It’s March! Spring is coming! Winter is ending! If you’re on the other side of the world, Fall is beginning! More importantly, though, it’s time for another Choice and… this time around I’m very positive about pausing my plan. You could say I’m very pause-itive about not taking this choice. Why? Well… you’ll see in a bit.
| Name | Developer | Genre | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kingdom Two Crowns | Coatsink, Fury Studios | 2D, Strategy, Colony Sim | 1 |
| Wildfire | Sneaky Bastards | 2D, Stealth, Action | 2 |
| XCOM: Chimera Squad | Firaxis Games | Turn-Based, Strategy, Tactics, Sci-Fi | 3 |
| Elex | Piranha Bytes | Post-Apocalyptic, Open World, RPG | 4 |
| Control Standard Edition | Remedy Entertainment | Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure | 5 |
| Cyber Hook | Blazing Stick | Time Attack, 3D Platformer, Parkour | 6 |
| Boreal Blade | Frozenbyte | Action, Swordplay, PvP | 7 |
| Ageless | One More Dream Studios | Puzzle, Platformer, Adventure | 8 |
| Pesterquest | What Pumpkin Games | Visual Novel, Adventure | 9 |
| Peaky Blinders: Mastermind | FuturLab | Violent, Strategy, Puzzle, Adventure | 10 |
| Hotshot Racing | Sumo Digital | Racing, Arcade | 11 |
| WWE 2K Battle Grounds | Saber Interactive | Action, Sports, Fighting | 12 |
So, if I didn’t already own Kingdom: Two Crowns, I would have placed it on top here. I think it’s probably my favourite game out of all these twelve titles. Wildfire’s demo was quite fun but I may just grab it on Steam or in the Humble Store instead of grabbing this bundle. Generally speaking, I feel like the bundles offer a lot of value from a price-perspective, but I feel like my library doesn’t have to grow that much and I don’t think it#s worth it when there are only four games that I’m interested in. It’s supposed to be a “choice” but I can’t remember the last time that I ever had a choice other than “take all” or “take none”.
XCOM: Chimera Squad looked interesting when I saw it on a stream but just like with the other XCOM games I just get too emotionally attached to some of the soldiers and end up quitting when I lose one or two of them. I also have yet to play through XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2… so, I’ll hold off on getting another title from the series for now until I’m done with those two!
Now, Elex seems quite cool in theory, especially since it’s by the guys behind Gothic… but something doesn’t sit well with me when I read the word “Elex” out. I think I remember people criticising the unfair difficulty at the beginning and the lacking combat or skill system or something along those lines but I’m not entirely sure and I can’t be arsed to look that up. The biggest problem that I have with Elex is probably just the huge fucking spiders that I’ve seen in those fucking screenshots. If I weren’t such a scaredy-cat, I’d immediately go for it but I guess I’ll just skip Elex completely by not taking this bundle.
Control looked kind of fun in a stream I was watching but it also looked incredibly frustrating. The map is unintuitive, the skill tree is “eh” at best, the powers are fun at first but lose their charm quickly, the enemies in the rooms that you’ve visited before always respawn, and there’s plenty of graphical issues as well as bugs with enemies shooting through walls or instantly killing you with a rocket launcher, which is more than frustrating to watch or experience. I’m not going to get Control anytime soon, if at all.
Cyber Hook looked like one of those parkour games that were in a previous choice. The only difference really is that it’s in a cyber wave style, which can be quite taxing on the eyes, from what I’ve experienced. Don’t get me wrong, it looks kind of cool, but I don’t personally am a fan of it, especially as the demo of it on Steam seems rather bad for me personally as I get motion-sick from it.
Boreal Blade is a cheap PvP game with swords and… it’s in this Choice because Control, Elex and XCOM cost so much, I guess? Frozenbyte, the Studio behind it, is also behind Trine and I’m not exactly a fan of that series, so… there’s that. Ageless looks kind of cute but it’s just not my type of game. Pesterquest is another visual novel and I don’t like the style of it (and also have to play through the Steins;Gate VN before I get any other VNs). Peaky Blinders is a show about cowboys with razors in their hats. My brothers liked it. I didn’t like it. Why would I get a game about that show? Hotshot Racing isn’t my cup of tea. WWE 2K BG is also not exactly my cup of tea, for the sole reason that I don’t care about Wrestling and that the screenshots looked “eh” on Steam.
Overall, there are four or maybe five great games in there (based on whether or not you’re into Control). I personally wouldn’t grab this bundle but if you’re into any of these games, feel free to grab them. If you’re grabbing the games and if you don’t feel like getting XCOM: Chimera Squad and/or Wildfire, I’d happily take those games, but uh… yeah… I’m quite positive that I’ll pause this month’s Choice. I don’t feel like I’d regret it either or anything like that. I just have too many unplayed games and I don’t need to get every choice really…
What are your thoughts on this month? Let me know! If you’re interested in a different view on Control and the other titles, I can highly recommend checking out Naithin’s post over here. Naithin also has recently written a guest post for Indiecator, so check that out if you’re interested!
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.
Indiecator 
Counterpoint to your commentary on Control:
Control is great.
That’s it. I’m done. ;)
Ok ok, but seriously — I never experienced any of the technical glitches you refer to, either on my old PC or the new one. The worst issue I’ve had with it won’t be a thing for most people: It doesn’t support my super ultrawide (32:9) main monitor resolution. It DOES support 21:9, so anyone on those will be fine.
The game is a pretty short experience by many of today’s standards, I have about 16 hours in the game but I would’ve finished the main campaign at probably around the 10-12 hour mark, so it certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome.
The respawning areas decision choice was interesting, but even with them — again, the game doesn’t attempt to outstay its welcome and I was still having fun well into the end. I haven’t finished all the DLC yet, but it’s still on my list. :)
I guess in summary, there’s a reason it sits at 91% positive ratings!
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Just from what I’ve seen, I didn’t like it. The high price tag at a relatively short playtime isn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
But that’s just where opinions and tastes differ, right? Just because I say something and you think differently, it doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or that you’re wrong. Just means that we’ve got different opinions on this title specifically.
As for the 91% positive ratings, I don’t trust all reviews. I mean, it all depends on the site and person anyways. If we go for Metacritic’s scoring for instance, there are 1772 user ratings with about 63.2% of them being positive, while 19.02% were negative and 17.78% were mixed. Obviously, I don’t like metacritic and don’t trust them either but I’ve seen someone play it and she had the same issues on stream that made the experience frustrating that some of the negative reviews on metacritic also mention.
ANYWAY, what are your thoughts on the other games? Are you gonna grab this Choice?
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Entirely possible the technical issues were fixed after those reviews were put up — I came to the game well after launch as I didn’t purchase it on EGS, waited for the Steam release (and a sale).
But of course, what you said re opinions is right — that’s what opinions are! xD As I said at the beginning of my comment, I was offering a counterpoint.
I have no real context as to the Streamer you were watching or how long they gave the game etc, but I’ll just add that the following bit was not my experience: “The map is unintuitive, the skill tree is “eh” at best, the powers are fun at first but lose their charm quickly”. Likewise with the ‘instant’ kill called out for the rocket launcher folk — I disagree with that too, as the launcher attacks, or anything similar that can damage you that heavily are telegraphed attacks that can be learnt and reacted to accordingly.
As for the other games, I still need to really take a good look at ’em for the most part. XCOM: Chimaera Squad I didn’t overly get on with. It was just too.. too… streamlined… vs the main game experience. And I realise it isn’t a main numbered game for precisely this reason, but I just didn’t get on with it. (Bring on XCOM 3!)
I think of the titles I don’t have at the moment, Kingdom: Two Crowns is probably the one I’m most looking forward to actually. I played the crap out of Kingdom: Classic, although not so much of the New Lands release.
In any case, will look into them more soon and get my own post up. I thought about doing it back when the email list came out but just never quite found the right time. xD
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Yeah, Kingdom is amazing. I love the series and really need to play more of it. XCOM: Chimaera Squad is probably something I’ll get eventually… but not any time soon. Again, need to get through the previous games first.
Looking forward to your post and your final decision. I’ll link it here later.
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In what has been the rarest sequence of events for some time, I own absolutely none of the games in the bundle. That is good enough for me.
$1USD a game to build up my games library and provide a hit of “let’s try it out” novelty when I get in my restless, antsy exploration moods. I’ve been wanting very much to try out Control, Elex and XCOM Chimera anyway. Even if I only give ‘em an hour’of playtime each, it’s worth it to me.
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