Tobold's Blog
Saturday, February 03, 2018
 
Unsubscribed Humble Bundle Monthly

I recently subscribed to the Humble Bundle Monthly, because the $12 for the bundle included Civilization VI with two DLCs, which was way cheaper than any other way to pick up Civ VI. Now the rest of the bundle arrived, and I must say that I am disappointed. The idea of the Humble Bundle Monthly is that it is "curated", giving you a bunch of good games. So I thought that in a curated bundle with Civilization VI I would find a few other nice strategy games. Unfortunately I was very wrong: The other games in the February bundle are all adventure games, and cheap ones at that.

To quote Steam when I open the page of one of those games: "Is this game relevant to you? This game doesn't look like other things you've played in the past. As such we don't have much information on whether or not you might be interested in it.". Steam is right. Basically I haven't played adventure games since way back when adventure games were still a thing, the days of Leisure Suit Larry or Monkey Island. I don't really like the new generation of adventure games, which is often described as "walking simulators". The only game in the Humble Bundle Monthly I might try is Snake Pass, because I've heard that it is somewhat unique with its controls, and not really an "adventure game".

Another reason to unsubscribe was that the highlight of next month's bundle is Dark Souls III plus one DLC. If you like the Dark Souls series, you might consider this, as $12 is an excellent price for something going for $75 on Steam. For me the unforgiving nature of the series has always turned me off. I don't play games to get punished for my mistakes, I have a job for that!

What I did now is change my Humble Bundle e-mail settings to send me info on future Humble Bundle Monthly offers. (I had turned that off, which resulted in me not even getting informed that there was a bundle of games waiting for me.) Getting $60 games plus DLC for $12 is interesting. The rest of the bundles probably not so.

Comments:
It's an amazing bundle this month. Both Tacoma & the Norwood Suite ended up in the top 25 games of 2017 by Rock Paper Shotgun. Owlboy is one of the best games from 2016 by metascore. And Life is Strange is a personal favorite of mine, I adored it.


 
I eventually cracked and subscribed for Civ6... and I must say I have been pleasantly surprised. Whatever can be said about it, the *interface* is by far the best ever. And it's pretty.

Like Carra, I was pleased with the rest of the stuff too. Nothing I'd be wild to get, but several that I'd throw $2 at in a sale just to try them.

I'll stick with it this month. To be honest, inertia selling does work on me because I hate to be mean and stop a subscription :-D So I am always reluctant to get involved in it. We'll see what they deliver. Dark Souls III wouldn't have been on my wish-list, but then again I'm getting that experience and a few more for $12. Can't be that bad of a deal.
 
Dark Souls doesn't punish you for mistakes, it rewards you for perseverance! :P
 
I think the difficulty of Dark Souls has been over-exaggerated. It's certainly not particularly forgiving moment-to-moment in that it expects precision in combat controls, but it's very difficult for you to ever go backwards, to start with less than you had. You collect exp/currency as you progress through an area, and the famous mechanic is that you lose all that exp/currency if you die once, then die again before you can retrieve it, but you can always bank it by spending it on levelling up or on consumables/equipment, and then it's locked in forever.

It's certainly less punishing in that regard than most if not all rogue-likes, and even games like Monster Hunter, which gate your progress (ie: access to better materials and equipment) by skill. In Dark Souls at least, you can simply keep grinding up exp and eventually out-level your stumbling block.
 
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