You Know What Else is Dangerous? BundleStars – Part Eighteen: Tribes Bundle

3DRPG - Style-wise, this wants to be 3D Dot Game Heroes; but in function it's more of a pseudo-roguelike and relies on randomly generated environments, hunger mechanics, crafting and hunting systems, and grind-grind-grinding.

Caveman Craig - A clunky Lemmings-like sidescroller puzzle game, where you need to allocate resources to recruiting other cavemen so you can conquer the opposing tribe.

GravBlocks - A curious take on a match-3 puzzle game, somewhat similar to Wario's Woods in that you can only move blocks once they've landed. The gimmick is that matching "gravblocks" changes the stage's direction of gravity, which allows you to sort them in different directions. The controls aren't great, though, and the ability to switch gravity isn't available enough to make it a useful gimmick.

Snik - This...wasn't what I was hoping for at all. An action-puzzle game that involves trying to maneuver a ball past other balls via mouse clicks. It's very dependent on timing and I found it very, very hard.

Fasaria World Online - Back in the late '90s, there were some primitive online MMOs that you played via a browser and mostly just clicked to make numbers move around. This recreates that experience masterfully, with a zillion different stats and resources that don't seem to do anything, wildly unbalanced difficulty levels, and the main thrust of the game being hours of pointless grinding. Oh, and there's non-real-time interaction with other players, though it wasn't clear if there were any of them.

Hydraulic Empire - On one hand, this Tower Defense game allows you to level up your builder and towers over the course of the campaign, which I appreciate. (Pure puzzle tower defense doesn't do it for me at all.) On the other hand, the graphics are big and clunky, the gameplay didn't grab me, and the steampunk aesthetic isn’t so much my thing.

This bundle also included Exowar and Masked Shooters 2, which didn't even interest me enough to try. Anyone want the keys?

Overall: Nothing here really won me--honestly, I found most of it pretty lousy--which is unfortunate, because I'd had hopes for at least a couple of the titles. Oh, well. Still a fine use of $2.

You Know What Else is Dangerous? BundleStars – Part Nineteen: Hidden Gems 2 Bundle

Stacks TNT - Apparently this game has ceased development and officially between removed from the Steam store--and whatever it downloads onto my PC, it doesn't run.

Notrium - Top-down survival/scavenging game with a heavy emphasis on inventory management. Also zombie hunting with a mouse-and-keyboard control scheme. Not my thing.

Fractal: Make Blooms Not War - An intriguing puzzle game, though I'm not sure about its staying power. (Mostly because I'm not very good at it--my brain just doesn't see the chains well.) You "push" hexes through a map and attempt to create 3x3 "blooms", and then chain-reactions that form additional blooms.

Militia - A cross between a strategic, chess-like board game and a puzzle game; you get certain types of simple units to move across a grid and can attack enemy pieces in certain ways. The difficulty is dynamic and you "rank up" as you win matches. Cute concept, but didn't win me for the long term.

stratO - A flight simulator game where you try to navigate a paper airplane through rings without crashing into buildings. At least, I think that's what everything was, because it's all very abstract and psychedelic.

Foosball: World Tour - Exactly what it says on the tin: Computer-simulated foosball. I actually found it remarkably playable, I'm just only good for a couple of games of foosball a year. (Most of my willingness to play foosball in college was because the table was in the tap room and so were many attractive women. The foosball table I owned post-college mostly got used as a drying rack.)

The Dwarf Run - "An old-fashioned roleplaying adventure." You play a team of four adventurers (two of them dwarves) who end up in a mysterious cave without any equipment. The 3D CGI models are PS1-painfully-ugly, but the controls are fine and pressing Tab highlights interactive objects, which saves on pixel-hunting. The combat has variable difficulty, which means the game's real challenge comes from collecting random items (adventure game style) and using them on each other in absurd ways. The dialogue is goofy but moderately entertaining.

Our Love Will Grow - Harvest Moon made with RPGMaker. It brought back pleasant memories of playing the SNES Harvest Moon game, just with a different set of quirks and events. I see no reason to play this over actually playing Harvest Moon, but it amused me for what it was.

Overall: While I'm not sure how much I'd call any of these "gems", but there was at least some costume jewelry in this bundle.

Catherine (PS3)

Catherine has appeared. It's the killer! Do not die.

Vincent is having the worst week of his life, as his longtime girlfriend wants their relationship to get serious just as a mysterious new girl falls into his lap…and at the same time a nightmare curse stalks cheating men, killing them in their dreams. In his dreams and in reality, Vincent races to outrun his own terrible choices which have manifested as supernatural menace.

( Read more... )

Overall: I rather like the puzzle system and actual gameplay, except…Atlus. And the character development / visual novel sections have a lot of potential, except…Atlus. This game is for people who actively enjoy the insane parts of the Persona franchise and can tolerate more misogyny than usual.