Indie Gala Bundle Overview – Every Monday (21/04/14)

Indie Gala have tried many different things during their time making bundles and one of their more recent endeavors has been working with the site ‘Capsule Computers’ to make weekly bundles. This one, being their fourth weekly, showcases a number of Steam titles and one Desura title. The bundle is currently only $3.49, around about £2.20-something with the added tax. The bundle can be found at https://www.indiegala.com/weekly

First up is the Desura title ‘Crystal Towers 2′ which immediately gives off ‘ Super Mario 64’ esque vibes, what with it being very bright and cheery in colour and style. But it gets that ‘feeling’ a lot more from its level design, with each level containing multiple missions giving new trinkets. Overall, it’s a very fun and amusing title, albeit one that isn’t the most memorable thanks to not really doing anything out of the ordinary.

Next up are the Steam titles which are really a mixed bag, as per usual. Kaptain Brawe, for instance, manages to be an incredibly silly and  fun point & click adventure that feels like it was taken direct from the old Lucasarts vault, thanks to a bunch of colourful, memorable characters, weird humour and some seriously odd puzzle choices. That one I can recommend to everyone.

Another game I can easily recommend is ‘Scourge: Outbreak’, a rather fast-paced third-person shooter that relaunched recently on Steam. Before that, it was buggy, glitchy and a bit of a mess. Basically, it was just not that fun to play. Now it has been given a real makeover, the graphics look stunning, the gameplay is smooth and the whole experience is grand. Where it does fall down, however, is that, just like the two games I already mentioned, it is more than just a little derivative, not exactly showing anything new. Two more issues are also present: the game is incredibly short, giving off very little in the way of single-player content and the multiplayer component feels completely dead and empty.

Unfortunately, this is where the bundle starts to fall down. ‘Shad-O‘ is a very workable and decent tower-defense title, but again follows on from what I have been banging on about with each game so far: there’s nothing new here. It’s essentially a very basic tower-defense title with a rather basic difficulty level, matched with a basic tower-upgrade system.

Meanwhile ‘Love‘ pushes basic to a whole new level with its platforming, minimal graphics and tiny game-length, providing a very joy-less experience to all, but the most dedicated of score-chasers.

Which leaves us with the final game, Legends of Aetherus, a ‘World of Warcraft’ style RPG, advertising itself as a single player MMO. It attempts to build a grand RPG, but falls down completely by having far too many bugs and glitches. It’s so bad that, at times, the game can become near unplayable. Worse still, the devs don’t seem to have any intention of fixing the big issues. Instead they keep pushing it on multiple bundles in the hopes of selling a few extra copies. Not the most inspiring of pitches…

Overall, this bundle is a bit of a hard sell. There isn’t a single game that shines or excels in its field, nothing ever really pushes or tries anything new.

For the asking price, it still is worth picking up, if only for Crystal Towers, Kaptain Brawe and Scourge: Outbreak. ‘Love’ is also worth a look – despite my objections – simply because its over and done with in less than half an hour. Shad-O too, is still worth playing if you happen to really enjoy tower-defense titles. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about Legends of Aetherus though.

Overall – It’s Average, but worth a look at the right price.