Indie Royale Bundle

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.indieroyale.com/

An interesting alternative to Humble Bundle. I've not heard of these games. A few of them look pretty neat.

[A Black Falcon]

I don't have the other ones, but you never heard of Children of the Nile, really? The game was developed by some people who used to work for Impressions and had made the City Building Series games (Caesar, Pharaoh, Zeus), and it's pretty much a sequel to Pharaoh, faithful to the originals in gameplay but with 3d graphics. The game was originally released in 2004; I have a copy on disc. Good game, if you like the City Building games.

As for those others, Anomaly was on sale on GOG recently, but I didn't get it. I've heard of Puzzle Agent, but not this sequel, and haven't played it. Haven't heard of the other two. Not sure if I'll get this bundle though, probably not I think... not certain though.

One other bundle running right now: http://www.humblebundle.com has as its current bundle a THQ bundle with Metro 2033, Company of Heroes, Darksiders, Red Faction Armageddon, and as the "above the minimum" title Saint's Row the Third. I have Darksiders but not those other games, so I might get it.

[Great Rumbler]

That bundle is worth it just for Saints Row 3, which is an incredibly fun game.

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar. ... I just watched Robocop.

[A Black Falcon]

You'll need to spend over $5 to get Saints Row 3. :p

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah it doesn't fit, but again, I just watched Robocop.

So in the end I spent enough to get Saint's Row. Yeah, it's the PC version of these games I'd normally prefer to play on a console, but they seem to work pretty well with a 360 controller plugged into my PC. (Down the line, I should consider a setup with my PC moved to my big ol' TV and my mouse and keyboard set up on some sort of TV tray.)

So far, Saint's Row seems... Well it's Grand Theft Auto, but with some neat stuff going on like... falling out of an airplane, shooting people on the way down, catching "the girl", dropping her again, flying through a jet after shooting out the window, snagging a second parachute, flying out the back, shooting more henchmen, and catching the girl again. That was the opening. I'll give the game this, it has style. It doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as Grand Theft Auto does, which is refreshing. What gets me though is that it still has those commercials for fake shows. Here's the deal. If your game is already a parody of action drama, then you don't get to have commercials for a second layer of action drama parody INSIDE your parody. That's why the "____ Movie" series failed in the end (among a LOT of other things, like making exactly the same jokes the movie they were making fun of already made, like, shot for shot). Anyway, seems interesting and I'll be able to tolerate basically being a murderer a lot better when the whole thing is very tongue in cheek.

Darksiders is Zelda with a heavy metal album cover skin. It takes itself a little too seriously for it's art style, but is great fun.

Metro turns out to be a real gem. It does push my PC to a limit, but seems great fun. I've been meaning to upgrade my rig anyway, this time a bit more significantly, so in a few months I may do just that.

[A Black Falcon]

"I'll buy that for a dollar" was from Robocop? I haven't seen that movie, I only know of that phrase from Smash TV...

[Great Rumbler]

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[Dark Jaguar]

Robocop is very self aware, but still plays itself straight. Ever play Metal Gear Solid 4? Taking a queue from Robocop, that game also inserts random "world building" commercials and news casts to set the tone of the world the movie/game takes place in.

Anyway, I decided to create a rather weird character for my gang lands style Saints Rowening. I went with a weird male character who's as mean as he is greek. Like super greek. Weird low growing beard, big scary weird eyebrows, and a low growing bowl cut style hair cut.