Not one to be left out of the recent spate of indie game bundles, the original Humble Indie Bundle is back with its fourth installment. Jamestown, Bit Trip Runner, Super Meat Boy, Shank and Nightsky make up the core bundle with Gratuitous Space Battles and Cave Story+ available as a bonus for anyone who pays over the average.
Straight into the bundle and we find Jamestown—a steampunk shoot ’em up set in an alternate history Mars—ith its classic bullet hell gameplay and 4 player co-op, there’s certainly a lot of potential here. Bit.Trip Runner is next on the list. This continuation of the Bit.Trip series puts the player in control of CommanderVideo in an award-winning retro 2D platformer with a musical twist. Third is Super Meat Boy. This fiendishly difficult platformer will accept nothing less than perfection from the player as you guide the titular Meat Boy through a series of unforgiving obstacle courses to the strains of Danny Baranowsky’s superb soundtrack. Shank is a side-scrolling beat ’em up reminiscent of Comix Zone—meshing classic brawler gameplay with an intriguing art style as well as offering a co-op campaign, Shank is definitely worth a look. Finally for the core bundle is Nightsky, its simple soundtrack and silhouetted landscape presenting a distinctive backdrop for this truly excellent physics-based 2D puzzler.
Although that’s it for the base bundle the Humble Bundle folks have two games for anyone who decides to beat the average payment; Gratuitous Space Battles and Cave Story+. Gratuitous Space Battles is a fascinating puzzle/strategy game in which the player first arms and armours their own fleet of ships before deploying them with or without special orders against an enemy fleet. The player has no direct control over their fleet after deployment, and the ships on both sides are guided soley by the orders they were given beforehand. Cave Story+ is as “SNES” as a game can get without having been released for it. Like Super Meat Boy, it’s a classic 2D platformer but more in the style of Metroid/Castlevania than Meat Boy’s Mario-inspired gameplay.
It seems the folks over at the Humble Bundle have done it again. This is a terrific line-up of top-notch indie titles available with the usual charitable option, cross-platform support and DRM-free downloads. This is a great deal for any gamer, so grab it now and enjoy some of the best indie titles out there.
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