Indie Bundle 2

This is the second entry in my series of reviews for the Steam Indie Bundles. Each review is short and subjective, and is geared to give you a quick look at the game. Indie Bundle 2 includes: Botanicula, E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, Lunar Flight, Splice and Universe Sandbox.

Botanicula

Botanicula is a weird point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. I'm not even convinced it's a game. It's definitely point and click, and it might be an adventure, but game I am not convinced about. You click on random things until something happens, and then you ask 'was that actually what I wanted to happen?' before realizing that no, you still don't know what the point of all this even is.

On a bright note, Wikipedia says that Botanicula is helping the World Land Trust to protect hundreds of acres of rainforest.

Take a look at my screenshots. For starters, I couldn’t even tell you what my group of people are supposed to be. I appear to have an onion, a mushroom, something in a hat, a feather, and a weed. Along the way I collected a card for clicking on a spider, although I cannot work out how or where to use my card. I eventually came across some baddies that look like a bong and a turd. My wife worked out that if you just keep clicking on your dudes one by one, eventually one of them can sneak by.

I would imagine this game would be very fascinating if you had just taken some sort hallucinogen. Seeing as I’m not into that sort of thing, combined with the fact that the game doesn’t even support widescreen at all, I gave it a 5/10.

E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy

So, moving on from the extremely weird Botanicula, we come to the very strange E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. Built on the Valve Source engine, it looks like a mix of the original Counter-Strike stirred together with a big pot of ‘what-the…’. You have to make a character using all these things that you have no idea about, so you just choose whatever you want and hope for the best. Voices talk to you as you walk around. Oh look, there’s a random dead guy.

So I find a gun that appears to be wrapped up like a Christmas present. The game says it’s activating an instruction manual, which just tells me to pick up the gun. How about slowly introducing some keys damnit! I had to go through the menus to find the key, which frustratingly is Enter for most things.

I finally find someone else, and the bottom of the text is cut off in dialogue boxes. This is the sort of unfinished feel that echoes through the game. The inventory is not very easy to use either.

I honestly cannot see myself spending the time to work out what this game is about when the graphics feel like they are straight out of 1999 and the story did not engage me in the slightest. It gets a bonus point for semi-supporting multimon. 6/10

Lunar Flight

Finally, a game that makes sense to me. Mostly. You have to fly this spaceship around, completing different types of missions from delivering cargo to surveying new areas. To me, as a non-space type person, it seems more like a simulation than a game, but in a strange way I find the challenge rewarding. I think I just like piloting any type of vehicle, regardless of what it is. But boy did I crash. And I crashed. Bloody hell, this is harder than it looks.

But it looks spectacular. You can configure your views, buy upgrades, repair your ship – there is a fair bit you could get into.

This is the best game in the bundle for me. No multimon support is the only downside for what could have been spectacular. Imagine if the outside two monitors just had a different external view each or something; that would be awesome. 8/10

Splice

This indie game allows you to play God by moving cells with other cells and stuff happens, somehow. At least I think they are cells. Or maybe some sort of DNA. I assume that’s where the name Splice comes from.

You have to move the cells (or capsules, or something) to match the pattern shown. I'm not really sure what happens or what the purpose is, but at least you can do it in glorious multimon. Repeatedly. 6/10

Universe Sandbox

This is one confusing technical simulation when you first stumble into it. Basically, you’re simulating what can happen in space between planets, black holes, asteroids, et al. I made a few things and they flew off into the distance, never to be seen again.

Fortunately, the game has some pre-saved simulations of our galazy, Earth and moon as a pair, all sorts of things that you can load up and check out the interaction between.

What I did get out of it is an appreciation for how huge and busy space is. It’s impressive. But as a game, I didn’t find much to do that was fun. If you were a scientist or space enthusiast, this might tickle your fancy. For the mainstream, I’m not so sure. 6/10

Summary

For me, this bundle just contains too much weird or simulation for me to be happy with it as an overall purchase. For me, I would just buy Lunar Flight and be done with it. The other games were just too weird or cheap feeling for me to get into, other than Universe Sandbox which was mightily technical and while interesting, not fun for me.