The Video Game Revue

Indie Games on Steam

Steam has continued to have amazing sales every weekend, with last week's being every Ghost Recon game for $20, and the week before being a big discount on Left 4 Dead that reportedly increased sales by 3000%. This week's sale gives gamers a chance to support the little guys by offering five indie titles for a mere $10. Naturally, I wouldn't be writing this post if I didn't succumb to the temptation to take Steam up on their offer.

I've already tried all five games and they make a nice little ensemble. Four of the games are well suited for playing in a window, which can be a nice feature if you want to grab a quick game while doing something else on the side; I exclude Multiwinia in this regard because, well, it's a pretty freakin' intense RTS and really deserves to be played fullscreen. The overall verdict is that the package is definitely worth $10 if you feel like trying something new, and there's even a chance that one or two of the games will strongly appeal to you. Read on for particulars.

Trials 2

Trials 2: Second Edition is one of the strongest titles of the bunch, in my opinion. It's a motocross stunt racer--a cross between Excitebike and Trackmania. There's a pretty steep learning curve involved, and I didn't make it very far in the roughly 30 minutes that I played, but it seems like a worthwhile game if you stick with it. I'm likely to revisit this one from time to time and may even get hooked on it.

Eets

Eets is a Flash-based puzzle game that's a little bit like Lemmings crossed with The Incredible Machine. I only played this one for about 15 minutes because it didn't particularly grab me. The concept is good, but unoriginal, and the visuals are on the loud side, although the fun animations are certainly a plus. It's not a bad game, but I can't see myself investing much time in it.

Gravitron 2

Gravitron 2 must have started out with somebody writing their own clone of Lunar Lander and deciding to throw guns into the mix. It's a fun concept and reasonably executed, but this is easily the lowest budget title in the mix and it shows. I had fun with it for about 10 minutes, but I'd be hard-pressed to play this game for very long even if it was free. On the plus side, I'm glad that I tried it, and it's not a bad option for some quick, simple fun.

Multiwinia

I didn't expect much from Multiwinia because I played the Darwinia demo years ago and decided that it wasn't for me. Since then I haven't paid much attention to all things Darwinia related, so it was surprising for me to see how far the series has come. The controls are still awkward but not as bad as I remember, and the variety play modes and levels is appealing. I easily lost an hour to this game without batting an eye. So far this is the strongest game in the package and possibly worth the $10 on its own.

I-Fluid

WTF? There's another game? Shit... I forgot to play this one. Well, I can't very well review it without even having seen the damned thing, but check out the trailer video for some idea of what I-Fluid is all about. It shows promise. If I'm strongly impressed by it, I may even post a follow-up about it. Right now the Steam servers are complaining about being too busy, so I can't install it.

Time to go play Street Fighter IV. :)

posted by Parappa @ 9:46 PM