I’m Kinglink, it’s the spooky time of year, so that means it’s time for the Humble Choice October 2023 Review.

I normally wouldn’t point out that it’s Halloween month, but this month’s selection seems to be a bit themed.  However, we’ll talk about that at the end.  As always we have 8 titles to talk about, and an interesting mix this month.  I’ve played them on stream and am now ready to tell you about them and let you know if you should check them out. 

Let’s get started with the game already on screen.  

The Quarry. A Slasher movie which is also a game. 

Supermassive Games is a studio that’s been in Humble before with the Dark Pictures Anthology which we’ll talk about in two minutes.  The Quarry is a spiritual successor to their biggest game, Until Dawn.  This screams slasher movie, and while I always say I’m a scaredy cat for horror, this is great.  There’s so much atmospheric pressure here, amazing use of lighting, and a few moments where the game had me on edge, but I was enthralled with it rather than scared or bored.

That being said.  This is still a Supermassive Game, by that I mean it’s a game where players are going to be making choices rather than directly playing the game.  QTEs rear their ugly head, and passing or failing them can change the story.  Some of the writing is a little cornball, it’s a slasher-type movie after all, and there’s a mode that doesn’t require any input, called movie mode, where you can choose the outcome before you start the game.  You don’t even have to play the game the first time to watch it.  Odd. 

Though this is a game where choices matter, at least enough choices that you’ll be able to potentially replay it if you want to.  Everything appears to be well done, with great acting so far, and one thing I always forget to mention on their games is you can play this multiplayer, at least local multiplayer this time, or just watch someone else play it. Though this is more intended to be a movie with minimal interaction, than a game with a movie presentation.

Pick this up if you like slasher movies, horror movies, Supermassive games, or just want a unique story-driven experience.  There are a lot of intense moments with this title, but there hasn’t been too much pure terror yet, to the point that I’m honestly going to play through this one, and I don’t play any horror titles.  Maybe a bad sign for the game, but good for me. Though who knows what will happen after a little more runtime.

Metal: Hellsinger. Rocking the devil’s house. 

Metal Hellsing is an FPS and a rhythm game.  Players will want to try to shoot, reload, and dash on the beat to build their combo and enhance their damage.  Doing both will also help build up fury.  It’s a fast-paced arena shooter, only enhanced by the music.  With layered musical tracks, each tier of fury brings more of the musical accompaniment, and that pushes players to master the mechanics. I might even say this has better music than Doom, and that’s a high bar. 

That being said, if you don’t have rhythm this is going to be frustratingly hard.  In addition, I think the best part of this game is the music and when I challenged myself when playing on Game Pass, it meant the music wasn’t as good due to the music layering.  However, playing on easy might not be acceptable for other people, but it’s what I recommend for novices.  Also, while the game looks great, the bosses all are the same design though a different move set, which was disappointing. 

Pick this up if you like FPSes and heavy metal.  If you enjoyed BPS this is perfect for you, but even if you didn’t love it, I know I didn’t, this one may still surprise you.  That being said, if you don’t like this type of music, this is an instant pass. 

Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.  A gory horror game. 

House of Ashes is what Dark Pictures Anthology has become known for.  A horror-style game, with a strong story, interesting characters, and complicated relationships between them. Player choices affect how each character will act in the future, and players will also be able to explore the environments as part of the story.  The writing is good like much of the series, and the concept is interesting, especially with the main game being about soldiers trying to capture WMDs after the fall of Saddam Hussein 20 years ago in Baghdad.  Yeah, that’s 20 years ago, Damn.

However, House of Ashes feels a little weak when it comes to some graphics and animations.  I think at least one character has an elongated neck I can’t stop noticing.  A few animations have characters looking off in a strange direction, that should have an establishing shot before it.   There’s a cinematic style to the first section of the game with the horror that seems forgotten in the next section, and I hope it’s just that part of the game. 

Pick this up if you like monster movies, horror, Supermassive Games, or Want a unique story-driven experience.  Yeah, this is also very similar to The Quarry as well, and all the previous Dark Pictures Anthology games such as Man of Medea and Little Hope.  If you haven’t played any of those, maybe it’s worth checking them out first. 

Rebel Inc: Escalation.  A board game about stabilizing a country. 

Rebel Inc. is from the same studio that did Plague Inc but uses similar mechanics this time to find a completely different concept.  This time around you’re trying to stabilize a country, forced to buy improvements, fight against insurgents, and avoid losing public reputation.  It’s a lot of different mechanics that meld together.  It’s more strategic planning than direct actions.  Though Rebel Inc. does have players control armies when fighting insurgents, which is an active role. 

That being said, I’m not sold on this game yet.  I won one game and lost another, but it feels like it’s more about knowing the order to buy things than anything.  The combat is interesting but can be frustrating as you need to herd the enemy into killing zones, as they always flee if given opportunities.  However since they’re the big danger, it feels great when you beat them and the board basically will flip to success. 

Pick this up if you like board games or Plague Inc.’s evolution style.  I think this might be a step back, but it’s still entertaining and far more active than I was expecting.  There’s a decent number of maps and many different variants to each stage, depending on what loadout you choose, as well as tracking how you have done with each leader in each stage, so completionists may have a lot to do. 

Spirit of the Island. A Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing Hybrid with more story, possibly. 

Spirit of the Island starts with the player shipwrecked on an island but quickly turns into a resource management game. This starts like a survival game talking about water, food, and sleep, but all of those are so plentiful, it’s more like a game of Stardew Valley with a few more complications.  However the graphics differentiate this title, but once the player talks to the elder of a nearby town, Spirit of the Island’s differences become more apparent.  With multiple islands to visit, a story at the core of the game, and a more lively and well-defined town, it’s pretty obvious that even though it takes inspiration from a lot of games, this is a unique take on the cozy game genre. 

On the other hand, you’ve done most of this before.  Chop down trees, Grow food, collect resources, do quests, and build relationships.  While the story may be worth it, this does feel like a game I’ve seen many times before, and I haven’t seen enough of the story to differentiate it, especially when the game just waves its hand at three islands and says “Go after those pirates” 

Pick this up if you need a new Cozy game.  This isn’t a bad choice, and would be enjoyable but I already have at least 8 life simulators that I could play so this one feels like it’ll go on top of a stack of games I might not play. Still, if that’s your genre, this is pretty solid. 

Lords and Villeins.  Become a lord, with the worst vassals possible. 

Lords and Villeins has the player acting like a leader who can divide up a kingdom, create houses, parcel out the land, and decide what goes on.  You build your city by designing zones, filling them with blueprints, and giving the household the materials to construct those blueprints.  There are a lot of levels here, and just the first one took me the entire hour.  

However, after that hour, I would have put down the game no matter what.  None of the NPCs seems to have a single thought in their head.  You have to give them the materials for everything, you can’t just have them pull from the big warehouse, instead, you’re expected to grant or gift them items, potentially selling goods so they can build the blueprints you’ve demanded.  I get this might be an attempt to replicate how the lord fiefdom system worked, and why it was bad, but it just is all micromanagement with very little payback.  Perhaps later there’s a way to automate this, but it really should have been taught in that first mission because without that, the game is quite annoying. 

Don’t pick this one up.  I know there’s a strong community out there, but there’s a strong community for a lot of games.  It reminds me a lot of Amazing Cultivation Simulator or what I’ve heard Rimworld is like, but also done in such a way I get more frustrated than feeling I have agency.  Also, a lot of that hour was spent speeding up time because things take entirely too long here. 

A Juggler’s Tale.  Seriously stop rhyming. 

A Juggler’s Tale tells the story of a girl who escapes from the circus, though it’s not clear why she was locked in a cage, or what is going on other than an attempt to get a Limbo or Inside style game.  In the story, the girl is a puppet in a stage play, but also that’s part of the gameplay, as the wires get caught on things.  It’s a strange idea, but a unique one that does make for a couple of interesting puzzles. 

There’s one big issue, the writing in this game is bad, like horribly bad.  The narrator rhymes everything, and they’re not even good, interesting, or clever rhymes, but it’s just incessant to the point where I muted the narrator even with the subtitles.  Also, there’s not much else to stand out and the puzzles are what you expect from an “inside” or “Limbo” Game, not much more than that, sadly. 

Pick this up if you want an average game.  This is a title I don’t hate but I don’t like, it’s okay.  But I want so much more or something interesting.  It takes about two hours to beat, but the narrator makes it hard for me to recommend, even then, nothing makes me say not to buy it, if that makes sense.  It’s just that average. 

Mr. Prepper.  Preparing to escape a dystopian future. 

Mr. Prepper is about a prepper named Prepper, yeah whatever.  Even though who he is, rather than preparing for an apocalypse as one would expect, he is instead trying to escape a version of America with some dated references, hopefully.  That being said, the main game is mostly about resource and time management, trying to build out your bunker and gather resources for your escape plan, while avoiding inspections from the government itself. 

Mr. Prepper though is a bit of a mixed bag, it’s mostly a version of a life simulator where players have to grow food, maintain the residence, and explore.  But then there’s combat against some enemies and more of a story or quest-based system here than just survival.  As a concept, it’s more interesting than I was expecting but the preparation bar so far isn’t clear what the player needs to do to “stay prepped” whatever that means. 

Pick this up if you want a life simulator.  It’s an interesting concept, though some of the execution can be clunky, the idea you’re hiding your basement while heavily building it out can lead to some interesting ideas.  Not sure if there’s more to the story, but it seems like there’s quite a bit players will have to discover, though there are minimal hints when you’re trying to find specific materials.  

And that’s the titles for this month but like usual we need to take a peek at Is There Any Deal, and the fact is there is.  Both headliners, The Quarry, and Metal: Hellsinger have never been cheaper than the 12 dollars for the bundle.  Mr. Prepper is shockingly hovering around 10 dollars and everyone else is under. 

But I also want to mention that Spirit of the Island, and A Juggler’s Tale have been bundled before, by Humble themselves, Spirit of the Island in the Fighting Farmers Bundle from 7 months ago and Juggler’s Tale from over a year ago.  While that’s a good amount of time, realize that means they went for cheap then and I usually expect prices to go down over time. 

I do want to go back to the headliners and mention we have two horror narratives from Supermassive Games as well as Metal: Hellsinger, I don’t know but it does feel like there’s a bit of a Halloween theme going on this month, and maybe it’s a coincidence but that’s a nice touch.  Not everyone will want horror games so there’s stuff for everyone else, but I like the idea of a spookier month. 

With that said let’s talk about the tier list, four tiers.  Games worth a Full Bundle, Strong Contenders, Average titles, and Misses.  Normally we skip the last one, but this month, no. 

Let’s just get it over with, Lords and Villeins, I’m not a fan, I struggle to recommend this to anyone, like I said, I’m sure some people may enjoy it but, there’s no way I’m going to suggest anyone pick this up, it’s not broken, it’s just not good, and I respect your time more than this. 

That being said we have four games in the Average tier as well.  Starting with A Juggler’s Tale.  This is the perfect meaning of the word average.  It’s not bad, not good, not worth talking much more about. 

Next up we have Mr. Prepper, it’s an interesting concept and I could grow to love it but I also don’t know how much more I’m looking forward to checking out.  Digging out your basement isn’t that new, but the concept at least is somewhat unique at first. 

Following that one we have Spirit of the Island.  This could be higher for the right person, but honestly, like I said, I have so many of this type of game, that I’m not sure there’s a need for this one, but at the same time, it’d probably be fun for someone who wants a new farm sim. 

Our Final average game is Rebel Inc Escalation, this will be worth it for the right type of person, there’s a lot of content and gameplay here, but that type of person needs to be looking more for a board game than a video game in my opinion.  Could be fun though. 

This is what we are looking at after half the tiers, but we still have three titles left.  Let’s do it. 

The Strong Contender is House of Ashes.  I’m interested in this title, but there’s something above it, and that’s what you probably should pick this choice up for.  Still, this is an interesting game, and if you’ve played through this series so far, you probably know that you’ll enjoy this title as well. 

This brings us to the final tier, and I’ve thought a lot about this . The bottom of the Full Bundle tier is Metal Hellsinger.   This is an excellent game, I rocked out for the entire hour, and I’ll be back probably this weekend to tackle more. The music and style are excellent and if you like this, you’ll probably love it.  Such an exciting game. 

Which brings us to the best of the month, it’s The Quarry.  The big slasher movie is a big slasher movie, but it’s so efficient at everything.  I mean I wanted to show a longer segment of it so people could see how well it is shot.  Still, this is the one I’m playing this weekend, I just have to know what’s going to happen next, and the first hour ends on a great cliffhanger. 

So that’s how the tiers look after all the titles, it’s honestly a worthy list for the top but the rest I get why people might pass on this month. 

I do want to call out one other bundle, the awesome indies games from Humble, maybe they are over-selling it a bit, but I know I wanted Dodgeball Academia, and have been waiting for it in a choice, Archvale, Flynn, Ikenfell, Ring of Pain, and Void Bastards are all worth a look.  The rest aren’t bad either, and with most of these appearing in that Humble Game Collection, I doubt we’ll see them in a Choice ever, so if you’re excited about these, this is a good chance to pick them up. 

Now I did mention I worked on a side project, and I’m itching to announce and talk about it, but I can’t just yet, I may be dropping a video about a retro game this month, you might want to check it out. 

The best way to do that is to remember to ring the bell, and if you just want to see these videos you still should.  I only put out one extra video a month so I shouldn’t bother you too much.   Like, comment, and share this if you want to help out.   

See you next time.