September 2020 Humble Choice Overview

Published: September 26, 2020 12:00 PM /

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Humble Choice Overview September 2020 Catherine

Along with all of the good that Humble Bundle already brings to the table, they additionally offer players the chance to pick up to nine video games per month from a curated selection (10 if you're on the classic plan). Varying from popular titles to indie games you’ve probably never heard of, Humble Choice generates a diverse curated bundle to help establish the most paramount game libraries. In addition, every subscriber automatically receives up to 20% off titles in the Humble Store. You can’t beat the facts, folks—that’s one heck of a deal.

The fine guys over at Humble Bundle will spoil us at this pace. For the second month in a row, subscribers to the classic and premium plans will not have to pick and choose their favorite games since they will have the possibility to claim the whole package for them. Considering that this month's Humble Choice includes Catherine Classic, Golf with Friends, and Lethal League Blaze, it's great news that we don't have to choose what to leave behind. If you're not in one of those plans, do not despair. Our monthly overview will detail what games are the most worthy of your choices.

Golf With Your Friends + Caddypack DLC + OST

Arcade and golf meet in this hilarious clash of genres. Golf With Your Friends is a multiplayer-focused simultaneous golf game where up to 12 players can challenge each other on courses that are borderline crazy.

Unlike other golf games, all the players swing their invisible clubs at each time. This means that they can also get in the way of each other with powerups that can hinder other players by putting them in ice blocks or smearing grease on the course.

The level design is particularly worthy of praise. Each course is strongly themed and has unique mechanics like portals, pits, traps, and the like. You can also create your own courses or download the ones made by others from the Steam workshop.

Why pick Golf With Your Friends + Caddypack DLC + OST?

  • Hilarious to play with friends
  • Great level design

Why skip Golf With Your Friends + Caddypack DLC + OST?

  • Not as fun to play on your own

Generation Zero

Generation Zero starts with a very intriguing premise. Set in late '80s Sweden, our hero soon finds out after a brief absence that there are no people on the street and there is an army of machines that invaded the country. In this context, he will be forced to embrace weapons, scavenge, and get to the bottom of the mystery.

Despite the interesting setting, Generation Zero doesn’t seem able to do much with it. The open world is huge and decently built, but it feels bland and definitely dated. Character progression is pretty slow and the enemies’ AI is not great.

If you’re on one of the plans that allow you to get all the games, you can give this one a shot in order to experience the setting. Otherwise, this is a strong candidate for a skip.

Why pick Generation Zero?

  • Interesting setting
  • Great '80s vibe

Why skip Generation Zero?

  • Definitely lacking in many aspects

Forager

To put it simply, the main drive behind Forager is the fusion between Zelda-like exploration and combat, and Stardew Valley-like landscaping and management. The only issue that I have with it is that only one of these two aspects seems to be fully fleshed out.

Forager is a 2D open-world action-adventure game where you unlock parts of the map by purchasing new “islands” as time goes on. Each island is randomly generated, and it’s different each time. It’s an interesting concept, but it also means that you might go on for a long time without finding new dungeons, which are the best part of the game.

Between expeditions, you are able to plant and farm and build your own base in order to more efficiently grind for more resources. The problem that I have is that it never feels like grinding has a payoff that is not more efficient grinding.

Why pick Forager?

  • Interesting Zelda-like action
  • Fun dungeons

Why skip Forager?

  • A lot of grinding

Read our Forager review.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

For such a beloved setting, the World of Darkness doesn’t have a whole lot of video games associated with it. Aside from the cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines and few others, there aren’t many games that explore the intriguing stories behind the modern-day vampires. Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York aims to do just that, with a whole new World of Darkness story set in the Big Apple.

The introduction of the game is the same as many other games of the “Masquerade” universe. Woken up as a newly transformed vampire, our main character will have to learn fast about the ways of their kindred. The game itself is a visual novel that tells a story of political intrigue between the Camarilla and the Anarchs. It’s filled with good writing and great characters, and it really encapsulates the appeal of this universe.

There are a couple of technical hiccups, like the lack of a button to skip already-read dialogue on a second playthrough (a staple of the genre), but the great story and the many branching paths will keep the narrative interesting for multiple playthroughs.

Why pick Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York?

  • Great story and characters
  • Extremely well rendered atmosphere

Why skip Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York?

  • A few technical issues

Fun with Ragdolls

The “sandbox” genre does not have a lot of good titles associated with it. Aside from Garry’s Mod and (if we stretch the definition a little bit) Minecraft, there are not a lot of games that just put you in a giant map, give you the stuff to fill the world with, and tell you to go nuts. Fun with Ragdolls gives its own spin to the genre by creating a framework to create worlds where the player can go wild and imagination is the only limit.

Fun with Ragdolls gives a lot of tools to the player to create their own fun. A plethora of pits, fans, blocks, mines, cannons, and, of course, rag dolls can be spawned and tweaked to your liking. There’s a lot of emergent gameplay here, but you have to commit a lot of time to it. Or just download some maps that other users created and go nuts!

Why pick Fun with Ragdolls?

  • A lot of elements to create many many worlds
  • The ragdolls themselves are fun to interact with

Why skip Fun with Ragdolls?

  • Requires a good amount of time commitment

Lethal League Blaze

Lethal League is a ludicrous and extremely fun party game with an interesting concept: You fight against your opponents trying to hit them with the only ball of the arena, speeding it up at every shot until it reaches unbelievable speed. Lethal League Blaze is more of that but better, with more characters and even more style!

Lethal League Blaze is extremely easy to pick up, but don’t be deceived. The simple gameplay loop of “hit the ball so it hits your foes” hides a lot of complexity behind it. Between parries, counters, bashes, special abilities, and much more, the game is extremely hard (but rewarding) to master.

There are many options for single player and multiplayer, but the game definitely plays best with a group of friends. The stylish art style and banging soundtrack are the icing on the cake.

Why pick Lethal League Blaze?

  • Addictive gameplay
  • Great presentation

Why skip Lethal League Blaze?

  • Plays best in local with a group of friends

Strange Brigade

Prepare the crackers because this game is as cheesy as it gets.

Strange Brigade brings the pulp adventure TV serials of the '30s in video-game form. Our ragtag group of heroes will have to fight an ancient Egyptian witch-empress that rose from the grave to wreak havoc to the world in an extremely well-themed setting.

The game is, at its core, a decent co-op FPS with a strong thematic element. Up to four players will team up to fight through the main story levels in order to reach the chamber of the witch queen—all accompanied by a British TV serial narrator of old that will constantly crack one-liners. At the end of the day, the gunplay is not great, but the puzzles are pretty decent. The theme is really what carries this game.

Why pick Strange Brigade?

  • Strong theme
  • Narrator is great

Why skip Strange Brigade?

  • Pretty bland gameplay

Read our Strange Brigade review.

Evoland Legendary Edition

Defining games as “love letters” to a genre or past titles is basically a trope in this craft. Nevertheless, very few games are worthy of such definition as much as the Evoland series.

Both games of the saga are a homage to the history of RPGs. They pay their respects to the historical franchises like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, or Alundra with their theming and gameplay. Both games are constantly switching art styles (going from the monochrome of the Gameboy to full 3D and everything in between) and gameplay styles (turn-based to real-time action) in order to allow the player to explore the nuances of the milestones of the genre.

Evoland Legendary Edition includes both games, which makes it an unmissable opportunity for fans of the genre.

Why pick Evoland Legendary Edition?

  • Amazing homage to JRPGs
  • Great gameplay

Why skip Evoland Legendary Edition?

  • Quite a few glitches

Read our Evoland 2 review.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is the second game in the series of 2.5D platformer inspired by Banjo-Kazooie. The game is colorful, vibrant, with tight controls and generally amazing.

Our duo of heroes springs again into action to fight their arch-nemesis Capital B. To do so, they will have to navigate amazingly rendered 2D platforming levels and an overworld that is more than a level selector. It has its own mysteries as well, and you can even unlock alternate versions of levels by playing around in it.

While we patiently wait for Microsoft to realize that they own Rare and people really really want a new Banjo-Kazooie game, we can still enjoy the next best thing.

Why pick Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair?

  • Amazing controls
  • Colorful and vibrant

Why skip Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair?

  • Occasional bugs

Catherine Classic

I’m still not 100% sure that this game actually exists and we didn’t collectively hallucinate it.

Catherine was one of the weirdest games of its generation and now, years later, that title still holds up. The game is a romantic/horror/comedy/puzzle game with some visual novel thrown in for good measure. Our main character finds himself in a love triangle when he wakes up near a much younger girl and needs to decide if finally marry his girlfriend of many years or throw himself in this new adventure.

This predicament is embodied by his nightmares, where he is forced to climb a crumbling tower made of traps and moving blocks, each night more and more difficult. If he dies in his dream, he dies in real life as well!

Catherine is wonderfully written and designed, with its weird characters and situations. It has many many branching paths that will require a lot of playthroughs if you want to see all of them.

Catherine Classic is the PC port of the original game and sports 4K textures, Japanese voiceover, and much more. I still wonder why Atlus bothered to port Catherine Classic to PC instead of the newer and improved Catherine: Full Body Edition.

Why pick Catherine Classic?

  • Wonderful and weird story
  • Challenging puzzle

Why skip Catherine Classic?

  • Maybe too contrived

The Occupation

The Occupation is an investigation game where the detective work is turned up to 11. It’s set in Britain in the late '80s, where, after a terror attack, a new bill is about to be passed that would severely limit some rights for the people. Your job as an investigative journalist is to dig behind the shadows regarding this event.

The interesting thing about The Occupation is that everything happens in real-time, as a minute in the game is a minute in real-life. This means that many events will always happen in the allotted time, whether you’re there or not.

Our detective will have to be at the right place at the right time in order to sneak around closed offices to find evidence of the shady business happening behind the Unity bill.

The world is extremely interactive. We have many options to pursue a lead. We can access a closed office by the window using a scaffolding, or maybe crawl in a service vent or even simply eavesdrop a conversation where the code to enter in the Numpad is mentioned.

The people will also grow to like or dislike us depending on our actions or the information we managed to find. Definitely one of the better investigation games out there.

Why pick The Occupation?

  • Awesome investigation gameplay
  • The world is extremely interactive

Why skip The Occupation?

  • Very slowly paced

The Shapeshifting Detective

Talking of investigation games, The Shapeshifting Detective is an FMV game where we take the role of a detective with the unusual power of shapeshifting into other people.

Our detective is tasked with investigating a murder, and they will do so by posing as other characters of the story in order to convince the suspects to confide in them. This power comes with dangers as the detective might unknowingly shapeshift into the next victim!

The gameplay itself consists of a series of conversations with real actors, fully recorded in HD. All the dialogue sounds and looks great, and the writing is enjoyable enough. The game has more than 1,600 recorded answers, which give the game a good deal of replayability, especially considering that the responses might change depending on who you are disguised as, plus the fact that the murderer is randomly selected in each playthrough.

Why pick The Shapeshifting Detective?

  • Very high value in the recorded sections
  • Interesting narrative

Why skip The Shapeshifting Detective?

  • Basically no gameplay outside of conversations

Alt254

Humble Originals are extra games already included in the subscription and don't factor into the choice count.

Alt 2-5-4 is the code that you enter on your keyboard’s Numpad to create a square: ■.

The reason that the game is called Alt254 is that the main character is a little square pixel. Also, enemies are little square pixels. Also, environments are made of square pixels. The game takes minimalism to a whole new level, by making the player take control of a single-pixel through a journey of extremely pixelated environments. It’s an interesting, little experiment with its own unique charm.

Carto Sneak Peek

This month’s Sneak Peek is Carto, a chill adventure and exploration game coming out next month.

The main gameplay feature of Carto is an interesting twist on the role of the cartographer. Instead of just drawing the landscape on a map, our main character is able to change the position of the map tiles in order to rearrange paths and biomes. This seemingly simple feature will have to be used in many puzzles in order to help the many quirky NPCs we’ll meet to solve their tribulations.


Humble Choices are always great value, but this month is particularly precious for lovers of brain teasers. Between the investigations of The Occupation and The Shapeshifting Detective, the weird puzzles of Catherine Classic, and the fast reflex required by Lethal League Blaze, your neurons will be put under heavy load this month.

Disclosure: Humble Bundle works with TechRaptor for affiliate partnership, and TechRaptor earns a small commission off purchases made from links in this article.

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Luigi Savinelli profile picture
| Former Staff Writer

Gamer since I can remember and now writer for your enjoyment. Can't say more. Those games will not play themselves