At this point, the intense competition in PC digital distribution has led to incredible short-term deals on an ongoing basis -- if you're patient, you build up an excellent game collection for a fraction of what you'd pay if you were buying games off the shelf or digitally upon release.

In a feature that may or may not recur, I'll check out the various sites and services offering these ridiculous deals, and recommend particular games that I've played and can personally vouch for. There are plenty more games on sale, but these are the ones I can speak for.

Direct2Drive

Direct2Drive is this week's volume champion; it almost seems like the other services stepped back a bit in the wake of D2D's ongoing fifth anniversary celebration, which is bringing more and more games into the temporary $5 fold.

BioShock (Irrational Games): $5. Surely you know this one. I played it on PC and can vouch for this version. If you haven't played it, do it. If you have a different version and want to play it again, it's $5.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment): $5. The Fall of Max Payne is one of the best direct sequels I've ever played. That game (which I actually played on Xbox, but am confident is solid on PC) and its predecessor (which I did play on PC, and which must be played before this one) are about as good as you can get when it comes to straight-up third-person shooter action. ...

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl (GSC Game World): $5. STALKER is a flawed but laudably ambitious and atmospheric game. And while the game was knocked for stability and interface issues at launch, since then the consensus has been that the STALKER Complete 2009 mod knocks the game right into shape; while I haven't used it yet, I just reinstalled STALKER with plans to do so.

X-Com Complete Bundle (Mythos Games, Microprose): $5. The X-Com games are seminal works. Well, the first one is, anyway. It's the only one I really played, and the one that's most notable. The interplay between the various levels of tactics and planning is exceptional. Ken Levine called this turn-based tactical game one of the best pieces of game design he's ever experienced, and he might be working on a game in that universe himself. Warning: it's hard.

Civilization IV (Firaxis Games): $5. I'm actually slightly conflicted about recommending this one. While $5 is undoubtedly a steal for one of the truly great and important games of this decade, it doesn't come with the Beyond the Sword expansion, which is universally recommended but will run you another $20, at which point it seems like you might as well spend $40 with Direct2Drive or Steam or Impulse to get the recently-released The Complete Edition, which includes Colonization as well. But if you just want to try it out before committing to $40, go for it.

The Telltale Store

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal (Telltale Games): $0. Free is free. If you get to it before midnight Pacific time on September 19, you can grab the first episode of Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island for nothing, with a discounted price on the full season. Jake Rodkin worked on it, and I played it. It's pretty fun if you've got a hankering for adventure games.

Impulse

Droplitz (Blitz Games): $5. This clever puzzle game is vaguely similar to Pipe Dream (or maybe closer to something else that doesn't come to mind) and is being offered for half price. I got a few hours out of it when it came out and appreciated the gameplay and attractive presentation.

Steam

Unreal Tournament (Epic Games): $2, Unreal Tournament III (Epic Games): $8: It's the tenth anniversary of the original Unreal Tournament demo this week--yes, the demo--and in honor of that notable event, Epic is discounting the original full UT99 and the recent UT3, as well as offering a free weekend for the latter.

I played the UT99 demo for quite possibly years, so I understand the significance of this occasion. That was no typical demo. In those days, there were bitter online arguments about Unreal Tournament versus Quake III Arena, but for many of us they might as well have been about the UT demo versus Q3Test. I wouldn't be surprised if you could still find servers. As for UT3, it's one of the few remaining really old-school twitch-based multiplayer-driven shooters, and it's improved immensely since release; it's a very specific game, but there might still be people looking for just that.

Various

Trine (Frozenbyte): $20. While not a sale per se, it looks like Frozenbyte has finally managed to work out the pricing issues with its publishers, because the excellent Thumb-championed sidescrolling Wizard-driven platformer has now permanently lowered in price to $20. Get it from Steam (with Steam achievements), Impulse, GamersGate, Direct2Drive, and maybe somewhere else for all I know.