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Last week the latest offering from the Humble Bundle team was released, and I have to say, it is one of the best yet. A pay-what-you-want bundle which contains seven fine games plus their soundtracks (and then they added four more!) so you can sing along to the Little Inferno song whenever you want! So onto my quick review...
Note: yes, I'm aware that the buggers added four more, as I was about to finish this. I'm downloading and I'll try to get a Part 2 up tomorrow. Who needs sleep?? (*pathetic voice* me?)
Hotline Miami
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me" - Hunter S. Thompson
This is a top down 2D action game and I don't know what to make of this game, unless you want to hear me say "Holy bag of monkey crap". Its like someone watched too much Miami Vice, dropped some acid and played the first GTA game a lot, and I do mean a lot.
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| Who is this bearded bugger? Why is he giving me free food? Should I really ask? |
And its really tricky. The enemy AI can take the most random paths, so carefully tuned runs can fall to pieces quickly. You also have the constitution of a wet bit of bog roll, and you can die from one or two blows or a single gun shot. Fortunately, with a bash of a button you can start that section again, allowing you multiple retries of the same bit. So far, I've died far more times than I would really care to count, and yet I still go back to it.
The graphic design is so retro it wants to paint the world neon colours. Again, its like a weird trip brought on by watching too much 80's telly and eating very old cheese. The retro CRT scan lines can be a little distracting but also adds to the drug addled feel of it, which works, although a little migraine inducing in places. Sadly I've been unable to play more than an hour or so, but its certainly one from this bundle that I'll be going back to at some point, when I have time, which may be never given everything else going on.
Proteus
"I wandered lonely as a cloud.
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." - William Wordsworth
This is not a game, but an experience You wander as lonely as a cloud... wait, no, that's something else. Its not the most visually delightful game in the bundle, but that's not the point of this. Its an experiment with sound. As you explore this island, the sound changes depending on the landscape and landmarks that you pass.
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| I am a little pink floaty cloud.... |
Its an interesting synergy of simplicity on the graphics and the more layered complexity of the sound design. Most of all, it was really strange to load this up just after playing Hotline Miami. Its the sort of game you would play to chill out with before you climbed the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. It is not my personal cup of tea, but I can see it from an artistic and experimental point of view. A version of Minecraft stripped down to its fundamentals so you just float through a pinky dream scape without sheep bleating at you.
Little Inferno
"Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money.
They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.
Some men just want to watch the world burn."
- Alfred Pennyworth
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| Who needs instructions? BURN THEM ALL!!!!! |
This is another experience rather than a game, although does have a puzzle element in the destruction and mayhem in this little sandbox. Burn defective toys, nuclear bombs and other random crap in you get sent magically in the post, which is impressive considering the world is covered in snow. Its a strange little thing, on the whole. I'm not sure if its meant to be a dark parody of other games out there, or just deliberately simplistic. It was certainly a cathartic experience to burn massive piles of crap and all the coins spit out.
It takes about an hour to run through all the burnings, and chaos *oooooo pretty flames* but once its done its done. The soundtrack is quite charming, and the Little Inferno song is annoyingly catchy. Time to burn some demented leprechauns.
Awesomenauts
"There is no problem that cannot be solved by the use of high explosives." - Anon
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| Not Lemmy from Motorhead, but Sheriff Lonestar |
This is a 2D MOBA with all the convoluted complexity you find in League of Legends stripped out, thankfully. Two teams (Red and Blue) beat the snot out of each other in a cheerful and colourful way. By blowing up anything of the opposing colour, gives you Solar, the in game currency that you can spend on upgrades and such to gradually improve your efficency at beating the opposing team to a pulp. I'm a relative newbie to the MOBA genre, having only played a little of DOTA2 and LOL. Its not one that has really grabbed me, to be honest. Even though Awesomenauts is a stripped down MOBA but that it still has the potential to get on my nerves because I can't plough hundreds of hours into it to level up the characters. Shame really. It may be better to play with friends, rather than the cheap and dirty AI (who seems to poop Solar at an alarmingly quick rate) but as yet, I've not had a chance. I'm sure I'll edit this when I do get to play with other humans. The music is kick ass though, and the graphic style makes me feel like I'm playing a kids cartoon.
Capsized
"And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space...
...'cos there's bugger-all down here on Earth"
Eric Idle, "Galaxy Song", Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
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| Always know where your trousers are. |
Capsized is a fun little platform run and gun game, with an awesome science fiction/alien world theme. Its also very nice on the eye with an art style I really like. You fly little Spaceman dude around the level with your jet pack, randomly flinging rocks around with a rope and anti gravity gun thingy. The general premise being that you have crashed on this lush jungle planet, and you need to survive by jumping around and exploring. The main focus really is the movement in this game, with a great deal of flexibility in how you get from point A to point B; rope, gravity ram or jet pack And collectables, which are always lovely, as you ninja rope around the environment. But why does everything want to eat me? This is a silly place! Its a surprisingly fun game that clocks in at about 5 hour mark with the story mode, with an extra arcade mode to chase high scores through the level. Its certainly something I'll be heading back to play, when I have some time!
Thomas Was Alone
"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light." - Helen Keller
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| Blocks Assemble! |
TwA is a lovely little minimalist puzzle platformer written by the lovely Mike Bithell that he made in his own time. This was, and still is, the main reason that I bought this bundle at all. It is amazing how emotionally attached you can get to those bouncing cubes. The number of times I've shouted "John, you useless prat" as I miss a jump again, well, more than I can count. The premise revolves around the establishment of several AI entities, shown as various coloured irregular quadrilaterals (Apart from Claire, who is an awesome big blue regular quadrilateral aka a square!) Now, there are many reasons I love this game, its cute and simple but sometimes devilishly tricky for a start. Then there is the quirky Douglas Adams style humour voiced by Danny Wallace. I do like Claire, who is a super hero and needs a cape. Nearly finished this one. And I'll be going back as soon as I finish writing these delicious eye words for you to devour.
Dear Esther
“If you have ever lost a loved one, then you know exactly how it feels. And if you have not, then you cannot possibly imagine it.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning
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| Not somewhere for a jolly holiday. |
I feel bad. I haven't devoted enough time to this. I feel its a game that requires me to be in the right head space, and I've not been in it for the last few days. I've played a little of it, as much as you can "play" it really. Set on some isolated unnamed Scottish island (In the Hebrides according to Wikipedia) it tells the story via a series of letters that are triggered as you reach various points on your stroll across the island. Although its not a game in the traditional sense, it has the most lush graphics I've seen for a long time, and is fantastically detailed to the point that I could almost smell the sea and the decayed flotsam and jetsam on the beach. Having grown up on the West Coast of Scotland, I'm familiar with the bleak grey that it manages most of the time, and the details of the plants and rock structures were very real to me. I also have to mention the sound design. I have 5.1 surround sound, which I switched to after just being on the 2 speaker setting for a little while. It is very very good. It was like candy for my ears (but less sticky) So I've left this for now, not because I don't want to play it, but because I want to pay it the attention it really deserves.
