The best PC game you've never heard of is on Steam sale for $1

Any PC gamer not currently in a coma knows the Steam sale is happening right now, and there are great deals to be found sitting right on the front page of the store! But even those heavily-discounted $5 and $7 purchases can add up, and if you’re like me, you’ve probably played most of them anyway.

But I came across a game today that I’ll bet you haven’t played, or even heard of. It costs $1 right now, and it’s amazing. Even the title is amazing. Check it: Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death.

Marlow Briggs is a low-budget action/platformer in the style of God of War, but for a low budget game it has some serious ambition. Check out the video below of the first few minutes of gameplay and you’ll see what I mean. Things start off pretty damn crazy, and the game never takes its foot off the gas.

Most of the gameplay is your typical hack-and-slash fare, with some mild platforming and puzzling thrown in for good measure. But the game also mixes it up frequently with mini-games like blasting down helicopters from a turret, or dodging rock formations as a deadly assassin dangles you upside-down from a helicopter.

But what really made me fall in love with Marlow Briggs is the game’s intentionally over-the-top story and its tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Very mild spoiler alert: after being killed at the very beginning of the game, protagonist Marlow Briggs finds himself alive (sort of) again, armed with a wicked two-ended scythe and bound with a mysterious and highly talkative ancient Mayan death mask. Together, they set out on a mission of rescue and revenge.

Sound ridiculous? It is. But thankfully, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. For example, when Marlow runs into a ludicrously dangerous-looking hallway of whirling machinery he needs to navigate to move on—you’ve seen this sort of thing in many other games before—he lets out an exasperated: “Aw, come on! Who designed this?”