And another month officially begins. Or at least that's how I view it.
Regardless of what the date says, a month's not really started for me
until I get my new games from HumbleChoice. Sure the company's a bit
skeevy and the selections aren't always the best, but adding eight
more games to the library makes The Number happy. ;-)
This month's selection includes:
* Warhammer 40K: Darktide
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361210/Warhammer_40000_Darktide/ Oh look, another Warhammer game. I swear, it seems like half
of the Steam library consists of Warhammer these days.
"Darktide" isn't particularly special. It is, essentially,
the 40K equivalent of "Vermintide"; a co-op FPS focused more
on ordinary soldiery and rabble rather than the usual
Spess Mahreens. Released in very rough shape, apparently
recent updates have made it the equal of "Vermintide" ...
which is to say, it's a fairly average example of the
genre.
* Persona 4: Golden
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113000/Persona_4_Golden/ I never really got into the Persona games; JRPGs were never
really my thing, and the urban-fantasy setting of the Persona
games even less so. Plus, I'm too old for their angst-ridden
coming-of-age stories to have much relevance to me. Apparently
for a "Persona" game, this is one of the better ones. I'll
have to take their word for it.
* Lamplighters League
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1167750/The_Lamplighters_League/ A strategy/RPG set in an alternate 1930s setting where you
fight against an evil cult. Gameplay is similar to XCom,
with perhaps more focus on story. I've tried to get into this
one and it just never grabbed me enough to stay with it. I
vaguely recall it used some sort of deck building mechanic
too, which is always a turn-off. But I think this says more
about my tastes than the quality of the game, which is
generally good.
* Cassette Beasts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/ Another off-brand Pokemon clone. Meh.
* The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1432100/The_Bookwalker_Thief_of_Tales/ A fairly typical adventure game with an isometric viewpoint.
Jump into the worlds contained within the pages of a
variety of books to find special artifacts in order to get
around writers block. It's a weird setting but it allows
the devs to bounce you between various worlds. But it's a
bit too heavily led by its narrative, and there's just not
much to do on the game-side of things.
* Karmazoo
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1661630/KarmaZoo/ A platforming game with the hook that it's co-op, so in
order to proceed you need to help the other players. I'd
be more interested if platformers were all that
interesting to me.
* Hexarchy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1356810/Hexarchy/ On the face of it, Hexarchy looks interesting; it's a
4X strategy games and I usually love those. But then those
terrible words appear --deck-builder-- and any interest
I have just drains away.
* Garden Life: A Cozy simulator
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1915380/Garden_Life_A_Cozy_Simulator/ A gardening simulator; it looks to be sort of like
Stardew Valley-like, but with more focus on the growing
and less on the character interactions. I dunno; I can get
behind a lot of 'lifestyle sims' but this one? I think
it's a bridge too far for me.
So, I gotta admit, I'm not really that thrilled with the selection
this month. Usually there's at least one game that wets my whistle,
but this time? Even the games I find most to my taste --"Bookwalker",
"Lamplighters", and "Darktide-- aren't really anything I'm that
interested in playing. I'm just not sure that the whole bundle is
worth even the low-low-price of $12USD to me. I may skip this month.
Well, some months are worth it, others not so much. It's somewhat
disappointing though that I've been finding the freebies on Amazon
Prime more enticing than Humble recently. Hopefully we'll see better
options next month.
Until then... may your library be filled with fun games and The Number
blessedly high. Amen. ;-)
Humble Choice November 2024