Steam Indie Bundle Review Series
Overview
Over the Steam sales, bundles packed with indie games become available, creatively named Indie Bundles. They are usually priced around $10USD and contain 5 games each. Over the next few weeks, I am going to review them for you, hopefully in time for the Christmas sales. We've noticed that sometimes Steam will tweak the Indie Bundles depending on how they sell, so these are from the summer break sales in 2012.
These reviews are totally subjective, different things will definitely appeal to different people. Take my reviews with a grain of salt. But as we all know, every now and them some gems come out to play and they turn into one of the best value games you have ever bought. They can often field new game concepts that the big developers haven't considered. We'll get to see this as we have a look at the good, the bad, and the plain bizarre games that are loaded into these Indie Bundles.
Some indie games actually make the effort to support multimon, some accidentally support it, but I have found that the large chunk of them are simply unplayable in multimon. This is not surprising due to the limited budgets and small teams of people, but the fact that some can get it so very right means that there is little excuse for this.
Feedback is always welcome, I'd love to hear what people think about the games that we take a look at.
Special mentions
Best Bundle of the Series
This is a really close call between Indie Bundle 7 and Indie Bundle 8. Both have 4 really good games each, across a variety of gaming styles. I am going to go with Indie Bundle 7 for the variety of gameplay that you get, but I would definitely buy Indie Bundle 8 as well.
Best Single Monitor Game of the Series
My shortlist for this title were Vessel, Machinarium, Sanctum, SOL Exodus, and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome. They each have a great game concept, they all execute it well, and have good graphics to go with it. Each game I played well past my normal review 'give-it-a-chance' period, and think they are well worth buying and playing, even in single mon. In the end, though, I kept going back to Vessel. I loved the concept, the steampunk graphics, and the gameplay.
Most Beautiful Game of the Series
When it comes to the artwork, many games are of surprisingly high quality, but few make me stop for a moment to take in the beauty of the scene before me. Machinarium get's an honorable mention for outstanding artwork, but nothing comes close to the beauty that can be seen when flying the fantastic Wings of Prey.
Best Multimon Game of the Series
Not many indie games do multimon very well, but my shortlist for this title came down to Bunch of Heroes, Zombie Driver, Wings of Prey, and Revenge of the Titans. All the games play very well in multimon and it's hard to choose a winner out of these, but Wings of Prey is the only gold certified multimon game. It's centered HUD makes the experience better than the others, but all are worth a play.
Bundle to Avoid
Indie Bundle 2 is completely forgettable. With the exception of Lunar Flight, I did not enjoy any of the games at all. Some of the games may appeal to some people, but I wouldn't recommend the bundle to anyone.
Most Bizarre Game of the Series
The three games that stood out to me as the most bizarre were Botanicula, Eufloria, and Trauma. Also, Darwinia does earn itself an honorable mention for bizarre, but at least you feel like you know why you are doing things. Of the three nominees, Trauma was the game where I felt least like I knew what was going on and why I was doing things, as well as having a ridiculously strange interface.
Game Most Likely To Put You To Sleep
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. The dull storyline is matched only by the boring graphics and music. Chances are that you would likely have a more interesting dream if you chose to sleep instead. SpaceChem and Universe Sandbox get honorable mentions.
Game Most Likely To Induce An Epileptic Fit
Beat Hazard. I could not play this retina-searing eye strain for long. The images do not do justice to the pain that this can inflict on your eyes. Honorable mention to Audiosurf for a close second.
So what do I buy?
This depends how much cash you have to spend. Some people are willing to spend some cash for a good collections of cheap games, others are really unwilling to give up their cash or don't have much to spend. I've narrowed it down to two spending types: Willing and Tightass. However, these are my preferences.
When buying individual games, make sure the cost of the game(s) together is not more than the bundle price! They should go on sale at some stage through the Steam Christmas sales, you would expect.
Final Thoughts
Indie Bundle represent a good way to get a bunch of games for very little cash. You could buy all of my Willing list for less than the price of one new big-name title and have more gaming than you know what to do with.
When the Steam sales come out and the indie bundles are released, I'll check them for any changes to the bundles and update the article accordingly. Until then, check out the bundles and choose which games you'd like to try! Links are provided to each bundle review below. Peace.