Trapped Dead (again)

I guess I had the wrong idea in my last attempt at this section of this level in Trapped Dead--apparently the cafeteria door was unlocked and I was supposed to go through that way instead of trying to fight back through the way I came. Whoops.

So this time I go the right way. The guy with the bat goes first, with the doctor following behind. The hallway opens into a room with a bunch of tables and a few zombies wandering around.

The zombies are spread too far apart to be a threat to me, and I manage to take them out without much difficulty. I find some more ammo and a save point outside, but the exit is through the kitchen, and it's blocked by a giant zombie with a cleaver.

I guess that means I get introduced to traps. Shooting the fire extinguisher causes an explosion. That's definitely good to know.

So I try it once and die--it turns out the fat zombie butcher has a lot of HP. One explosion doesn't kill him. There's a second fire extinguisher around the corner, but two explosions isn't enough to kill him either.

I manage it anyway, though--one explosion, then the other, then empty the rest of my clip at him and he goes down. With the way clear, my guy and the doctor make it safely back to the car to help my guy's wounded friend.

...Well, maybe not. The doctor sees that he's been bitten and shoots him in the head instead because he's infected. Um...awkward, I guess.

Hey, how come I couldn't go back and stop the bleeding as soon as I found the first aid kit? That's what it's for, isn't it? Using a first aid kit on a party member makes them stop bleeding. So I should have been able to use it on the bleeding guy from the get-go. What's the deal, game?

Anyway, then they go to a bunker where they receive a transmission on the radio from the Sheriff, who's trapped in the prison surrounded by zombies. The first dude (what's that guy's name?) wants to try and rescue him, but the doctor says that's suicide with their limited supplies and argues that they should go to a gun store to arm themselves. Looks like I get to choose.

...So I guess it looks like I'm still playing this game. Huh.

I think Backloggery is influencing my gaming habits now that I've started using it to track my video game library. It doesn't have any setting between "Unfinished" and "Beaten", so it pushes me towards, well, beating all my games.

Is this a good thing? I don't know. It's a different strategy, I guess. Maybe there's something to it.

I mean, I also finished The Baconing today. Took me 12.4 hours to run through the whole story mode. But I rescued the Barnacle Queen from the Cyborques, mowed Zeus's lawn, became the Patron God of Orphans, destroyed the Thongs of Virtue, and defeated the Anti-Spank to save the world. It was a pretty decent game, I guess, all things considered. And now it's in the "Beaten" basket instead of "Unfinished".

If I wanted, I could even replay it on the higher difficulty to go for 100% completion. That would be...I don't know. I mean, I never did find those peanuts that Ganesha wanted.

The Baconing!

The Baconing! It's a hack-n-slash action RPG!

There's hacking and slashing! Yes! This is what I was hoping for in Greed: Black Border and did not find. Well, here it is, hacking and slashing and leveling up and all-around action-packed sweetness. I spent like 5 hours today playing this game because it's sweet!

Okay, like, the guy you play as is DeathSpank. Some sort of superhero-type guy. Whatever. Lots of silly dialogue and absurdity. The plot is you have these five Thongs of Power, but they created an Anti-Spank who is evil and stuff, so you have to destroy them in the five legendary fires of Bacon.

See, destroying the first Thong! It's obviously an absurd premise and pretty much everything in this game is absurd. So if that plot summary amuses you, you will probably get a kick out of this game.

But anyway, unlike Greed: Black Border, this game has a sane control scheme that actually lets you move and attack at the same time. And you can use a keyboard or a gamepad. Whichever one you don't use is for the second player--you get to have a sidekick to help you in your quest. But I'm solo, unfortunately, so I don't get to play co-op, even though there are some cool sidekicks to choose from.

I guess there's not a whole lot to say--if you've played a hack and slash game, you'll understand this one very quickly. And if you like hack and slash, you will probably like this game. It's pretty cool, and I'm several hours in with only one thong destroyed, so there's got to be at least like 15-20 hours' worth of gameplay here.

So I like it. I approve. Thumbs up. Good value here.

And since Beat Hazard is awesome too, I'm already very satisfied with the value I've gotten out of the "Be Mine 2" bundle, and there's still 3 more games left in it that I haven't touched yet! So I think I'm going to have to heartily endorse this bundle. You can find it here--pick it up while it's still available!

• 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

7/17 complete.

The Quest for Value Escalates!

The indie bundles just don't stop!

Gear Grinder has been added to the Indie Gala 3. This is another driving game, but with more focus on the "destruction derby" aspect--that is, blowing up everything else on the road. Your vehicle gets all sorts of guns and stuff. Sadly it is not redeemable on Steam, but it's still worth a try.






But wait! There's more! Some website called "Groupees" released the Be Mine 2 bundle today, with five more games for me to try out. I snapped this one up right away once I saw Beat Hazard was in it. I heard about that one a while back and I really wanted to try it. And I watched the promo video for the bundle, and the clips of the other games looked like fun too.

Beat Hazard is like Geometry Wars crossed with Audiosurf. It's a "two-stick shooter", which means you move your ship around with the left analog stick and shoot with the right analog stick, and you blast all the enemies that show up. The twist is that it plays music of your choosing during gameplay. And depending on how the song goes, the action speeds up or slows down, or your shots get beefed up, or more enemies appear. It's pretty sweet.

The Baconing is...some sort of action game. Maybe a beat-em-up? I'm really not sure. But it has "bacon" in the title, so how bad could it be, right? 

Plain Sight has something to do with robots that need energy and you jump around a globe looking for energy and try to steal energy from other players, or something? Some sort of multiplayer thing. I dunno.

Madballs in...Babo: Invasion appears to be a third-person shooter game where you're a little ball and you roll around shooting things. Based on the trailer footage, it looks like it's got some good action. It has online multiplayer too, both co-op and competitive. I'm interested in how this one plays out.

Sol Survivor is a tower defense game. From the look of it, it seems pretty standard. Its big gimmick appears to be that it's a multiplayer thing. I guess that's neat, although I dunno how much multiplayer I'm likely to play.




 
I already spent 2 hours glued to Beat Hazard. Yeah, it's real sweet. I don't have a lot to say about it, though, except that good music is good and good music games are good and I enjoy rocking out while blasting alien spaceships.

Anyway, it seems my Quest for Value is rapidly ballooning. There are a lot of bundles out there! So many opportunities for value, and yet my Steam library will overflow with unplayed games if I try to grab them all. It's a conundrum for the ages. And of course, #FirstWorldProblems.

There's another bundle running now too--the Indie Fort. But in a shocking twist of events, I am not buying this one! Two reasons.

1. First, I looked at the games in it, and they're just not that interesting. Kenshi looks horrible--I can tell just by looking that I'm not going to like it. Cardinal Quest looks meh. Devil Whiskey is like a first-person dungeon crawler, which I am really not that into. Steel Storm I already own. Black Market doesn't excite me. The only game I'm mildly interested in is Wanderlust, which looks like a decent co-op action-RPG, but if I'm only going to play one game, that's not very good value, and it's not as if I have anyone to play co-op with. Now, I might just buy it for the value of a cheap bundle, except...
2. ...it's $6 minimum. What sort of value is that supposed to be? I'll pay $5, tops, and that's pushing it for games I've never heard of and know little to nothing about. If I'm going to buy games sight unseen, I expect a lower price than that.
3. Besides, does it even come with Steam keys?

So I added some games to my quest today, but I'm not going completely out of control. Yet.

• 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

 6/17 complete.