Groupees ‘Be Mine 4′ Bundle Might Just Have Hit The Bottom Of The Barrel
I know I’ve been fairly critical of some indie bundles lately, especially those from Indie Gala, which have very much stretched the definition of ‘Indie’ by featuring a great many games from prolific publisher BitComposer Games. This, though… well, it’s just impressive to see the greatest indie bundle (the last major Humble Bundle) so quickly followed by the worst. Introducing the Groupees Be Mine 4 bundle.
What we have here is a mediocre-to-poor set of games topped off by a catastrophic stinker. Zero Gear is a fairly generic kart racer with pretty graphics, but plagued by control issues and crippled netcode, which is fairly inexcusable when you’re releasing a multiplayer-centric game. Dead multiplayer seems to be order of the day here with Guns of Icarus, which is an interesting defensive team shooter where you’ll be lucky to find another person playing. As a solo experience, it’s a hollow and frustrating experience, sadly.
Metal Drift continues this theme by being a fairly interesting concept once more – future sports in hovertanks – but also being yet another multiplayer-centric commercial game with absolutely nobody playing it. You can find far better both in the free and F2P spheres. Laxius Force is the great unknown here – a JRPG-esque game which honestly looks like it was produced with RPG Maker (those menus are eerily familiar) – and with sub-par art, but the few reviews I’ve been able to find of it have actually been fairly positive, which is a surprise. It’s the first part of a trilogy, apparently.
But really, the one thing that brings everything crashing horribly down here is Revelations 2012. A game that made people ask some big questions, such as ‘How did this get approved for a Steam release!?’ or ‘Why has God forsaken us?’. Essentially an indie clone of Left4Dead, but with a rather questionable Meso-American theme. Four badly rendered, badly acted modern-day Americans battle an endless tsunami of painted, loincloth-wearing natives in order to stave off the prophesied apocalypse apparently due later this year.
It bears repeating that Revelations 2012 is bad. It has become a regular point of mockery around the internet, and the only positive review anyone could find for the game was on a site run by a personal friend of the developers, and that was apparently established just before the release of the game. The game uses Valve’s own Source engine, which helps put Valve’s own efforts into perspective. The animations are terrible, the single weapon model (some kind of glowing neon magical power-glove) is astonishingly bad, the textures are blurry and the game, being multiplayer-focused, is even more of a train-wreck in singleplayer. I’ve heard that it’s literally impossible to beat the game by yourself, as the AI allies that you get will just refuse to shoot at the final boss.
The only real icing on the cake here is that a purchase of $5 or more gets you an early access key for the upcoming Guns Of Icarus Online, the even more multiplayer-oriented followup/sequel. In all honesty, if you want to support charity, it’s best to go straight to the source. I really can’t recommend this bundle to anyone, unless you plan on giving the Revelations 2012 Steam key to people you hate. That, I suppose, could have some inherent comedy value. Still, it’s sad to see this bundle being just so very weak, especially after their previous offering included some genuinely great games, including the fantastic Avernum series on Steam. Avoid.
