I’m Kinglink and it’s September 2022, which means of course it’s the Humble Choice September 2022 Review 

This month, I feel like I’m seeing double, I’ve reviewed half of these games previously but like always I give them another shot and will tell you which games are worth playing and which games you might want to skip. The good news is there are some hot titles here, the bad news, a few of these are a bit niche, even if they are good. 

I’ve played each title for an hour to remember what these games were like and figure out the positives, the negatives, and the target audience, and now I’m here to report what I’ve found and how the bundle is. 

But before we talk about that, let’s dive into some games. Let’s start with….

Crusader Kings 3. This is a true Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. 

Crusader Kings is an interesting franchise, you’ll start as a monarch somewhere, but the game randomizes events and actions so every game feels different. You’ll run your country, but be able to constantly work with your court, for or against other countries, going to war, joining others, and leading your men to victory, valor, or prize. There are a lot of complex systems here, and a ton to do. Exactly what you expect from Paradox Interactive 

Which is also a negative. I’ve talked about games where you’ll be spending up to 20 hours just to understand the game and this is one of them, but if you enjoy this you’ll be playing for hundreds of hours. At the same time, this is a very open-ended game without a real victory condition so the goal is to make your own fun, which is why I call it a true Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. 

Pick this up if you want to rule a country, and make decisions. You can do everything from marrying your vassals to other families, befriending people, and even trying to murder your wife, though personal experience, that didn’t go so well and trust me, the only reason was there’s an achievement for it. If you want to live as a feudal king, this is the best way to go about it. 

I will make a quick mention, that there is a bit of controversy regarding the pricing of the DLC of this game of which some have just doubled in price. It doesn’t hurt the game, but maybe something to consider.

Just Cause 4. Let’s blow something up. 

Just Cause tries to tell a story about a dictator, that a CIA operative named Rico Rodriguez has to come to town to take down..  Eh, sure, that’s a good enough reason. Just Cause 4 is about the explosions. Go into an area, kill enemies, blow up a lot of stuff, and take over the world one area at a time. The explosions though are so much fun that even replaying this after having beaten it previously, it just is fun to destroy as much of the world as you can. 

But Just Cause 4 isn’t a great shooty bang bang game with tons to blow up. The graphics are hit or miss, and the story is hopefully forgettable. There’s no difficulty options and this game can get quite challenging at times. But again, even with all that, you have your wingsuit, your parachute, and tons of weapons so you can rain down the fires of hell on enemies which is always fun. 

Pick this up if you want to see some stuff explode because this delivers on it if the video is any clue. At the same time, I love Just Cause 2 and Just Cause 3, but Just Cause 4 never scratched that same itch. Likely because of the lack of collectible nature to destroy everything. It’s probably in between those two games though, and I gave this title a 3/5 a couple of years ago when I reviewed it. However, at the price of the Choice, it’s worth it if you just want some extreme action. 

You also get the complete edition, so even if you have the Reloaded edition, it may be worth it to redeem the key for all the DLC. 

The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos. D&D humor for good or bad. 

I hate this game’s name because I’m sure I’m butchering it but Dungeon of Unnecessarily long name is based on a French D&D podcast of a similar name, though obviously in French. A group of 7 adventures go into a colorful dungeon and work their way through a series of encounters with the goal of loot, loot, and more loot. The combat here is good, and the progression of the game will keep the player engaged, with one of the party members usually being swapped out for a visiting character. There’s English voice acting that sometimes works, though I’m showing one that didn’t. 

The real problem is the humor and writing here aren’t great. If you’re a fan of the podcast, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this title, and if you love D&D jokes, you’ll probably get a kick out of this, however, I struggle with this. I played this for Game Pass, but replaying it now made me realize the core issue. These are not new jokes,   A custodian named Jan Hitor, a dwarf shouting “Nothing goes over my head”, Dwarves and Elves fighting, a cowardly thief… Someone likes these jokes as the game is popular, but I found them tired. 

Pick this up if you like the comedy, though I recommend you watch someone play this for half an hour and then make a decision. Some people like this, but personally, I didn’t enjoy either playing for four hours or playing it again here. On the other hand, if you do like the humor the tactical gameplay is great, and there are four different difficulties so there should be the right challenge for however you want to play this game. 

Forgive Me Father. Spooky scary monsters, and the guns to kill them

Forgive Me Father is a retro horror FPS but with a great graphical style and a lot of interesting enemies. At first, it seems like a typical zombie shooter but after headshoting one of the zombies, they took the head they were carrying and placed it on them, and kept coming. There are a lot of fresh ideas throughout this game. Even something as weak as a “Foggy area” works well here, and gets the blood pumping. 

On the other hand, After seeing four different enemies, the game just kept throwing them at me over and over. There’s probably more but it was often similar. The story is there to have some collectibles to find, but this is much more on the combat. There’s also not much horror here, though it does have a horror aesthetic, you should have enough ammo to just tear through enemies rather than being afraid of some terror. 

Pick this up if you like retro FPSes. This is well-designed, and the music is awesome. The gameplay is fast-paced, and I had a blast. There is even leveling with skill points which aren’t needed but also didn’t upset me as much as I expected. However, it’s not that scary, to the point where I could easily come back and plunk down even more hours into the game. 

Crown Trick. An almost rogue-like rogue-lite.

Crown Trick is exactly what I like from both rogue-related genres. There’s a turn-based aspect, a lot more strategy than action, and a great dungeon with discoveries to be made around every corner. Crown Trick shines with its art style and the combat is great. This is more of a puzzle game than a hack and slash, as the player is given a serious number of advantages early on such as the ability to just blink away a few squares without even using a move, which also allows players to avoid damage, or use interesting strategies. 

The downside is this is also a rogue-lite so expect long deep dungeon dives.  I played my first run on this for almost forty minutes. I previously played and beat the first dungeon on Game Pass, and enjoyed myself both times. However, because of the number of abilities the player will have at one time, there can be a bit of analysis paralysis or over-analysis that may happen when players are presented with a problem. While it’s similar to a rogue-like, there are also forms of upgrades and progression outside of the dungeon itself, as players unlock more of the game. 

Pick this up if you like turn-based rogue-lites on a grid. This is very similar to The Pit, or a bit easier and more friendly than ADOM from last year, but it’s a game I’m super thrilled to add to my library because it’s so well made, and I want to see more of the dungeons, bosses, and creations. 

Descenders. Rogue-lite multiplayer Tony Hawk-style extreme speed, yes all of that.

Descenders is amazing. You’ll have a randomized world that allows you to explore different courses, earn a point system called “Rep”, discover different challenges in different courses, and also can see other players, but not directly be affected by them. There’s a lot to like here, the extreme speed, the ease of stunts and tricks. I automatically just pop off a Backflip almost every time I jump. 

I only got through the first of the four locations, and then there were also additional challenges. I need to work on what’s known as the Boss Jump because I kept biffing over and over, and it’s the one piece that always shows up. There’s a great design at the core of this game, and this instantly hooked me into wanting to explore more and more of this experience.

Pick this up if you want an extreme sports game. This would be better if you play in a party, and in multiplayer, each person enters the same map but can go different routes, and I don’t believe can interfere with each other. However the experience here is sublime, and I am probably going to play more of it before this weekend. 

Industria. A walking simulator with puzzles and shooting. 

During my first half hour of Industria, I assumed this was just a simple walking simulator. While the game has difficulty levels, the game is mostly about exploration and even in the later sections, it appears exploration is the goal of the game. As time goes on there are puzzles and enemies but nothing that would be too hard, at least this early. 

However this is a 4 hour game, and people do say on harder difficulties the AI is still very easy. The story is interesting at first, but after teleporting to another world the narrative didn’t grab me as much as being in Berlin as the Wall was being torn down. 

Pick this up if you are up for shooting, puzzles, and a lot of walking. I imagine this will appeal to some people, but after an hour I wasn’t feeling a strong desire to return. I know this is made by a small team, but I feel like the story is the place that could have been enhanced, and I similarly wonder if the shooting was necessary 

Shapez. A manufacturing factory simulator but using simple shapes

The gameplay of Shapes may look common to players who have played games such as Factorio and Satisfactory, and that’s because it is. You build a sprawling factory that continues to need to pull in more resources to create complex production lines to satisfy the current level’s needs, and each time you beat a level, the game leaves your factory and just keeps asking you to create something different or new. There are no enemies and no cost, so players can just build their lines to their heart’s desire. There’s also what feels like almost an infinite amount of area to build out towards.

This looks a little simple to play, but the challenge will come from optimizing designs, building larger features, and trying to create exactly what’s being requested. The game tells you this isn’t an idle game, and that’s true, no matter what you’re working on you can improve and increase the flow of items. There are also new pieces of machinery to unlock, and upgrades you can gain that increase the efficiency of different pieces. 

Pick this up if you like Factorio or Satisfactory, this is a very similar game but without the combat, it also feels unique. If you haven’t tried those games, you should, but this is also in that same area as Zachtronics titles, where the goal is more puzzling out more efficient ways to do tasks. Which means this game is perfect for me. I first played this when the developer released an early version of the game on r/incremental_games and loved it. 

In addition, you get the puzzle DLC with this, and that’s user-created puzzles, usually focused on how to create certain designs in extremely limited space. These are more thought puzzles than efficiency related, but they are a great addition to this title as well. 

And while that’s eight games, this month, we get a bonus game, not from the Humble Game Collection, but from Humble Choice itself. There’s a DRM-free title which is this… 

High Sidin’: Hyphy Edition. Our first bonus game in about 6 monthes

So even though it’s a bonus game, Humble didn’t put a lot of information out about this. I’ll try to do my best. This is the second game that Humble commissioned from Gameheadz, the studio behind The Groundz, a rather terrible Dodgeball game from Humble Choice’s October 2021 offering. This title has been given a lot longer to bake as it was originally announced along with the deal in 2020, and the extra time shows. 

It’s a rhythm game where players have to do dance moves and hit the buttons in time with the music. There are only a handful of dance moves in the game, and players will have to tap them out to ensure they can properly wow the crowd over their opponents. The animations are good, the music is acceptable, and there’s a good idea here. 

But this is also a simplistic concept, one that would have likely been on Newgrounds or Kongregate only a couple of years ago. The game becomes extremely challenging after four rounds but there wasn’t a big incentive to play and the gameplay systems didn’t mesh as well as I would have hoped to make it worth playing over and over. 

Check this out if you pick up the bundle. These young game devs deserve a chance, and this is a far better game than the previous title, however, it’s probably better that this is a DRM-free bonus game instead of one of the titles, But to these developers, I’d say, keep up the good work, this may not have knocked it out of the park, but there’s a solid concept here and a lot of talent shows on this title 

I’ll be calling that my bonus game, I don’t know if any additional games were added to the Humble Game Collection, however MoonScars, a new Humble Games published title will be released on Humble Game Collection on day one around the end of the month, and if you’re interested in that one and buy the Choice, you get to play it for free as long as you have a Humble Choice subscription. I’ll likely cover it for next month’s collection, one way or another. 

As for this bundle overall, I came into it a bit conflicted. Crusader Kings 3, Dungeon of you know, and Just Cause 4 are not high on my list of favorite games. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s not as big a problem here. 

You see, I wouldn’t want to pay 60 for Just Cause 4, Crusader Kings 3, or that Dungeon game, but I’m not here. Humble Choice goes for 12 dollars and for that price most of the games this month are rather good. I wasn’t sure if I’d like Forgive Me Father but ended up having a good time even with a horror game, so there’s a lot to like. 

I’d probably be very happy if this is how Humble looked from now on. Games that you might not pay full price for but will gladly pick up for a couple of bucks, and this lineup delivers. 

As I played the games I considered how to rank them, and I realized there’s an important part of the equation, ultimately how the games stack up for value. Getting Crusader Kings that can go for 50 dollars for 12 is a better deal than getting Crown Trick which goes for 20 dollars, and currently is in a bundle on Fanatical for 5. 

So with that being said, let’s see what the titles are, and this month we’re going with the fast food choices. Your Combo Meal, Just the Sandwich and the Bag Fries, I don’t need to explain what those are, do I? 

Starting from the bottom, we’ll check the bottom of the bag we find Industria. Industria isn’t a bad game, but it’s also not that great a title either, it’s a small game made by a small team, and it’s probably the only game I wouldn’t return to this month. That’s why it’s down here. 

Though I will say it’s great that there’s only one game in the bottom category this month. 

Moving to our Just the Sandwich Category. The Filet-O-Fish is represented by the Dungeon of Naheulbeuk. The reason it’s here is that people will like the comedy, and if that’s the case, this can easily move to the top of this category. Maybe even to the Combo Meal, but I’m not a fan of this one even if it’s the most personal opinion I’ve ever had on a game. 

Next up is our stand-in for the Classic Beef and Cheddar Sandwich from Arby’s And that’s in the form of Forgive Me Father, this is a fast-paced shooter and it looks great while doing it. The gameplay was fun, and I’m curious where else the story will take the player. Granted it is still doing the arenas of monsters, but the enemies here feel fair and interesting. Also, check out that enemy replacing their head. Very cool.

Now we have the one, the only, Double Double from In-N-Out. And for this we have Shapez. Listen, this is my list and I’m going to place Shapez right here. It’s a fun game, and I definitely will be back to play more, and see how far I can go in this factory maker. I love this genre whatever it’s called and am glad to see this title on the Choice. Give it a shot, you’ll probably enjoy it. 

This brings us to The Spicy Deluxe at Chick Fil A, and for this title we have Descenders. This high-speed game gets my adrenaline going and tricking off the ramps never stopped being fun. There’s a good challenge as well, tons to do, and similar to Shapez I’m looking forward to playing more.

And at the top of Just a sandwich, can we even call it that?  It’s the Double Double Animal Style, and that is paired with Crown Trick. This is a good lengthy rogue-lite, with a great graphical style, excellent combat, and an interesting game. I’ve already put in several hours on Game Pass and I’m thrilled that I now own it myself. 

And that’s Just The Sandwich. That’s six titles so far, with only two to go, not a bad list at all, but we may have seen better, so let’s talk about the final category. And here we’re talking about Combo Meals. 

We’re starting at the bottom with the Wendy’s Four for Four dollars with a frosty, which is represented by Crusader Kings 3. If you like this game, it’ll last you for a couple of years, if you don’t, you might still put in a decent amount of time to figure that out. The open-ended nature is the make-or-break feature, but there are a lot of people who go crazy for this one. 

And the best of the best is Taco Bell’s Three Soft Taco Supreme with a Baja Blast, or Just Cause 4. They’ll both be equally explosive. As I said, I gave this a 3/5 but for 12 bucks, I’d find something fun to do in this for many hours. I played it for 25 hours, and haven’t finished everything yet. Even replaying this for the video has made me consider returning, which I’m surprised at. I might if I didn’t delete my save to get footage of the first couple of missions. Oops.

So this how the final list looks, and that’s my tier list. So let me know what you think in the comments. Which did I miss, where would you have put the McRib, and is it just me, or is Raising Cane’s not that good?   

But that’s what I have for you all, remember if you like this consider subscribing. And this month I already covered four of these titles on the channel, and three of them from Game Pass videos, so if you want to try to guess at what’s coming soon, check out my Game Pass videos, and if you just want to be able to see the next Humble Choice video first, well, turning on notifications is the best way to find out. 

I’ll pop up my Just Cause 4 review, and some other videos for you to check out. 

See you next time.