Final week of the GG summer sale, and it looks like it's Indie week, so lots of cheap games of dubious quality:
A Kingdom for Keflings
£5.09 /
$6.79
It's a bit of a strange one. You're a giant who has decided to help the keflings (elves) build a town, in a strange mashup of Black & White and The Settlers. Multiplayer allows you to co-operate with up to three friends to build the town. There's a time limited trial available
here to assuage the curious.
Beat Hazard
£2.79 /
$3.99
It's a top down asteroids style shooter, but with the twist that the entire level is built from one of your music tracks. And I do mean the entire level, everything from the enemy waves to boss spawns and even your firepower are derived from the music, which is great fun when you face one of the larger bosses during a quiet bit.
The number of enemies is fairly limited, however the fact that so much depends on the music track makes up for it in terms of longevity. There's also two modes available; single track lets you fight through a single music track, survival lets you pick a music directory and try to hold out for as long as possible.
Well worth it at this price.
Flotilla
£2.71 /
$3.39
Superb turn based 3D space adventure game, in the vein of Infinite Worlds. You're the captain of a ship with a strange terminal disease. Each turn you select a star to fly to where adventure will befall you, usually for reasons better known by the devs at the behest of talking animals. It may be you find stowaways on board and must decide what to do with them, or you may find another ship or artefact to equip on your fleet, or more often than not it'll involve a turn based battle in a true 3D space.
The battles are superbly executed, with you moving your ships in full 3D in an attempt to gain some kind of advantage against the enemy. Ships are weaker hit on the rear or underbelly, and every different ship has different weapons with their own effects. The adventure is humerous with sufficient adventures randomly shuffled every game to prevent boredom setting in, and the game is well paced with each 'story' taking about half an hour to complete (don't let the name fool you though, it's a purely random universe configuration each game). There's also a battles mode that lets you set up two fleets to pit against each other. Thoroughly recommended.
The Path
£2.51 /
$3.99
Oh no, it's an art game. Although it's not as bad as the ones which usually carry that monicker. It's a coming of age horror in which you have various girls (little red riding hoods) you must guide to Grandma's house. Except if you do stick to the path and reach the house, you lose the game.
The girls will comment on things they come across in the forest, and each interacts in different ways with various different vignettes you come across (by leaving the controls for a minute or so). It's certainly thought provoking, though a couple of gameplay issues mar it (the short burst run and generally slow movement of the girls makes crossing the sizeable distance between locations a chore), but if you're into more cerebral fodder you'll probably appreciate it.
Zombie Driver
£1.99 /
$2.49
Take a variety of vehicles. Add weapons. Set loose in a zombie infested town. Have fun. It's an excellent mix of driving and shooting for an incredibly low price. There's a 17 mission campaign which allows you to unlock various vehicles and weapons, and an endless survival mode which is a race for the scoreboard. A nice variety in the zombies keep things interesting too. Highly recommended.
The Golden Horde
£4.49 /
$9.99
It's the 13th Century and Genghis Khan has just died, leaving his heirs to duke it out with the Russians and Teutonic knights for what remains of Hungary. This is a fairly standard RTS, complete with base building, but the gimmick this time is that you choose what weapons and armour to equip your troops with. Give them a bow and a horse and you've got a horsebowman; give them a bow, a horse and some captured plate armour and you've got a horsebowman in plate armour.
You can create templates to churn out standardised designs, but the epic scope of the game leaves ample time to fiddle. In fact the pacing is really the main problem; the maps are huge, building is slow and capturing buildings seems to take forever. The objectives throughout the campaign are sufficiently varied to be interesting, but there's always a slow build up at the start while you get your base set up which can get off putting (think - starting Empire Earth in the earliest age when all you can build are workers).
Fate of Hellas
£4.99 /
$4.99
By the same developer and released simultaneously with Golden Horde, this time we're back in BC in ancient Greece, with the Spartans, Macedonians, Egyptians and Persians to play with. Again, killing and looting the foe plays a part, except this time you can also swipe their chariots.
Besieger
£2.24 /
$4.99
I've not actually played this, but apparently it's a slightly more simple Stronghold with fantasy elements. Or in other words, probably what Stronghold Legends wishes it could have been.
Emberwind
£3.39 /
$4.07
A platformer which I've never played on account of not liking them. The reviews suggest it is good however.
Braid
£3.19 /
$3.99
See above. People seem to rave about this one for some reason.
Full list
here (UK) or
here (US)
