I don't know if anyone else uses HumbleChoice, but these are the not-free-but-really-inexpensive games they've on offer for the Month
of May: https://www.humblebundle.com/membership/home

- Command & Conquer Remastered
- Planet Zoo
- Surviving the Aftermath
- Spellcaster University
- Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom
- If Found...
- Genesis Noir
- Embr

I'm quite happy about the first game in the list - "Command & Conquer Remastered" - since that's been on my 'gonna buy it anyday now' list
for a while. I'm not the hugest fan of the franchise - I loved the
original but saw decreasing interest with each sequel - but
nonetheless I'd like to give these remasters a try... even if I don't
play them long enough that they end up on the monthly "What have you
been playing" list.

"Planet Zoo" is a solid enough game, although not quite to my taste; I
never really got into "theme-park" style sims. Still, its animal AI
was reputedly pretty good, so I'd like to see that in action.

"Surviving the Aftermath" looks to be a post-apocalyptic take on the
old "Caesar" games; build a city, then defend it from the barbarians.
Its got good reviews, might be worth a look.

And the rest of the games seem to be the usual fluff added to make the
offer seem more appealing. "Spellcaster University" has you manage a
Harry Potter-style magical university; "Embr" is a first-person
multiplayer 'shooter' where the goal is to put out fires, "Genesis
Noir" is a far-too-stylized adventure game, "If Found..." is a walking-sim/adventure about interpersonal connections, and "Spongebob"
is... Spongebob. All may or may not be good games but I've little
interest in them; YMMV.

Still, "Command & Conquer Remastered" is worth the price of the bundle
alone (IMHO) and getting it through HumbleBundle saves me a few bucks
too, so a good month as far as I'm concerned.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

- Command & Conquer Remastered

I'm quite happy about the first game in the list - "Command & Conquer Remastered" - since that's been on my 'gonna buy it anyday now' list
for a while. I'm not the hugest fan of the franchise - I loved the
original but saw decreasing interest with each sequel - but
nonetheless I'd like to give these remasters a try... even if I don't
play them long enough that they end up on the monthly "What have you
been playing" list.

And for those of us who don't want to go with Humble, Command & Conquer Remastered is currently 6.99 US dollars and euros on Origin.

I'm a little disappointed it's just the first two games. I've kind of
wanted to play 1999's C&C 2 (aka Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun) and
the Firestorm expansion, ever since the references to it in C&C 3. But
when I actually tried it after C&C 3 it just felt so ridiculously slow
paced and blocky and simply old I don't think I got no further than the
first few missions.

I guess the same thing might happen with this remaster but I expect I'll
get through at least a few missions in at least one campaign.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 11 May 2022 10:31:41 +0300, Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:
I'm a little disappointed it's just the first two games. I've kind of
wanted to play 1999's C&C 2 (aka Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun) and
the Firestorm expansion, ever since the references to it in C&C 3. But
when I actually tried it after C&C 3 it just felt so ridiculously slow
paced and blocky and simply old I don't think I got no further than the
first few missions.

I get why EA only did the first two games; remastering is expensive
and its a rather risky bet if there are enough interested customers to
make it worthwhile, financially. All the more since the various
iterations of the franchise all used different engines. The original
C&C and Red Alert games shared the same engine, which helped keep the
cost down, but if they added C&C2 it would have doubled the
development costs.

Of all the games, I enjoyed playing the first game the most, largely
because of its novelty. Still, I rather enjoyed the second game too.
Less so because of its gameplay - which was already starting to become
old hat - but because of its tech (it used voxels!), its setting (the
world looked gorgeous), and its neat vehicles (it had little guys in
powered armor AND giant walker mechs!).

But I really can't judge on gameplay. My tactics in these games is
just to build a bunch of units (usually the coolest looking ones),
roping them altogether, and marching them heedlessly toward the enemy.
Hardly Napoleonic-class strategy, but since it works as well (or
poorly) in one RTS game as the next, the various idiosyncrasies of the different games tend to escape my notice. ;-)

I guess the same thing might happen with this remaster but I expect I'll
get through at least a few missions in at least one campaign.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am 03.05.22 um 19:31 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

Still, "Command & Conquer Remastered" is worth the price of the bundle
alone (IMHO) and getting it through HumbleBundle saves me a few bucks
too, so a good month as far as I'm concerned.

First time that I skipped a month entirely... there was nothing which
interests me.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)