Last month’s Humble Monthly bundle was a bit of a disappointment, to say the least.  At the end of the year, I plan on wrapping up how many games from my monthly bundles I actually played, so I can’t afford to have another bad bundle if I want to break even on my bundle spending.  Hopefully, November’s bundle is better, so let’s see what we have!

vApe Escape

Humble Original

vApe Escape, in spite of a strange and rather unappealing name, is actually a cute point-and-click adventure title that is styled like a comic strip.  Interacting with objects jumps over to a different section of the comic to show the thoughts of the main character, a giant ape.  The puzzles have been relatively simple so far, and I haven’t run into anything that took more than a few seconds to figure out.  While the concept will probably wear itself out in a longer title, I expect that this game will be short due to its Humble Original status and not overstay its welcome.  I’ll finish this one up eventually.

 

7 Days to Die

Release Date:  December 13, 2013 (Early Access)

Price:  $24.99

Have you ever looked at a game’s description and immediately known that this is not the game for you?  Well, that’s the feeling I had going into 7 Days to Die, and while I wish I could say that it was better than expected or that it has potential, judging the book by its cover was entirely accurate.  This game has been in early access for five years, and it still runs so poorly that my game was constantly stuttering and freezing.  Everything in the game also felt clunky and difficult to handle, making everything I had to do to progress a chore.  A zombie survival game, while admittedly not my type of game at all, could be really fun in the right hands.  These are not the right hands, and I will not be returning.

 

Dead Island Definitive Edition

Release Date:  May 31, 2016

Price:  $19.99

My mom is a huge fan of zombie-themed media, so when Dead Island came out in 2011, she bought it and I watched her play through the whole thing.  It’s really not a bad game and I actually believe that it’s a bit underrated, but I have no desire to play through this title, having already seen the whole game once through.  The definitive edition does come with the DLC packaged in and has made some visual adjustments, but it isn’t enough to warrant a play for me.  Still, if you haven’t experienced this game before and bashing in zombie brains is a favorite activity of yours, then definitely give this one a go!

 

The Dwarves

Release Date:  December 1, 2016

Price:  $39.99

The Dwarves is a tactical RPG game based on a book series of the same name.  Generally, I like tactical RPGs, so I’m definitely intrigued by this one, but the controls aren’t quite as responsive as I would like, as I sometimes feel like they are fighting me.  There’s a story, but so far, it doesn’t feel particularly different from any other high fantasy RPG out there today.  Overall, I find this game a little underwhelming, but I love playing games based on books while reading the source material, so I may give this another shot once I give the book series a chance.

 

Hard Reset Redux

Release Date:  June 3, 2016

Price:  $19.99

Hard Reset Redux originally came out in 2012, but this version is the definitive version of the game with a number of graphical and gameplay improvements.  I have mixed feelings towards first person shooters, primarily because I’m awful at them and can’t aim to save my life, but this was actually pretty fun.  There’s a strong cyberpunk vibe here, and mowing down enemies was fun and heavily reminiscent of the old 90s Doom clone shooters.  Surprised though I may be, I am really excited to keep playing this one and learn more about the world and story.

 

HITMAN

Release Date:  March 11, 2016

Price:  $39.13 (Price of the Game of the Year edition minus the two DLC packs not included)

For a long time, I believed that I didn’t like stealth games.  The pressure of trying to move around undetected was too much for me, and it felt stressful instead of fun.  It turns out, however, I’m actually fine with stealth games.  The issue was that I needed some titles with lighter stealth elements, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, to help me get acclimated to the genre a little better.  Now that I’m more comfortable with stealth titles, I’m really glad that I have a chance to play HITMAN, as there are so many different ways to take down enemies that it feels like a toy box.  I will be playing a lot of this in the future.

 

Hollow Knight

Release Date:  February 24, 2017

Price:  $14.99

One of the three early unlock titles for the bundle is Hollow Knight, a metroidvania starring the most adorable little bug that I have ever seen.  I should confess something:  I am completely phobic of bugs.  There are a lot of games with bug-inspired enemies that scare me just as much as any horror game ever could (the cazadors in Fallout New Vegas come to mind), so this game is fighting an uphill battle here.  With that said, however, I adore this game so far.  The bugs are too cute to scare me, the art style is striking, and the gameplay feels like the type of fluid action combat that is necessary in a metroidvania title.  I’ll definitely be giving this another try in the future.

 

Resident Evil Revelations

Release Date:  May 20, 2013

Price:  $29.99

I don’t like zombie games.  Zombies are creepy and an entire game around them isn’t that interesting of a concept to me.  Why on earth did Humble Bundle decide to bundle three zombie titles together two days after Halloween?  The season for zombies is over, but now I have all of these games forever.  Ranting aside, Resident Evil Revelations seems like a perfectly fine game if you like zombies, though I would play Dead Island, instead, as the open world island setting is a lot more fun than the dingy corridors of a ship.  I’m not going to be playing it any further.

 

Sniper Elite

Release Date:  October 18, 2005

Price:  $7.99

I find the inclusion of this game baffling.  Just a few months ago, we got Sniper Elite 4.  Why put the original game from well over a decade ago in the bundle?  Shooters historically don’t age particularly well, so I didn’t find this title to hold up when compared to modern games.  Maybe you could make an argument for including it for nostalgic purposes, but I would assume most people who wanted this game because they played it as a child would have already owned it in some capacity.  Regardless, I won’t be playing it more.

 

Sniper Elite V2

Release Date:  April 30, 2012

Price:  $19.99

To round out this strange bundle, Sniper Elite V2 won’t launch on Steam, so I guess I won’t be playing it.  Given that I don’t like the original or the sequel from the bundle a few months ago, however, chances are high that I wouldn’t have enjoyed my time playing this title, either.

Overall, this was an odd bundle, to say the least.  First of all, a lot of these titles are older than usual for a bundle.  Dead Island, Hard Reset, and Resident Evil Revelations are all ports or remakes of even older titles, and neither of the Sniper Elite games are at all modern.  7 Days to Die is also a game that, while being updated regularly, is still in an alpha phase after five years.  Additionally, as I mentioned, this bundle leaned heavily on zombie horror games, but it came out after Halloween.  This makes me wonder if these titles were supposed to go in last month’s bundle, but the deal wasn’t signed in time, or if it was just poor timing.  Overall, there are a few games I’ll be playing, so it’s a slight improvement from last month’s abysmal bundle, but I’m not thrilled with these titles and really hope that Humble Bundle does a better job in the final bundle of the year.

Note:  This post is imported from a prior blog, HannieBee Games.