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Humble Choice - July 2023
July's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games:
| Steam Page | Opencritic | Steam Recent/All | Operating Systems | Steam Deck | ProtonDB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition | 80 | 68/43 | Win | Playable | Silver |
| TemTem | 75 | 51/84 | Win | Verified | Platinum |
| Yakuza 4 Remastered | 77 | 92/92 | Win | Unsupported | Gold |
| Roadwarden | 83 | 95/96 | Win Mac Lin | Playable | Native/Gold |
| Kraken Academy!! | 73 | 93/93 | Win Mac Lin | Verified | Native/TBC |
| Merchant Of The Skies | TBC | 87/87 | Win Mac Lin | Verified | Native/TBC |
| Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim | N/A | 93/91 | Win Mac | Playable | Platinum |
| Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate | TBC | 94/93 | Win | Verified | Platinum |
Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?
Thanks for this review that shows off operating systems and, more importantly, steam deck compatibility. I don't have a steam deck, just a regular pc, but I appreciate the effort put into this post. Not so much a repost, but instead a distillation of important info. Thanks man.
Thank you. I was trying to fill it with the information I need to decide whether a particular bundle is worth it for me.
I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it for others and whether this should become a monthly thing.
Another data point to consider is proton compatibility, which is relevant both for steam deck, and for anyone playing on linux. The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition has a silver score, while TemTem has a platinum score, which means it plays perfectly out of the box via Proton with no issues.
Thanks for the suggestion. I've added ProtonDB details for each of the games and, where there's a native version, I've also included the reported tier for running the Windows version in Proton.
What's interesting is that ProtonDB often has tips on how to get things working better on the Steam Deck. For example: Yakuza 4 Remastered is reported as "unsupported" by Valve but the ProtonDB explains how to get it working well on the Steam Deck.
I subscribe to Choice and would be happy to see these threads regularly so that we can chat about the games. r/gamedeals was one of my favorite reddit hangouts, so having comparable posts here is nice to see.
As far as data table goes, I’m thinking maybe also the Steam review score and number of reviews? I don’t want to clutter things up too much or make too much work for you, but the Steam review score is good for games that aren’t big enough to be reviewed on OpenCritic (three in this month alone), while the number of reviews gives a glimpse into the game’s popularity and reach.
I'd be glad to see it become a regular topic. I always look around for impressions on the monthly games, so having people post them here would be grand.
I haven’t played the Spacer’s Choice edition, but I loved The Outer Worlds. It is widely seen online as “meh”, and maybe that’s part of what helped me love it, because I went in with low, tempered expectations.
I plan on giving it and TemTem to my husband. He was interested in The Outer Worlds when I was playing it and generally likes Bethesda RPGs, and he’s also a big Pokemon fan.
Shotgun King is something I legitimately almost bought when the Steam sale started, so I’m happy to see it here.
Overall, I think this is a very good Choice. Definitely worth the cost.
Ozymandias is great. Just bought it in the last week after hearing about it on here.
Feels like Civilization, but plays in an hour or so.
Yakuza 4: worthwhile entry, but absolutely not the best gateway to the series (that would be either 0, 7, or maybe Judgment ).
I’ve played all the yakuza games except six so far. Even the zombie one.
Haven’t even looked at judgement. How would you rank it?
Gameplaywise, it's what Yakuza 7 should have looked like if they didn't decided to go for the JRPG route instead. The combat system is enjoyable (they had two games to iterate the combat; Y6 and Kiwami 2). There's probably too much tailing section.
Storywise, I like it. It had some Ace Attorney vibes (but not necessarily at the court antics level, though there's certainly are some), except you also get to punch people teeth in (it's Yakuza after all).
I like all Yakuza games for their own quirks (didn't played the zombie one though, nor the mobile one), so it's difficult for me to rank it. Probably not as good as 0 (but that one was my first one), maybe on par with 7 ?
Sounds pretty good. Does it take place in the same small map that most yakuza games have around millennium tower? Or does it spread out/have its own unique maps?
It's the same Kamurocho (in the sequel out have Yokohama, like in 7). Yagami's office near the pawn shop. One unique location that you visit is a hospital/research center.
I've played the original The Outer Worlds release (the non Spacer's Choice Edition version) on both PC and on Xbox Series X. I think that a lot of people went in expecting the next Fallout New Vegas and so were very disappointed. I found that the dialogue, overall story and characters are strong whereas the exploration, character upgrade system and combat is only average. I would recommend it despite its shortcomings.
I'm looking forward to trying out TemTem and seeing if it can scratch that "Pokemon itch" that only Pokemon HeartGold (or rather the hacks Sacred Gold/Storm Silver) usually can. I'm going to try and go in with low expectations as indie Pokemon-style games usually fail to deliver.
The Outer Worlds is the perfect length for a game for me. I really don't enjoy spending more than 20-25 hours on a story game (with few exceptions), so I appreciated that it didn't overstay its welcome, but I know a lot of folks thought it was too short
My biggest problem with the outer worlds were the characters.
They made the universe ruled over by corporations to an absurd degree where it was just comically evil. And the people living in the world weren’t beaten down and depressed, or brainwashed into believing in the corporations. They felt kind of lifeless and just going with the flow of their evil universe without really acknowledging or understanding how bad things were.
At least that’s how I felt for the first several hours where you’re on that one colony, and then go to a rich planet right after. Didn’t hold my interest to come back for more.
That’s entirely realistic though.
We have people suffering in pretty bad ways because of the effects of unrestrained capitalism but outside of a few niches most people seem to be completely oblivious of the problems. Even though “greedflation” has become a fairly popular term, most people are oblivious about it and what it means.
And that first colony isn’t entirely clueless, either; they do have an entire faction of rebels who are painfully aware of the problems they are dealing with. And then there is another colony which runs independently of corporate control even though it presents them with clear disadvantages.
I played through The Outer Worlds, I found myself... whelmed. I didn't like the universe, the entire premise felt very shallow and absurd. Played like 20 hours, and the gameplay was fun, but eventually just didn't start the game again the next day.
I tried TemTem, and discovered creature collection games aren't for me! Like, really early on, you go through... I think tall grass? I remember being irritated that every 20 seconds there was another unskippable battle.
Merchant of the Skies has been in my library for ages, and I keep meaning to play it, just never get around to start. But I like the premise!
Outer worlds is a fun little game I always recommend if you can get it at a good price.
I've played several of these actually, I'm getting sad at how much Humble Bundle monthly choices start to overlap my current library - so I'll probably have some free keys to give away soon enough.
Of this month's choice bundle I have played:
The Outer Worlds - I don't know what the difference is in the Spacer's Choice Edition, but I was fine with the original release. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. It was basically an alternative to Fallout that didn't quite hit the same because it felt less relevant given that it was more mimicking the Golden Era of American business rather than the hyper-nationalist atomic era Fallout is set in. Still was a good game, just not as good as New Vegas for me.
TemTem - I was in on this since the closed beta, and it's definitely a fun Pokemon alternative. It's all double battles, and significantly more challenging than Pokemon in some regards, though it's mostly down to the fact for me that the typings aren't all intuitive. Still fun, worth a playthrough if you love Pokemon and want to try something else out for once.
Merchant of the Skies - I love this game so much for no discernable reason. It's incredibly simple, you're just a merchant, and effectively all you're doing is just buying items at one place and selling it elsewhere for a profit. However, I've found that it just gets so fun to shut your brain off and route out stuff, buying up entire stocks for islands, reselling them to others and pacing it all out such that everything restocks by the time you've finished your route. There's a fair amount of depth included in the options you have for islands, improvements you can make to them, the ships you can purchase, the side quests, etc. I had so much fun playing this, and now I'm thinking it might be time for a new save file to start again.
Pleasantly surprised to see Shotgun King here! Fun little game if you're into chess and roguelikes. There are a bunch of fun plays you can make with the soul, jump, and throw mechanics you find in that game.
This is my first time hearing of Ozymandias, but it looks pretty good and I'm very interested in giving it a shot.
Yakuza 4 is insanely good although not a good place to start the series without any knowledge of the previous games. I totally recommend checking out Yakuza 0 and starting from there.
I played The Outer Worlds thanks to the game pass but didn't like it at all. Overall, I think it's a decent bundle if you really want these games. I'm personally only interested in Yakuza 4 and $12 is bit too much for me, so it's a skip.
I've put just over an hour into Shotgun King so far. It's good.
You control a King, the only black piece on a chess board. A horde of white pieces spawn on the other side. Each turn, you get to move, shoot, reload, or use items/powers if you have them. The other pieces all get to move according to chess rules after a certain number of turns based on their speed stat. Your goal is to eliminate the white King and win the game.
Your titular shotgun hits hard up close, and spreads its damage out from farther away. This makes for a nice natural tension in the game where you're encouraged to get close to enemy pieces in order to take them out, but you also have relatively limited mobility given that you're the King piece.
After you clear a wave, you're given a choice between two different rulesets that will get added to the game. Each ruleset has one that affects the black side (you) and the white side (your opponents). You might be given the choice to, say, increase your firepower, but also add a Queen to the other side. In the few rounds I've played, I've faced some head-scratching dilemmas, and it's fun to weigh the different tradeoffs you're presented with.
These rules are more than just stat- or piece-based as well. One rule for the white team takes away their King but adds an extra Bishop, and then killing all the Bishops becomes the new win-condition. One of the rules for the black side allows you to hop over pieces to damage them.
Like a good roguelike, these rules continue to pile up and allow for interesting combinations and synergies. I had one run where my ammo stat was tanked, but I could regenerate ammo by killing Pawns. I then took cards that made lots of Pawns spawn over the course of the wave, so that my shotgun was almost always generating ammo off of auxiliary Pawn kills.
I plan to continue playing it. It's interesting and well-designed. There are also lots of different rules available and different difficulties to play, so it doesn't seem like it'll get stale for a while. Runs are also short, so it's a good, light game to play in between other heavier, more demanding stuff.
One negative about the game (and this is probably me being a hypersensitive American) is that it has a framing plot that is basically the Black king deciding to commit a mass shooting. It's played for absurdity with anthropomorphic chess pieces (and is easily skippable), so it's not really a huge deal or anything, but it left a genuinely bad taste in my mouth -- especially because the game would play just as well without it. As is, the plot only shows up as a cutscene at the beginning and at the end if you successfully beat a run, so it's easy enough to ignore, which is exactly what I do.