I’m Kinglink and I want to wish you all a Happy New Year, which means it’s time for the Humble Choice January 2024 Review. 

With it being a new year, it means Humble has a chance to start this year off with a bang, and I think this is an interesting bundle.  There’s going to be a lot of strong opinions on this one and that’s going to revolve around the titles.    

As usual I’ve played all of these titles for an hour, and once again I was able to do an eight-hour stream.  No, I didn’t spend an hour staring at the Dr. Strange Model… I probably should have compared it to a couple of these titles.

But let’s get started with the game already on screen. 

Marvel’s Midnight Suns.  X-COM with cards, and superheroes.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns sounded like it was just going to be yet another typical Marvel game, but all of that changed when Firaxis was named as the developer.  This is the company that produces the excellent X-COM games and if you immediately think it’s X-COM and Marvel… yeah it is.  For the good and bad.  

The good thing is that these heroes look like the comic book version of the characters and tend to talk like it too.  There’s good voice acting, and a high stakes story right from the beginning.  Combat is a tactical game combined with cards for actions.  Players control three characters and can move each as individuals, but there’s a lot of depth about where to move characters, and which attacks to use. 

On the other hand, the bad is there is a player self-insert that doesn’t fit the world called “the Hunter”. He or she just looks out of place.  The card combat and the tactical X-COM style will not appeal to everyone.  Also, the combat is great, and the story is good, but the side character and romance stuff are rough.   Oh, and there is a DLC and a season pass, which does have four more characters. I previously owned this game but I don’t think any of that is given away for free here. 

Pick this up if you like X-COM and want to play that with superheroes.  This also can work if you’re a fan of card games but want something much more tactical, but overall I find this to be a pretty surprisingly good game.  But that is because this feels like a game hand-created for someone like me.   Still, I enjoyed myself and I’m glad more people will get a chance to check this out. 

Two Point Campus.  Building a clown college, no literally.

Two Point Campus is the sequel to Two Point Hospital, and once again you can create the facility of your dreams.  Or at least the one that will satisfy the conditions for earning the progression stars.  Each of the twelve campuses have different rules and a few have unique situations.  Early Campuses tend to have a specific course load that you will need to pursue, but there’s still a lot of freedom given to players and the game is mostly about waiting for either money or for the school year to progress.

The downside is that as well, there’s a lot of waiting and you have to wait an entire school year to make the big, most important changes to the curriculum.  At the beginning of a year, you decide which courses to offer, and until the beginning of the following year, you’re locked in.  In addition, money comes from tuition for classes of which the size is a bit limited, so there are limitations on the income as well.  Finally, this is a management game, if this genre doesn’t appeal to you, this almost certainly won’t either. 

Pick this up if you’re a fan of Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital, Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo, Jurassic Park, or anything else where you build out attractions and then wait for NPCs to use them.  I enjoy this game and I’m looking forward to whatever Two Point does next, but I’m also a realist and know that’s not going to be everyone.

Aragami 2.  What did they do to you Aragami? 

Aragami 2 took the original stealth game, and added in Multiplayer, as well as redesigned combat that is similar to a souls-like or Batman: Arkham Knight with a focus on parries and dodges.  The levels are much more open and there are even new guards.  The story revolves around you being killed off and then being inducted into a secret shadowy society on the way to get your revenge. 

The problem is none of this works.  The move to multiplayer in a stealth game is dangerous, but I believe it’s the change to multiplayer that forced the change in combat. But instead of a dangerous and interesting stealth game, Aragami 2 just feels bland.  The open-world area takes away a big part of what made the original title stand out. 

And that’s what I thought at launch, but the good news is there’s a classic mode, and it does feel better, with a heavy focus on stealth.  Though it doesn’t fully fix the problems, and ultimately it still feels like this a game that was forced to change for the worse due to the multiplayer, but at least the studio heard the feedback and made improvements.

Pick this up if you think the original Aragami needed multiplayer so you can play with someone else, but in all honesty, I think I would just go back and play the original game, or play almost any other stealth game than this, as it doesn’t feel as good as that original title. 

Otxo. A mad shoot-out of black and white, and red all over.

Otxo and I’m trying to go by how the developer pronounced it, takes the fast-paced combat of Hotline Miami, gives the enemies bigger guns, and larger areas, and then creates a rogue-lite where players are forced to travel through 40 rooms of a mansion to save someone close to them.  There’s not a lot of plot or story, but there’s a ton of action and combat, which is the driving force of Otxo.

I don’t like this title, but I also am going to say I think it’s mostly because it’s such a fast and twitchy shooter.  The combat seems over the top but the entire time I just wanted a second to make each decision.  There is a focus mode but I needed more than that.  Mostly I found myself flailing around against enemies.   The only way I was able to find success was to line up shots to kill multiple enemies as I kicked doors open, and maybe that is the way it’s intended but it never felt natural to me. 

Pick this up if you loved Hotline Miami but wanted more guns, faster gameplay, and a rogue-lite rather than a story-based game.  I’ll be honest, I’m probably too old for this game and my reaction times have dried up, but since I never was as enamored with Hotline Miami’s gameplay, I’m not surprised I didn’t enjoy this one either. 

Roguebook. Slay the Spire while uncovering a map. 

Card-based games have stuck with the Slay the Spire formula for the longest time, and Roguebook’s battle combat is exactly what you’ve seen before.  Blocks, and various attacks as you build a deck to try to beat your way through normal enemies, elites, and bosses.  But in Roguebook there’s also a lot more map exploration allowing players to make better choices, than following a predetermined path, as well as a progression system that unlocks new benefits to the player. 

The downside is this game just feels brutal in the first few playthroughs.  Part of the process is learning what skills and cards to reach for, but the progression system feels similar to Hades, where you’re going to have to die quite often to start making progress, and in Roguebook, those deaths happen earlier at least they did to me. 

Pick this up if you aren’t burned out on Deck-builders.  There’s a fresh map system here that’s worth checking out, but this is still yet another deck builder at the end of the day.  The game also can take a second character as your support so players will mix and match their characters as they play through the game. 

The Red Lantern.  Exploring Alaska with doggos. 

If you like dogs, The Red Lantern may be the game for you.  The beginning of the game has players meet your character’s dog, Chomper.  From there you have to choose four more dogs to fill out your sled team from 9 or so stops that the player will make on the way to a sled.  Then the game officially begins with your character trying to get to the cabin with the red lantern.  This is a rogue-lite, with the main resources being your dog’s hunger and your own.  The dog’s hunger goes down as you ride on, and your hunger decreases when you explore. 

The problem is the game is more frustrating than interesting.  You’ll go through various scenarios, but eventually, you or your dogs will starve. The game is quite hard at first, but there are special actions that will be recorded in a journal, and that gives you more supplies at the beginning.  But with the initial supplies, it may be impossible to finish the game. 

That sounds like a normal rogue-lite  but the biggest problem is that on my second playthrough about half of the events were repeats from the original playthrough, and while this gave me a chance to try to fill in more of my journal, playing a third time would mean I’ve already found the optimal choices, and now was just repeating them because there’s not a lot of depth in most of these situations. 

Pick this up if you just want a game with dogs and sleds in Alaska, but I will caution people that the dogs in this game can get injured, though there is a big option in the menu to make it so dogs will always live.  Other than that, this is a really short game from what I hear, and on my second attempt, I was so close to finishing it.  Interesting concept but this needed a lot more content.

Hell Pie.  Hell no.

Hell Pie has you play the Demon of Bad Taste, and Satan calls you randomly and tells you to go tell the chef, he wants his pie.  That act somehow has you roped into helping get the ingredients for the pie, which also involves you picking up a cherub and platforming through various levels.  The game tries to be humorous while giving players large levels to explore and search out various items that act as the goal for the player. 

But this humor is so bad, you’ve already seen a demon’s butt, but that’s hardly the worst.  There are so many cringe-worthy and depressing jokes.  This game isn’t funny if you’re older than a teenager and probably not even that funny for them either.  Yet it is the type of humor constantly on display.  The levels too aren’t that exciting and even when they are, it’s just crass humor at best. 

Pick this up if you want a weaker version of A Hat in Time or Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but let me also say I’ve heard this game compared to both of those, and honestly, I’m offended, this is so much weaker it shouldn’t be in the same sentence as those titles.  The gameplay isn’t awful, but the writing and level design make this hard to accept.  All I could think is how Demon Turf has a similar theme with a focus on Hell, but better gameplay and writing. 

Twin Mirror.  Another unique story from DONTNOD.

DONTNOD is a company best known for Life Is Strange and Life is Strange 2, but also Remember Me, Vampyr, and Tell Me Why.  Twin Mirror fits in with Life is Strange, and Tell Me Why introduces players to Sam, an investigative journalist who returns to town due to his best friend dying though there is a clear estrangement. 

But Twin Mirrors is like most DONTNOD Games where it sets up a compelling story and interesting characters early on, as well as hinting at larger and deeper truths.  In the first hour, all I can think about is how I want to know more and unravel some of the larger stories here, and also I will say around an hour in there’s a huge moment, which opens up a ton of new questions. 

On the other hand, this is a narrative adventure… AKA “Choices matters game” as Telltale makes, and I’ve seen enough of these to tell you, that your choices won’t truly matter, it might change the path but there’s almost always going to be one or two possible endings in the final chapter, which isn’t a bad thing, considering when choices do matter and are spread out over the entire game, that means a 6-hour replay to see a slightly different scene.   Also, some of the targeting on this game was a little frustrating, hopefully, those were only issues early on.  Finally, the mind palace idea sounds great, but then there was a rather weak running down a corridor challenge that was quite bad.

Pick this up if you like DONTNOD’s previous work. As I said, their character development and how they build mysteries is a big selling point here, and I’m curious how it pays off, but I also get why some people aren’t huge fans of this genre, and that’s ok too. 

And that’s what we have this month.  8 titles, but before we get into my opinion let’s check IsThereAnyDeal.com.  And yeah, of course, there is.  I pulled these values during Steam’s Winter Sale, that’s just when this came out, but even so, Marvel’s Midnight Suns have never been lower than 17, Aragami 2 is currently hovering at 12, and 3 more have been at around 8 dollars or higher at their lowest.   

As for the rebundles, The Red Lantern was just in Yogcast’s Jingle Jam last month.  But Hell Pie and Twin Mirrors were previously in Humble Bundle’s bundles, and come on Humble, that means these are repacked, and that’s not great for Humble Choice.  Give us fresh games, at least fresh games to your bundles. 

But I think the question this month is more about genres.  This is a tactical, management, rogue-lite, or narrative month.  These aren’t going to be the biggest genres, but if any of those are your favorite there should be something good here for you.   Again if you’re someone holding out for the big 60-dollar title, Midnight Suns is one but like always it’s going to be about what you want to play. 

With that said, let’s look at the tier lists, and this month we have our old trusty four tiers.  Games worth the Whole Bundle price, Serious contenders for the price, Average titles, and Misses.  As always I remind you this is about recommendations based on enjoyment or replayability, not simply value. 

And I thought quite a bit about this, but I don’t technically think I can say any game is a miss this month.  It was close though. 

The game closest to the border is Hell Pie. At the bottom of the Average tier, this one just wasn’t for me, but I also don’t think it’s a good enough game for anyone else.  The collect-athon genre isn’t the strongest as it’s been, but you can always go back and play those older games, and they’re going to be a lot better than this. 

Following that is The Red Lantern.  I want to love this game, like I said, if you just want to hang out with dogs, this can work.  But honestly, I feel like I’ve seen a large part of this game already, and I don’t want to replay it to try to min-max the scenes I have seen.  Good concept but needs a lot more content, and maybe fewer monologues from the main character.

Then we have Aragami 2.  The one thing that’s saving this game in my mind is Classic Mode and the fact that some people will enjoy the combat.  But not me, and as a stealth game, this one is pretty disappointing.   Like I said, play the original instead of this. 

Then we have Otxo. Yeah, unlike the rest of the average games I would recommend this but I don’t know how much people would want this, because it all hinges on very fast paced twitch shooting.  It has an audience and I understand, I just don’t like it at all and would have stopped playing long before my hour was up,  Grandpa gamer moments. 

Back in my day… we got to the middle of the list and I showed you how it looked so far, which is what I’m gonna do today too.  

Alright enough silly voices but that’s how we look so far, a lot of titles in the average tier, but the rest are split over the next two tiers, so let’s keep going. 

The bottom of the Strong Contenders is Roguebook.  This one is pretty hard to start but the unlockables give me hope that each run can be a little easier, or maybe I’ll start understanding more of the game as I go along.  Either way, it’s worth a look if you like the genre.

The top of the Strong Contenders is … Twin Mirror.  I have hope for this title, and the reason it’s the top is I’m considering playing more of this just to see how the story turns out.  A good character is a good character no matter the genre.

With this we have the two headliners left, so we can look at the Tier List or we can just get on with it.  Let’s take a look…. 

Ok let’s get on with it, at the bottom of the Full Bundle tier, it’s Two Point Campus.  I love what Two Point has done and Two Point Campus is a fun and interesting game to me, I understand why people won’t like it, but if you have any interest, it’s easily worth the price of Humble Choice.   

This leaves only one game, and as much as I enjoy others, It’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns.  Yes, I don’t like being the main character, however, I’m hanging around with some of my favorite Superheroes, and Ironman, too.  There’s good gameplay, and the main story does seem interesting.  Fighting an even more powerful Venom was a great start to this game. 

And this is how the final tier list looks after all of that.  I’m pretty happy with the top of that list, but I do notice that half was in the Average tier. 

Now I don’t have an alternative bundle like usual but allow me to do a little housekeeping. At this time of year, I try to do a “Best of the previous year, and I think I’m going to skip it this year, but I’ll just name the best Humble Choice game.   

There’s one title, I would call not one of the best games of the year, but maybe one of the best, and many critics agree.  It’s Disco Elysium.  That along with that month is easily my favorite.  No, there’s no scientific method here, it’s just a damn great headline, and that’s all it took to win my head-to-head comparisons

In addition, allow me to talk about the best games I played last year, there are only a couple that reach the top but Neon White and Hi-Fi Rush are the two that come to mind that definitely should be checked out by more people.  Hi-Fi Rush was robbed for Best Soundtrack on numerous top lists, Neon White came out in 2022, so yeah, that’s last year’s problem. 

Finally, I did mention last year I’m donating all the channel’s revenue to the San Diego Wildlife Foundation. I’ve done that and doubled the revenue to save some animals.  It’s not a lot but it is everything this channel earned, and I’m paying out of my own pocket to get thumbnails made so yeah… I’m not good at running this channel for profit. 

With that all said, thanks for watching, thanks for supporting, and like I said at the beginning, please have a happy 2024, or whatever year you watch this.   I will be trying to put out a couple more videos this month. If you want to see what’s going on or what I’m working on, consider subscribing and ringing that bell.  I’ll put up the old video here, on Dolphin, but new stuff is right around the corner, and I’m very excited to talk about more. 

See you next time.