I recently bought the Groupees 'Be Mine' bundle and thought I'd do a little write up of my first impressions of the games included in it. All of these games if bought separately would cost over £40, so getting these at the absolute minimum of $1 is quite the bargain, I would suggest paying more as you will get your moneys worth out of them. I've already gave each game at least an hour each so far, that is since earlier today when I bought this bundle, I'm definitely going to put a lot more time in to all of these games.
Xotic is a strange little game. The basis of it is to progress though levels collecting things, you do this by shooting at them which breaks them and gives you items to pick up. Running through levels destroying stuff and collecting items seems simple enough, however there are many things put in your way to slow you down though like the weird enemies in the game, such as mutant looking things and spiders seem to explode if they touch you which are really quite annoying as they keep respawning until you kill there nest. Which is something I didn't realise the first time I encountered them so I just sat killing waves of them when all I had to do was walk round the corner and blow there nest up. Then you get the likes of huge gaps you need to cross, which can be done in a number of ways depending what upgrades you have. You can sit and cross it by placing a number of platforms underneath you as you jump, this has the higher fatality rate, if you can find an upgrade in the level that gives you flight, that is the far better solution to these giant death holes. It's not so much flight but more the ability to jump after you've jumped. It seems pretty cool.
Next we have Wasteland Angel. I had heard of this game prior to getting it in this bundle, so I somewhat knew what I was getting into with this game. It is played from a top down perspective as you drive around in your car shooting stuff. The game starts you off in your car outside a town which you have to protect from waves of enemies. While this is pretty much the game, it does change it up occasionally to stop you getting bored and gives you boss battles. I've beat the first two which are big nasty armoured trucks with a couple flamethrowers attached to the front for good measure. Took me quite a while to beat it first time round, using napalm is the key for these guys. After the boss battle you get a bonus round which puts you in first person perspective. The first bonus stage was survival based, where you had to survive as long as you could while trying to get the highest score you could by shooting things. The second bonus stage was a time trial check point type race.
There are a couple of platformers in this bundle. I will start with BEEP, it's a cute little game where you play as a little robot called BEEP, hence the name. You begin in a spaceship with a number of planets around you this is the level select menu which is pretty cool. After choosing a level, it looks like you standard platformer, plenty of platforms to jump on and what have you but come equipped with a gravity gun which is very necessary as there are movable platforms, debris in your way which you can move and it can also grab things (ie collectables, which happen to be little gold nuggets) which are out of reach. You also have what I think is a BB gun which you will need as these levels are fairly hostile towards you. I have only played the first few levels and have came across a number of things that are a danger. You have robots that shoot at you, some weird flying electric fish, along with a shed load of lasers and of course plenty of holes to fall down. As I am on about stuff that kills you, if you do die I wouldn't worry too much about it as each level has regular checkpoints so you won't have far to go to get back to where you were. You also seem to have unlimited lives so dying isn't really an issue.
The other platformer in this bundle is named Sideway: New York. This has a slight twist on your average platform, which is the fact that you play as graffiti on the side of buildings. You aren't completely stuck to the wall though as you can use window ledges, drain pipes among other things to jump on. You can also spray paint your own platforms to jump up on, which is a nice touch, thought you can only do this in certain places, it is quite obvious where you can spray though. As with any platformer, it's not all fun, games and randomly jumping about, thought that is a major part of it. Of course you need stuff that will kill you, or at least to attempt to. The main enemy you come across are alien goo blob type things, there are other enemies as well such as flying paint blobs and other graffiti artists. The other graffiti artist was like a mini boss I beat the first one at the end of level 2 or 3, he paints more enemies to attack you. While he isn't too hard to beat and only takes a few jumps on the head to kill him, but the paint blobs can get annoying if you don't kill them quick enough and can become overwhelming. Just like BEEP you don't seem to have any lives so you can die as much as you want, it also has regular checkpoints as well so won't you have far to go when/if you die.
Lastly we have The Ball, I say lastly it's not quite you get a bonus game called Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals due to the bundle reaching their 3 grand goal. But that is a point and click adventure game and I am terrible at them. I did attempt that game but struggled to get out of the first room, so I'm not really the right person to talk about the game. Anyway onto The Ball. The game starts you off underground as you fell down a mineshaft. Your friends up top aren't helpful at all and just tell you to explore the cave. So as you have no other choice than sitting around for help which isn't coming anytime soon, you take a wander along the only path available which crosses a very unstable looking bridge which breaks as you cross it, so you fall down another level. Great start so far you've fell down 2 holes in just as many minutes. You then see a building ahead but before you get to it you pick up some ancient device. You can use this device to push special buttons the first of which allows you in to the building. Upon entering the building you find the ball. The device you picked up outside can be used to both push away and attract the ball depending whether you use the left or right mouse button. Once you have the ball you have to take it along with you as it helps you solve puzzles. Sounds strange I know, but as you progress there are a number of buttons to press to open doors and activate lifts. Some of these can be activated by you but some of them only work by being ran over by the ball. It's a cool game and definitely seems a worthy addition to the collection and I look forward to finishing the game off.
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