EA Indie Bundle?

Yes, thats right I used EA and indie in the same sentence. But according to Indie Game Magazine an EA Indie Bundle has been registered on Steam. Now I have always classed indie games and developers are those that are independent of publishers so by definition EA can not technically have an Indie Bundle as every game in here they are in fact publisher to and not developer. None the less they are apparently getting in on some indie game action as it seems to be quite the growing trend at the moment.

This bundle will consist of the following 6 games:

• Shank
• Shank 2
• Deathspank
• Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue
• Warp
• Gatling Gears

This bundle will cost you £14.38 saving you just over £30 if you were to buy these games at their usual price. You can also buy the games in this bundle individually if you happen to have some of the games in question already at a 50% discount of the usual price. This offer is running until the 9th of May and I would suggest if anything get Deathspank for cheap out of this. The other games I haven't played so I can't really say how good or bad they are, but Deathspank and it's sequels are awesome.

Should used games be abolished?

I was reading an article on Gamerant about how Crytek developers are in favour of the next generation consoles blocking of used games. While I understand why developers would want this to happen and would obviously be in favour of this: It could potentially lead to more sales of new games making them more money.

This has happened already on the PC side of gaming with the majority of PC games these days having some sort of DRM, be it Steam, Origin or Ubisofts always online DRM system which everyone loves to hate. The Point I'm getting to is that it seems that consoles may be taking a page out of the PCs side of the industry should rumours be true.

Since this has already happened over with the PC community and me primarily being a PC gamer, I am used to this anyway and it isn't as big of a deal to me as it is to a lot of console gamers. But due to the fact I can't buy used games on PC any more, places like Steam have realised this and took advantage with all there constant sales, now instead of buying used games I just wait until they go on sale and buy them cheap. My theory is if these rumours are true, consoles and developers should take a page out of Valves book and do something similar sale wise to keep customers happy.

At the end of the day though, I don't agree with this business practice. I'm all for companies trying to up sell their products it is a business after all and of course they need to make money. But to me this logic is ridiculous. Let's put this mentality into perspective shall we? Say I buy a brand new car, then after a while of using it I decide to sell it for whatever reason; to buy a better one, because I need the money or I just plain don't want it any more. Should the car manufacturer get a cut of my sale of a product which is rightfully mine now? No, of course they shouldn't, they set a price that they thought reasonable to make back the money the initially spent building it. Therefore after I paid said initial price the car would be mine to do whatever I please with. If I want to sell it on, destroy it, keep it forever and add to my collection, it is might right to have a choice in what I do with it as it now belongs to me. 

This logic is the same for the likes of books, dvds, furniture and damn near everything that you can physically buy. There are many places that have made businesses out of selling used goods, look at Gamestop, Love Film (renting by post, not the online version), used car lots, Blockbuster (not sure if they are in business anymore but you get my point), charity shops, eBay and the list goes on, that's just a few off the top of my head. But if you stop used goods from being sold you will destroy many businesses and cause job loses for even more people, which is exactly what we need right now (going to stop here or I will get in to a rant about politics and I can't be arsed with it). The fact of the matter is this does not happen in any other industry why should the gaming industry be the exception.

Theme Hospital

I recently bought this of GOG.com as it was only about $6 and I loved playing it as a kid. I dunno why but it seems a hell of a lot easier than I remember it being. I used to struggle to get past the first level with earthquakes but I've beat that one and got a fair few levels higher than that just since yesterday and I haven't even done the money cheat either, which used to get used a lot back in the day. There aren't enough games like this these days, the closest we have today is the bullshittery that are facebook games. I want a proper game not one I have to be friends with so many people to achieve the next level. Tycoon games are in quite a lul at the moment, sure we had the announcement of Sim City 5 recently but except that what have we had, Rollercoaster Tycoon was about 7 years ago, Hospital Tycoon was 5, Sim City 4 was about 9 and we haven't seen anything Bullfrog in over a decade. I want someone, I don't care who, to bring out a series of new Theme games with fancy new graphics. This was meant to be reminiscing about the awesomeness that was Theme Hospital, but I kind of went on a tangent. Long story short people should go buy Theme Hospital it's a great little game.

Shoot Many Robots - First Thoughts

A friend of mine suggested this game to me a while back and I am kinda glad he did, it's a fun little game. Shoot Many Robots is a side scrolling shooter and as you might have guessed by the name of the game the primary aim of the game is to shoot many robots (10,000 of them if you want the Shoot Many Robots achievement). There are many different types of robots starting with choppers which are small little robots with chainsaws attached to them which are normally found in large hordes, then we have Hummers which are annoying little flying robots that shoot rockets, then as levels progress you get bigger and harder robots in your path such as the hot rod, which is pretty much a gattling gun and can hurt quite a bit if you get the way of its barrage of gun fire and a number of others that I won't go into but you can read about here if you are interested.

The game is both single and multiplayer. The multiplayer is however just a coop version of the story mode. While playing by your self is quite fun and fairly challenging, but this game seems to me like one of those games that should be played with some buddies while having a couple of beers, it's fun, fast paced and quite chaotic. Perfect for those nights of drunken gaming.

Shoot Many Robots also has a leveling and weapon unlock system, which seem to becoming more and more of a trend with shooters these days which I'm not the greatest fan of, but I'll not get in to that rant right now. To get to the max level (50) doesn't take all that long, so long as you join in coop games on Hard or Insane difficulty, I went from level 1 to 45 in a matter of a couple hours, unlocking guns and gear on the other hand can take a fair while longer as they seem to just drop randomly in game (I believe it's when you kill the harder robots, but don't quote me on that) which you then have to buy at the store with nuts and bolts you pick up during your robot killing adventure, so getting everything would take awhile.

Overall it is a cool and fun little game definitely worth the £8 I spent on it on Steam (it is also available on XBLA and PSN and I would suggest it to others who are in the need of a distraction until that next big game they are wanting comes along.

The Spring Bundle

It's Indie Royale time and once again you can pay whatever you want for this little bundle of indieness so long as you meet the minimum which tends to stick around the £3 mark, give or take. This bundle includes the 6 following games:

• Unstoppable Gorg
• Depths of Peril
• Tobe's Vertical Adventure
• Inferno+
• Slydris
• Ballistic

All of these games are available on Desura to download, if you want Steam versions of the games you can get them for the first 3 in the list but the rest are currently not available on your favourite digital download service. But at a couple quid for 6 games you can't complain at all.

The April Fools Bundle

It's that time once again and the Indie Royale team are at it again this bundle as you may have guessed by the title is the April Fools Bundle. This bundle includes the following games:

• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Hack, Slash, Loot
• Alien Zombie Megadeath
• Explodemon
• Astro Tripper

Just like all the other bundles before it all these games are available as DRM free downloads, though you can redeem all of them through Desura, and all but Explodemon are available on Steam according to the Indie Royale site but doing a quick search in the steam store I couldn't find Hack, Slash, Loot. As usual I will once again be giving a few quid to get me some indie bundle goodness.

Orcs Must Die 2 Announced

Orcs Must Die! was one of my favourite games from last year. The idea of it is so simple but the outcome was such a fun little game. Now Robot Entertainment have announced that they will be making a sequel including all your favourite traps and enemies from the first game and many new ones as well. Not only will Orcs Must Die 2 will have a single player just as it's predecessor did but it will include a co-op mode so you can trap along side you buddies. This is probably one of the biggest complaints about the first one, the fact that it was purely single player. I didn't mind this as like I said before I loved this game and picked it up for a mere couple of quid on a steam sale some point last year, have to say was the best £3 I spent last year. I am looking forward to see a sequel to this game and hope it is good as the first. More information about the game can be found at the games website.