Build-a-Bundle 3

Well well well, what have we here? Another Groupees bundle? Another "Pick the games you want" gimmick? Well, well, well. Let's inspect the goods.

So. Secret of the Magic Crystals.



Okay, it's, um, a horse-breeding sim. Uh...um...hang on, I feel an infographic coming on...

Also, double take, is that a Nightmare? I am pretty sure that's a Nightmare. Yeah, that's definitely a Nightmare.

So. Uh. This game. What is it? Is it like...uh...the closest comparison point I am coming up with is the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure and sequel. That...actually, that might not be too bad. Hmm.

Moving on, we have Detour.



This is some sort of real-time strategy game intended for multiplayer. So okay, two things right off the bat. First, I don't play RTS games. Second, who exactly am I going to be playing with, R.O.B. the Robot? I don't have any friends who own this game, do I? At least I don't think I do. And is it worth getting into?

In its defense, it's a nice concept. You don't see a lot of RTS games that have no combat. It's all about building roads and disrupting the other guy's roads, and the goal is to clear a path for your trucks to make deliveries. I've seen worse premises.

Moving on again: Omegalodon.



The kaiju thing is nice and all, but I'm sorry, this is clearly a game that's heavily focused on multiplayer, and I just don't think the servers will have, like, people, y'know? Look at that gameplay and tell me with a straight face that you can enjoy it with one or two players. I just don't see it. Again, it's the problem of "I have no friends playing it" and "Even if I did, why would we play this instead of something else?" And it's not on Steam, either, so minus points for that.

Next is War in a Box: Paper Tanks.



Or as I like to call it, Generic Tower Defense #92: Rehash Edition. I'm really sorry, guys, I'm sure you worked hard on this game and it's got really cute graphics and everything, but...I already own it. I already own two dozen damn versions of it. And I can play another five dozen for free. This market is more oversaturated than six spoonfuls of sugar in a shot of iced tea. I am not going to buy another clone like this one.

Moving right along, Apox.



This is some sort of real-time strategy game intended for multiplayer. So okay, two things right off the bat. First, I don't play RTS games. Second, who exactly am I going to be playing with, R.O.B. the Robot? I don't have any--wait, hang on, deja vu.

Okay, so from the look of it, this is standard RTS fare, with the main gimmick being the introduction of tactical first-person-shooter elements such as hiding in cover.

Why would I want that? Somebody must have woken up one day and thought, "You know what this RTS game needs? More finicky micromanaging of individual units!" Now, to be fair, I haven't played it, so for all I know it's actually well-executed and handles beautifully. But, uh, given its Metacritic score of 48, I'm not terribly inclined to give it a chance.



Can I be the first to say that CreaVures has beautiful visuals? No, I can't? Somebody already said it? Oh, okay then. Well, it does look very nice.

Aside from that, I don't think I have much to say. It's a platformer. I have lots of platformers. Is it any good? Well, I looked at some reviews and the consensus seems to be that it's short and not very challenging. So, meh.



This Chrome, or SpecForce, or Chrome SpecForce, whatever it's called...I dunno, it's like a stealthy-type FPS, right? It's just that first-person shooters in general are, like, dead to me. I mean, I have two Half-Life and three Serious Sam games in my Steam library all untouched. And those are supposed to be the really good ones. If I were playing a shooter, why would I play this shooter?

A lot of people like this sort of game. I dunno, I guess I'm just not one of them. Must be one of those "No accounting for taste" things.



And then there's Kaptain Brawe, which is a point-and-click adventure. Yeah...again...this, uh, this whole genre. Doesn't...doesn't really do it for me. And it doesn't look like this one is doing anything particularly different or interesting. So...meh? I don't really see myself playing this.

And the lastly, we have 99 Levels to Hell.



Out of all the games in this bundle, this one interests me the most. It's got dungeon-crawling, exploration, character development, platforming, and unforgiving death mechanics. Maybe I'm just on a roguelike kick after spending a combined 325-ish hours on Dungeons of Dredmor and The Binding of Isaac, but this 99 Levels to Hell thing seems kind of cool. It's--wait, hang on, it's not on Steam? And it's...it's still in Alpha? Really? >_<

It does look like fun, though.

So where does this leave us?

I'd say in order of most to least interested: 99 Levels to Hell, Secret of the Magic Crystals, CreaVures, Chrome + SpecForce, Detour, War in a Box: Paper Tanks, Apox, Omegalodon, Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World.

But hey, this is a Build-a-Bundle! I get to pick only the ones I actually want. So I'll just snag the top two and forget the rest. Sound good? Sounds good to me. Yoink!

That's all for this time.

Unstoppable Gorg

 

Unstoppable Gorg. Is this cheesy or what? Everything is a 1950s Retraux design. The aliens are people in rubber masks and the robots are people in cardboard suits and all the spaceships are hanging from highly-visible strings.

This is a tower defense game that riffs on the formula in a slightly different way--I place my satellites in orbits around my base, and I can rotate the orbits at will.

Much like Plants Vs. Zombies, there's a special satellite that generates money. Also like Plants Vs. Zombies, the enemies can attack my satellites (the green semicircle around them is a health bar). And that blue one in the middle with the Erlenmeyer flask icon is a research satellite--if I fill up the blue research bar by the end of the level, I get upgrade points that unlock the higher-level versions of the satellites.

My first new satellite unlocked. It starts me with the gatling gun tower, and here is the cannon tower. Old tower defense standbys, of course. At the beginning of every level it lets me pick which satellites I want to bring into the fight and which upgrades to apply where--right now, I have few enough that I can just take everything, but obviously that will change later on, so we'll see.

Well, this seems like a fun take on the old tower defense formula. There are two main things I see that set it apart. First is the swiveling orbit mechanic. I'm not sure how that's going to play out; so far the gameplay feels mostly the same as any other tower defense I've tried, except that the player is more active, repositioning satellites as needed. Second is the retraux 50s aesthetic, which I will admit is charming.

I haven't hit a full hour yet, but I am willing to tentatively say that this does still feel a lot like a tower defense. And really, if you've played one tower defense you've pretty much played them all. Are those two differences enough to make it stand out from the crowd? Well...probably not, but I can give it a chance. I'll reserve judgement a little longer.

"Quest for Value"?

Psst, guys, it's me, YtHaar Troacctid, Jasper's RuneScape character. I snuck into his blog here and can you believe this guy? He's been doing this whole schtick where he goes and plays a whole bunch of different games, and he's calling it a "Quest for Value". How many games does the guy need? There's Castle Wars, Soul Wars, Trouble Brewing, RuneLink, Gnomeball, The Great Orb Project, Mobilizing Armies, Pest Control, Temple Trekking...need I go on? RuneScape has loads of games in it. Could've invited me along. But no, I get left behind for a bunch of namby-pamby Steam games. 

Hey, I love quests as much as anyone! I do all sorts of quests! I have a quest cape! No way you're going on a quest without me.

Let's see what he's got in these notes. Indie Royale Spring Bundle?

Unstoppable Gorg: Says here "Tower defense game with 1950s B-movie aesthetic." Come on, man, you've already got a tower defense game. How many tower defense games do you need? They're all the same. What's wrong with Orb Defence? Remember FunOrb? Aren't you paying two bucks a month for that?

Depths of Peril: "RPG". Okay. Stop right there. This is an RPG. You know what's an RPG? RuneScape. So let's talk about this. Uh, not that I'm insecure or anything, but we're still cool, right? Because we've been together for more than four thousand hours of gameplay, and, y'know, I thought we had this thing...well...uh...anyway, uh, yeah, I, uh, read some reviews of this game and it totally sucks, so you should just skip it, yeah, no point playing it, it's a terrible game. Yeah. Hmm.

Tobe's Vertical Adventure: A platform game? RuneScape has platforms too, you know. I can do platforming. We could run some agility laps. That would be fun, right? Hey, maybe I could go for 99 agility. I just don't see why you need these other games.

Inferno+: It says "Twin-stick shooter action RPG". Twin sticks? Is that like dual wielding? I could buy some Torag's Hammers. They're twin sticks with giant hammers for bashing skulls in. Now that's action, right? And we've got the RPG covered, obviously. So it sounds like this is a waste of money.

Slydris: "Tetris variant where you slide blocks around". What does that mean? I don't think we have Tetris in RuneScape, but sliding blocks around is definitely a thing. Clue scrolls, right? Sliding puzzles. We never do clue scrolls and they're all about sliding blocks around. So I can't see what you'd see in this game.

Ballistic: What is the deal with these twin-stick shooters? I can shoot things. I have crossbows and hand cannons and arrows and magic spells and I just got this cool Eggsterminator gun that shoots giant marshmallows at people. RuneScape is practically all about shooting people. Twin sticks? Use a Dark Bow! Shoot two arrows at once: twin stick shooting. And it's terrible DPS, so I don't see what the fuss is about.

Quests are great, but really, committing six hours to these lame games? In six hours I could finish off 93 summoning, or level up those Temple Trekkers the rest of the way for Morytania Legs, or who knows what. It seems like such a waste of time when you could be playing the obviously superior RuneScape instead.

Ugh, well, I better go before he catches me here. To anyone reading this, play more RuneScape!

Babo Invasion and Sol Survivor

What the hell is a Babo?

 

Well, whatever they are, there's some sort of invasion going on or something. I don't know. But this is a third-person shooter and I'm playing as this giant eyeball who rolls around the level shooting things. Apparently in this game you play as round...thingies (Madballs, I guess?) and you roll around shooting things.

It's not bad. I like it. Good action. The different characters each have their own special abilities and there's different kinds of enemies and the levels have secrets scattered around for you to find and there's all these different guns...seems nice. I'm enjoying it. Weird, cute aesthetic.

There's all these cool multiplayer modes too. Shall we try one out?

 

Oh, there's literally nobody in the multiplayer lobby? Okay, well, never mind then. That's a shame...it looked like a lot of fun.

Well anyway, I like this game. I give it a thumbs-up. Good value!

So how about Sol Survivor?

It's a tower defense game. And I opened the first level and it felt like I was playing...every other tower defense game I've ever played. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of variation in the genre, really.

Well, starting with the campaign...

This is "normal" difficulty. And it's way too easy. The creeps can't even get past the first bend before they've been turned into swiss cheese. I'm going to have to ratchet it up to hard.

Here's the next level, on "hard" difficulty. This time the creeps made it almost past the second bend, but still less than halfway across the track. And I'm not even calling in orbital support. This is too easy. It's boring. Let's try "insane".

This is more like it! Just barely lost at the final wave. Okay, so all I have to do is take the hardest difficulty level right off the bat.

So I guess the big question is, what makes Sol Survivor different from every other tower defense game out there? With Defense Grid: The Awakening, it was strong fundamentals: high-quality gameplay, graphics, and sound, with a decent story and strong voice-acting. With this game, we've got a few things.

First, orbital support. You get an energy meter that lets you call in airstrikes. There's an orbital laser, gas bombs, napalm, artillery strikes, and some others I haven't unlocked. It's a nifty mechanic that makes the player more active than in competing tower defense games.

Second, character selection. You get to choose a commander, and depending on who you pick, you'll have access to a different set of turrets and orbital strikes. That's kinda nifty. Not something I get to explore in the first hour of the game, since these guys are, like, unlockable, but it's a feature that I like. It adds some depth and lets you pick different characters depending on your playstyle. A nice touch.

Third, multiplayer. You can play locally or online, with a variety of game modes. Let's try it out!

...D'oh!

Other than those things, it's pretty standard, and from what I've seen of it so far, it looks well-executed. So if you like tower defense games, you should enjoy it.

Well anyway, it seems like I need more than just an hour to get full value out of this game, but my first impression is positive. It looks like a decent take on the formula. For the best value, I think you want to play this with a friend, because the multiplayer looks like more fun than the solo campaign. Same goes for Babo: Invasion too, really.

So yeah, these two games seem nice.

• Alien Zombie Megadeath
• Astro Tripper
• The Baconing
• Beat Hazard
• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Explodemon
• FlatOut
• Future Wars
• Gear Grinder
  
• Greed: Black Border
• Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes
• Hack, Slash, Loot
• Madballs in...Babo: Invasion
• Plain Sight
• Sol Survivor
• Trapped Dead
• Twin Sector

 9/17 complete. And that's also all but one of the games in the Be Mine 2 bundle (only Plain Sight is left), and thumbs-up on all of them so far, so I am feeling very happy with the value there.