Kid's still out there searchin' for them shards. Follows a trail down to Point Lemaign. Looks like the old railway's still workin'. Infested with peckers and wallflowers...but it's workin'. Kid finds an old army carbine. He takes it. Finds the shard. Takes that too.
Colford Cauldron's his next stop. A wasteland, even before the Calamity. Kid don't stop for long here. Burns his way to the shard with his fire bellows. Picks up a pecker egg on the way. It's makin' noises. Maybe it'll hatch.
Kid makes a detour at Trigger Hill to do some carbine trainin'. Wins first prize real quick. Guess he's a natural.
Kid takes a look around. Bastion's gettin' stronger. Warm breeze ruffles his hair. He smiles.
Kid's been trekkin' through the wilds all day. He's lookin' for shards. Used to be he was lookin' for cores, 'til he found 'em all. Now he's on the market for the next best thing.
Peckers and lunkheads try to make trouble. Kid faces 'em down, gives 'em a taste of lead. They won't be makin' trouble no more...least not today.
Kid comes across a giant anklegator. "Queen Anne", they call 'er. She got a mighty fierce bite, and she's in his way. Kid dies a few times tryin' to take her down, but hey, nothin' he can't handle. Takes him a few tries, but he manages to wrangle her. She was the last of her kind. Guess now she's not.
Bastion's growin' stronger every day now, what with these shards the kid's been bringin' back. Kid don't say anything 'bout it, but he got a spring in his step he ain't had in a long time. We call that hope.
Bastion is just too sweet for me to not play it for so long.
It's a hack-and-slash action-RPG set in a colorful post-apocalyptic world in the sky that constantly re-forms as you traverse it. You play as a spunky kid, and your goal is to collect Cores from dead locations in the old world in order to build a new world at your base, the eponymous Bastion. As you collect more Cores, you gradually build up your Bastion, adding new features to it like a Forge, Memorial, Armory, Shrine, and so on.
The graphics and sound are top-notch, and the controls are solid--everything is very polished. Also, there's this great narrator who narrates everything you do, which I am enjoying.
Here's how far I've gotten. As you can see, I'm headed to Langston River next. This is a big map; I'm looking forward to exploring it.
I'm currently using the machete and the shotgun as my weapons. The machete-thingy has a short range, but it's quick and has a good crit chance. The shotgun doesn't have the range of the bow, but it has a nice spread and knockback effect that I like. There are more weapons that I haven't unlocked yet, of course, so we'll see how that plays out.
Oh, and yes, I figured out how to enable my controller. So that's good.
Oh yeah, I definitely see why the critics liked this game so much. This is a sweet game.
I mean, look at that art. For starters, it's just legitimately beautiful. And a screenshot doesn't show you the music, which is a great folk-guitar atmosphere. And the voice-acting, with this great narration for everything. It's polished and, yeah, a genuine work of art.
And it's fun. It's hack-and-slash action-RPG goodness, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Already played for about two hours so far. Good stuff. I've been on keyboard and mouse so far because I haven't figured out how to enable my controller, but I know it's possible, so I'll get it.
Anyway, I'm going to have to play through this one to the end, I think, because I like it. Good value so far!
I'm also trying out Psychonauts. Played through the tutorial ("Basic Braining") and enjoying that one as well. It's some sort of action-adventure game...I can't think of an obvious classification beyond that, but it's fun. I should probably take some screenshots, I guess. There's a good chance I play this one to the end as well. I'd call it even better value, since you don't even need to beat the average to get it--you can pay $0.01 and start downloading the game right now. Or for $1 minimum, get a Steam key too. (Or you could ask me for my bundle key. I'd let you download it off my profile if you asked nicely. *shrug*)
The bottom line is that Humble Bundle is only getting more and more awesome. Some of the best value out there. Support charity, whatever, I heartily endorse the thing, you should buy it.
Oh, that's right. Now I remember why I used to snap-buy these indie bundles. Because they were Humble Bundles.
Now that the new Humble Bundle is out, it's a little boggling how much those other bundles pale in comparison. This is an insane lineup. I mean, I haven't even played any of these games, but I've actually heard of them. Like, all of them! Look at that. We have Bastion, which I've heard is awesome. We have Psychonauts, which I've heard is really good. We have Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which I've heard is legitimately creepy. We've got Limbo, which I've heard is good. And we've got Sword and Sworcery, which...I've never heard of before now. But still!
I already own Amnesia (a survival-horror game) from the Potato Sack bundle a while back, and I can't get it to run on my computer, which is disappointing. But I've had my eye on Bastion for a while; I'm very pleased to scoop that one up. It's some sort of Action-RPG where you rebuild a post-apocalyptic world, and there's this narrator with an awesome sexy deep voice.
And I actually recognize Limbo mostly just from this video, which I thought was pretty cool, and to a lesser extent this other one which I also enjoyed. So now I want to play it. =P
And then there's Psychonauts, which in fairness I don't know a whole lot about...but I watched the trailer and it looks really good, and I've heard other people say they liked it, so I am happy to be snapping it up.
I watched some gameplay footage of Sword and Sorcery, and apparently it's an adventure game that was originally for iPad, ported to PC. I'm not too excited about it, but it's basically a free throw-in here, so I'll take it.
So yeah, snap-buying this, and snap-beating the average as well to get the beat-the-average bonus (which is Bastion).
The bundle has already raised more than $1.6 million and sold over 200,000 copies in its first day. Holy. Crap. And honestly, I'm not even all that surprised. These are big-name games at a dirt-cheap price. Even if you don't beat the average for Bastion, it's three really awesome games (and Sword & Sworcery) for only a dollar! Or less! Plus their soundtracks! I think this is the best value since Humble Indie Bundle 4.
