since it’s a holiday season we don’t want anyone to feel left behind, and as a special gift we’re also releasing a free version of our technology sneak peek for everyone to enjoy! The free version contains a limited version of the playground scene that we use internally to test various features like car damage and environment destruction. By pre-ordering Next Car Game, you can unlock a lot of new additional cool content like physics cannon with missiles, new destructive machinery, more spectacular stunts and a ton of dynamic stuff to blow up!"

A new Letter from the Chairman on the Roberts Space Industries website celebrates another funding milestone for Star Citizen, announcing the space combat game has now secured $35 million in crowd-sourced scratch. This plateau unlocks the Drake Herald and they also lay out plans for what will happen if (when?) they surpass the $37 million threshold and are still conducting voting on their $38 million stretch goal. Here's part of the post from Chris Roberts which includes thanks to everyone for supporting the dogfighting module delay, even though not everyone does:

With your enthusiasm and generosity you’re allowing the team and I to go beyond the bare minimum we knew we needed to deliver to make Star Citizen an engrossing experience. As Star Citizen is an open universe and there are so many possibilities the additional funds allow us to increase the amount of content available at the start, have more talented developers working on the various facets in parallel, which will allow us to have a richer gameplay experience from the beginning and allow us to invest in some research and development projects to keep Star Citizen ahead of the curve. Unlike a typical publisher we don’t look at this initial funding as bigger profits – we look at as allowing us to deliver more of the dream sooner and ensure the online infrastructure and support is as full featured as possible, even during the pre-release period.

I would also like to thank each and every one for your support in my decision to delay the Dogfighting Module. I know it was disappointing for many people, and it wasn’t a decision that I took lightly but after much deliberation I decided it was best for the long term health of the project.

Allgraf announces a new patch is now available for Darkout on Steam to update the sandbox adventure game, which is currently on sale for 15% off, to version 1.2.3. Word is this addresses some bugs and fixes the tutorial. There's no word on Steam News about this, so here's a bit: "Our passion in creating an awesome gaming experience, has always been paramount and with patch 1.2.3 we have implemented some big changes to the Darkout world," said Adrian Banninga, CEO of Allgraf. "The latest patch implements a more detailed tutorial, along with a redesigned user interface, to assist the player in their fight for survival. We have also refined other features within the game and have fixed all outstanding bugs as we develop and expand on the Darkout world."

The impending holiday did not hold GfK Chart-Track back from tallying the bestselling games in the U.K. for the week ending December 21st. On the full-price PC chart things are pretty steady with the top four unshuffled and on the all platforms/all prices chart FIFA 14 kicks Call of Duty: Ghosts into the number two spot. Here's the official write-up:

'FIFA 14' (+18%) jumps ahead of 'Call of Duty: Ghosts' (+7%) just in time to secure the coveted Christmas No1 spot that, since 2007 and 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare', has largely been dominated by Activision Blizzard.

It is not since 2008 and 'FIFA 09' that EA last claimed the Official Christmas No1. However, since the chart began 28 years ago, EA have secured by far the highest number of Xmas No1s with 14 (8 of which have been FIFA). 'FIFA 14' beats 'Call of Duty: Ghosts' by a respectable 17,000 units with 'Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag' (+92%) also comfortable at No3, up from No5 thanks to retailer price promotions on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. 'Battlefield 4' (+17%) has to settle for another week at No4, while 'Lego Marvel Super Heroes' ( -17%) at No5 almost gets caught by a buoyant 'Grand Theft Auto V' (+94%), up from No8 to No6. Only 400 sales separate Warner's title from Take 2's record breaker. 'Just Dance 2014' slips one place to No7 despite an 18% increase in sales. 'Need for Speed: Rivals' (+25%) is EA's 3rd Top 10 title this week, also slipping one place, down from No7 to No8. PS4 exclusive 'Killzone: Shadow Fall', still benefiting from strong sales of the fixed PS4 hardware bundle, makes a Top 10 re-appearance at No9. Another single format title, 'Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition' keeps 'Gran Turismo 6' (-5%) out of the Top 10 thanks to a 24% jump in sales.

• GSummit San Francisco 2014 early bird discount.
• Gamasutra's Top Games of the Year.

• Morrowind Modding Interview — Stuporstar - Bethesda Blog.

• Tower of Elements 2 on The Indie Mine.

• First-year Wii U sales suggest grim lifetime sales.
• Battlefield 4 review: bullet drop - Polygon. Thanks durandal.
• Countdown to 2014 Xbox Daily Deal Day 7- Arcade Sports Sale.

• Hulu Plus Passes 5M Subscribers, $1B Revenue. Thanks HARDOCP.

• So Can We Build a Better Entry Level Apple Mac Pro via PC DIY (and Cheaper)?
• The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci-tech stories of 2013.
• Best Gadgets and Tech Products of 2013.

Thanks Ant.

• Target’s Massive Breach: What You Should Do Now?
• Fraud fallout: Chase imposes debit card limits.
• Switzerland won’t save you, either: Why e-mail might still be safer in US.

• The case against Kim Dotcom, finally revealed.
• Kim Dotcom Ratted Out Rival File-Sharing Sites, Court Documents Claim. Thanks HARDOCP.
• The decade-long quest to stop “Spamford” Wallace.
• People Are More Freaked Out by Hacking Than Tracking, Survey Finds. Thanks HARDOCP.

• Battlefield 4 on Useless Gamers. 269 words.

• AMD Radeon R7 260 Graphics Card on Techgage.
• Antec P100 Case on RBMODS.
• Corsair CS Series Modular 650 W on techPowerUp.
• Corsair GS800 on ocaholic.
• GeiL EpicGear Blade Gaming-Maus on Technic3D. German.
• Kingston DataTraveler 4000 FIPS Level 2 Encrypted Flash Drive on TweakTown.
• MSI Radeon R9-270X HAWK on Guru3D.
• Nixeus VUE27D Monitor on AnandTech.
• Pittasoft BlackVue DR550GW-2CH Car Dashcam on Nikk Tech.
• Powerocks Super Magicstick 2800mAh Universal Extended Battery on Testfreaks.
• Samsung 840 EVO 250GB mSATA SSD on Custom PC Review.
• Sapphire R9 290 on Pure Overclock.
• Sharkoon Bulldozer ATX Chassis on eTeknix.
• Thermaltake Ttesports MEKA G1 Illuminated Keyboard on TechwareLabs.

• Blizzard Engineer Needs Your Help for Christmas…
• Doom, as a Third-Person Shooter, with Resident Evil Characters. Couldn't come up with a third downgrade…

Festivus pole? Check. Airing of grievances? Check. Feats of strength? Check! And just to be safe, while I'm waiting for a Festivus miracle I think I'll make a donation to the Human Fund. Happy Festivus everybody!

Miraculous Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Zombies Ate My Motherland.
Links:	FestivusWeb.com. OED birthday word generator- which words originated in your birth year? CARDBOARD BOX OFFICE. Thanks Boing Boing.
Images:	Grandma Outdid Herself This Year.
Media:	Not For Astronauts.... Thanks Krovven. David Suzuki speaks about overpopulation.