Game bundles seem to be a bit like buses. You wait a while for one of them to appear, then suddenly loads of them all turn up at once. The case here? Within just two days, five bundles have all popped up in quick succession with packs from Humble Bundle, Groupees, Indie Gala and Blink Bundle, all hoping to grab hold of customers with their latest sales.
Weirdly, however, almost all of them share a very similar thread, in that, all contain a large portion of repeated titles. Given the giant amount of bundles here, I wont be as comprehensive with each pack, instead I’ll have to run through each one quickly and say if it’s worth picking up or not.
I should probably start this, then, with the site that kicked games bundles off in the first place, Humble Bundle.
Their latest being the Humble Weekly TSG bundle featuring twelve games; all indie titles and all featuring DRM-Free downloads, along with Steam keys. One look at the pack however, instantly shows up a big problem; almost every title here is a repeat, with seven of the games having previously appeared in main humble bundles and several other previously having been in either the weekly bundles, or in other company packs. That said, if you don’t happen to own these titles, this is probably the strongest of the lot thanks to a great base-tier ($1 min) featuring top platformers such as Cave Story, VVVVVV and Thomas Was Alone. The $6 tier too is packed with great indie titles, with special mention going to the Xbox Indie darling ‘Limbo’. $10 for Teslagrad, however, is a bit of a hard sell, especially next to the other titles and as such, I can’t really recommend going that far. $6 for the amount given, though, is an amazing deal. Overall: Grab the $6 tier.
Onto the next and it’s another of Indie Gala’s packs, the ‘Friday Special’ bundle. Seven titles for a cheap price ($1.89 at the time of writing, a stupidly small price). Again, though, just like Humble, almost all the titles (5/7) are repeats from other bundles. Unlike Humble, however, this is a pack that cannot be recommended thanks to some rather cheaply made casual fare clogging up the pack (Paranormal State, 4 Elements and 12 Labors of Hercules) along with a poor, sluggish platformer (DIVO), a frustratingly short pixel platformer (Potatoman Seeks the Troof) and a rather poor iOS port (FootLOL). Shooter ‘Humans Must Answer’ really is the only title worth any time. Overall: Leave it
BlinkBundle, a relative newcomer to the bundle scene, also manages to disappoint with their offering, the ‘Trading Cards Bundle’ where it manages to deliver a bundle full of repeats, a good portion of them being pretty poor repeats at that. The $1.99 tier isn’t bad by itself, special mention going to the award winning ‘To the Moon’ as well as Amiga-throwback ‘Shufflepuck Cantina’ as titles to grab. The upper tier, on the other hand, is filled with questionable titles, be they games that feel bland (Major Mayhem), games that have serious grind issues (Saturday Morning RPG) and games that just plain suck and should never be touched (Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta). Overall: Grab the good $1.99 tier and ignore the worse $4.99 set.
This brings us onto Groupees who released two bundles on the same day. The first being their ‘Clash of the Worlds: Central Europe’ pack, featuring 4 main games and several music albums for just $1 minimum. Just like the others, however, every single game here has been in other bundles. However, unlike some of the others, this pack is worth grabbing, if only for the tiny asking price. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams manages to be a really brilliantly made platformer which acts as a great new/retro kick. Realms of Arkania: Blade of Darkness gives the same retro feel, this time updating a old-school RPG series. Both are grand. On the other hand, we also get Nightmares from the Deep, a rather irritating Hidden-Object-Adventure title and Where Angels Cry, a incredibly boring Hidden-Object-Adventure title. Overall: If only for Giana Sisters and Realms of Arkania, this bundle is worth picking up.
Their other bundle, however, finally breaks the trend and is full of never-bundled before titles. The ‘Microids Adventure’ bundle lets you pick certain games from a list; 2 games minimum giving a minimum price of just $1, whereas picking all seven games brings the total up to a mere $3.50 minimum spend. All, however, are DRM-Free titles, either downloading from Groupees, or downloading from GOG.com (Yes! This bundle has GOG codes in it). All of them also follow the same genre, Adventure games, making the pack a very niche affair. If you cant stand adventures, there’s nothing for you here. If you love these titles, however (like myself), this pack is a bit of a treasure trove thanks to each title managing to be pretty darn good, each giving interesting plots, challenging puzzles and (for the most part) nice visuals. Overall: love adventure games? Get it.
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