Humble Choice August 2024 Review

[@kristiinadread]

It was a long wait, but we finally got Sifu in a bundle! Sifu's historical low is €13.39 (I'm from Europe, obviously), so this month is looking pretty good. It is an insta-buy. I tried High on Life on Xbox Game Pass before it left, and I felt the same way. The dialogue was stupid, and there was way too much talking for an FPS game. I'd rather play a narrative video game when I want one. Also, the F-word often doesn’t fit in games. This was one of those cases. For example, in Still Wakes the Deep, it felt organic, though there were a lot of repetitive lines. 🙉 I have nothing against swearing; I do it myself, but in many games, it’s just cringe for me. Great review as always. Keep up the great work! 🥳

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Haha, heck yeah! I hold out with a lot of games hoping they end up in a bundle. Usually, I'm disappointed but every now and again, I'll get something that I had wishlisted. I get that. I swear as well and don't really have a problem with it, but I feel the same way with media in general. A lot of the time if the swearing is overdone then it just starts feeling juvenile to me. It's much better used selectively for accentuating moments or something that isn't as overused (like a character who is more rough around the edges but not something where every other character is dropping the F-bomb all the time). And thank you! Glad they can help!

[@ClumsySandbocks]

Great month for Steam Deck users. I had to RMA my deck but I will definitely be jumping into Sifu and Blacktail once it's back home. Thanks for the video.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

No problem! Glad it could help. Don't have a Steam Deck myself so I wouldn't really know but good to hear! If you'd like to hear a review that does talk about these games on the Steam Deck specifically then keep an eye out for Deck Head and/or The Steam Decker.

[@korribreki]

This is a great month. I def plan on playing most of these if not all.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Hey, nice! That's always a good feeling when you get a Humble Choice that almost every game is a banger. Hopefully next month is for you as well!

[@theotherguyyyy]

This month was an instant cop for me. First time I claim 5/8 games day #1.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Great to hear! Which were the 3 that you didn't end up claiming?

[@AkSeapilot]

subbed and thumbs up.. i liked high on life - finished it.. didn't pay too much attention to all the dialogue.. just figured it was something to try and entertain you while you play the game. Cheers

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Thank you! I appreciate the support and glad my video could help. And that makes sense. I guess similar to turning on the TV in the background.

[@TheMedesculpe]

Muito bom video, vejo do brasil com a tradução, eu vejo todos as análises do humble bundle, continue postando.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Obrigado! Fico feliz em saber que o vídeo ajuda. Além disso, desculpe se isso parece estranho, mas eu não falo português e tenho que usar o Google Tradutor haha

[@themadmoderator8465]

as others said a great month

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Any games in particular you're keen on playing?

[@permeus2nd]

This is sadly yet another skip it isn’t like other months were a game in the pack is offensive to me though Gotham Knights comes close to been an insult and when compared to its predecessors it’s an insult to them and high on life is just not my taste, Sifu is close to been interesting but it’s not enough to carry the pack on its own for me, the rest of the games are well I’ve probably got at least 5 others like them in one of my libraries somewhere be it a game Epic gave away or prime gave me a game from a past bundle or ones I brought because I love the broken sword games (I can’t believe there still making new ones even if they probably won’t be as good as the first two). It’s kinda the problem with the humble bundle (I’m still calling it that the names just stuck in my brain) when you have been getting it for so long you end up becoming really picky with new games as you just have so meny you still haven’t found time to play.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

I get that. Having too many games always makes me think...do I really want to play this game when I know I have a better similar game that I haven't played yet? That's why it's really hard for me to really heartily recommend some of these roguelites or retro shooters. We just have so many of them and they are across the board as to their quality. If one is only okay then it's still hard to recommend when another one is amazing but I still haven't played it yet. That's why I had said Diluvian Ultra probably is only for that hardcore retro shooter player because it could be a fresh experience. The caveat with that is that they probably would find it a really inferior experience... And no idea if you've already played Gotham Knights but if you haven't...maybe don't write it off completely? I didn't think it was going to be much but it seemed fun (at least in the beginning couple hours). I know many had also said that Arkham Origins sucked in comparison to the Rocksteady Arkham games but I actually liked that one a lot. I'm hoping for the same with Gotham Knights.

[@permeus2nd]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviewsso I played Arkham origins till it deleted my save file 😭 and after playing city it feels so clunky I also have a screenshot on my steam that’s of one of the first boss fights (deadshot) and I’m in a vent and there is a massive gap where they didn’t put it together right, you can just see into the void and that about sums up the game the studio just didn’t care about it and WB also not long after the game came out said i’ll paraphrase here “”yes we know about the gamebraking bugs and we have no plan to fix any of them going forward”” I can’t remember there exact words but it was what I just said and that was a press statement so you can probably still find it and they were still selling it in that state, but ye when it deleted my save just after getting the it’s probably no one important achievement I wasn’t too happy and just uninstalled the game in disgust, I mean I already was not enjoying it as it felt like such a step backwards in how well clunky it was so that was the last straw for me. As for knights I’ve not played it myself but I have done lots of research on it so I know how it plays and it sadly hits all the live service speed bumps but without any of the pay now to speed it up options it becomes more and more of a grind as you go on normal mobs become damage sponges that take way too long to beat down because they didn’t get the level scaling right, from the second I heard about the level scaling I knew it was going to be a problem as sadly I’ve not found a game that pulled off level scaling well.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

@@permeus2nd Ah dang, didn't know about that. I know in my time with Origins, I don't remember encountering any bugs at all. Or if I did then they weren't anything game-breaking because I don't remember them. For me, I think it was the story that I liked a lot with Origins. And I think the boss fights? Could be wrong there though because it's been a while. I just know that I really liked the game and didn't expect to because everyone was saying it was trash. As for Gotham Knights...yeah, that does sound annoying. I suppose if I do go back to the game and encounter that it might be a turn off for me as well.

[@oldmanonyoutube]

It was a good bundle this month. I've been wanting to play High on Life for awile.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

I imagine High On Life probably was a highlight for many! I'm kind of strange. I tend not to care about comedy most of the time in whatever form of media I'm consuming. At least things that are meant to be purely comical. Although, there are definitely exceptions here and there so I might come back to High On Life at some point.

[@omarmansuri7099]

It was a decent collection but I played high on life on gamepass before it left and Gotham Knights is still on gamepass so Sifu alone can't really justify the bundle for me. Also completely agree on your high on life review, felt the exact way after playing it

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

That makes sense. Better to just grab Sifu on a really good sale. And I've been hearing that a lot about High On Life! Think I've seen enough similar sentiments to decide that I won't be bothering to play past my hour with it.

[@poeterritory]

Great review. It's not my type of games as I don't have the time to invest. Thanks.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Thank you! Glad it could help. And that's understandable. Have to pick and choose what games to play with our limited time.

[@lankthedank6931]

Actually, Astral Ascent reminds me a lot of Dust: An Elysian Tale more than anything.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

It certainly looks like that game was probably an inspiration for Astral Ascent! I actually had only ever heard of Dust but after checking out a trailer, it looks really cool! Thanks for bringing it up. One more to the wishlist!

[@SenMayerGaming]

Damn, I didn't know that Justin Roiland had problems with the law. I do think it is a pretty interesting month actually, lots of interesting games that seem to have potential but didn't seem to review all that well (I mean by that there doesn't seem to be any must buy outside of Sifu, which is a hard game so it's not for everyone.) I unfortunately do not think that it's gonna be enough to change my stance on not buying more bundles, but I do think it's at least a good one for this year. Thanks for the video, I at least could learn a bit more on a few games, because I had no idea about the less known games there!

[@jondr]

All charges against him were dropped or he won in court, I can't remember. But this is the modern woke day so he's auto-canceled.

[@SenMayerGaming]

@@jondr I took a glance on wiki and it seems you're right. Seems similar to what happened to Chris Avellone, who ended up being fired from multiple projects due to allegations that ended up being refuted by the plainants themselves.

[@khill3524]

I think you like the bundle more than kinglink. How's playing one of the games from the bundle every month going? What's the game for this month? Thanks buddy

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Haha, yeah, I saw that. And... I've really fell off the wagon with that. The last three months I haven't had the time to go back to any of those games. I did just finish The Callisto Protocol (from April) and will make a review on that in the weeks to come. For this month...hmm, well I would really love it to be Sifu or Astral Ascent. But I could just as easily seeing it be Universe for Sale since it's short. Gotham Knights is something I'd probably end up playing with my brother so I don't really see myself getting back to that one any time soon and would probably take us forever to get through it (still in an Elden Ring playthrough currently).

[@khill3524]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews hearing great things about astral accent. I'm trying to finish the heretic for k game from last month and the plague tale game.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

@@khill3524 Nice! I'm guessing you've liked both of those games then so far?

[@khill3524]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews I do like both of them. I put a lot of time in the heretic fork. It's rough around the edges it has some balancing issues and some bugs. If I remember I will try to post a review on on your video.

[@stardogbillionaire]

I skipped because I don't want High on Life or Gotham Knights on my Steam account lol

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Haha, I guess if that's how you feel. Although, you wouldn't need to add those keys to your Steam account. You can just add all the other ones and leave High on Life and Gotham Knights unclaimed. Or I guess give them to someone else you know.

[@Howwowknight]

Why were you listening to astral ascent in Japanese? It’s made by a French studio

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Oh nice, didn't know that. I guess I did because it was going for an anime-vibe with the presentation. And also because I live in Japan and I'm studying Japanese. So I figured some slight listening immersion would be nice. That said, I don't choose Japanese as the normal audio language in all my games, but this one just seemed to be one that was appropriate for it.

[@Kinglink]

Had to come look and because of Hight on Life... and hearing you saying the game needs to shut up... I feel so vindicated. Though I don't know if you just played through Universe For Sale faster than me (probably) or something, but I didn't get the point where I was running a shop yet. I may have misjudged that one. PS. Had a similar problem with the Guide, but I got the gun. it just didn't want to show me where to go.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

You were pretty harsh on High On Life...but I completely get it. Honestly, I think I might have been pulling my punches a bit after I watched your review. It definitely wasn't a game for me and I audibly groaned when I first saw that it was in the Choice. Great for people who wanted it but yeah... With Universe for Sale, yeah, I was a bit confused when you mentioned you didn't really see the time loop stuff in the story because I thought it was fairly apparent. Makes so much more sense knowing you didn't get as far as I did. I do think what you said about Universe for Sale is valid though. For me, the world-building definitely interested me a lot more than the actual story. I hope that the neat setting will facilitate a better story whenever I decide to finish it. Although...didn't point this out in my video...but what the heck was up with the woman reading the girl that creepy children's book? To be honest, the same happened to me. I just failed to mention it. The so-called "Guide" doesn't really do a good job at guiding. I think, in my instance, it was flying really high up because it knew I needed to go there, but it wasn't guiding me to the room that I needed to go to get there in the first place. I'm assuming it's because it was because the game glitched but maybe the Guide just doesn't have enough points to move towards to adequately do its job.

[@TheOrian34]

Mmh, I wonder if my previous post was shadow banned by youtube.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Hmm, I'm guessing so? I tried to check if there was anything 'held in review' but I don't see any comments from you on this video. I know this has happened to me before and I really have no idea why.

[@TheOrian34]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews Yeah, that's strange. Reposting here to see: This means warp is too MP focused for me, and looking through the reviews it seemed to be shallow and abandoned, so that was a pass. Universe for sale, I usually enjoy those type of games, so I'll have to try it out. Also it seems to be around 5h in length so the perfect pick for my monthly game. Diluvian ultra, it seems interesting enough, although I saw some errors that made me prefer waiting before checking it. It has been updated semi recently so hopes it's not abandoned, which is always a plus. Astral ascent was my only wishlist this month, and it's a given. Blacktail has a neat focus I think I will enjoy. Will see when I get to it. Gotham knights, I was starting on the back foot considering I dislike the ubisoft AAA type design the game is riddled with, and I gave up when I saw the 20 minutes movie intro and no actual gameplay screenshots on the store page. Reading about the grind and usual denuvo stuff just made it clear I wouldn't bother. Pass. High on life, I saw one hour, I don't want to see more, the humor is grating and it never stops. It was already on my ignored list. Pass. Sifu, I think I had seen it pass and considered having it in my wishlist, forgot about it though. Seeing it now, it's going to be a lot of fun. So in the end that's a pretty bad month for me, haha. 5/8 games and only 1 wishlist, but the ones I keep seem decently fun to great. I forgot if I already mentioned last month I played the figment games as a start to doing a monthly game from choice. They were pretty interesting!

[@TheOrian34]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews Did my first reply send through?

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

@@TheOrian34 I'm going to say...no. Since the only thing I see is you asking if your reply sent. Man...what the heck is going on with YT??

[@TheOrian34]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews Trying again, lol. This means warp is too MP focused for me, and looking through the reviews it seemed to be shallow and abandoned, so that was a pass. Universe for sale, I usually enjoy those type of games, so I'll have to try it out. Also it seems to be around 5h in length so the perfect pick for my monthly game. Diluvian ultra, it seems interesting enough, although I saw some errors that made me prefer waiting before checking it. It has been updated semi recently so hopes it's not abandoned, which is always a plus. Astral ascent was my only wishlist this month, and it's a given. Blacktail has a neat focus I think I will enjoy. Will see when I get to it. Gotham knights, I was starting on the back foot considering I dislike the ubisoft AAA type design the game is riddled with, and I gave up when I saw the 20 minutes movie intro and no actual gameplay screenshots on the store page. Reading about the grind and usual venudo stuff just made it clear I wouldn't bother. Pass. High on life, I saw one hour, I don't want to see more, the humor is grating and it never stops. It was already on my ignored list. Pass. Sifu, I think I had seen it pass and considered having it in my wishlist, forgot about it though. Seeing it now, it's going to be a lot of fun. So in the end that's a pretty bad month for me, haha. 5/8 games and only 1 wishlist, but the ones I keep seem decently fun to great. I forgot if I already mentioned last month I played the figment games as a start to doing a monthly game from choice. They were pretty interesting!

[@AnomieDomine]

Appreciate yoyr reviews even if your mic drives me crazy haha. Not a fan of this month personally. I'd say if you're not hooked on High on Life immediately, just stop and save your time. It seemed like a really good AA game but it goes too long and some of the mechanics and jokes were too stale, too fast

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Thank you! Glad they can help. And yeah...a new mic has been something I've been meaning to pick up for a long while now. Didn't think I'd be going back to play High on Life anyway...but good to know! Now, I definitely don't think so haha

[@AnomieDomine]

@@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews what's your process now? I'm not a content creator but I'm definitely a sound person. There seems to be a lot of compression or maybe it's just an inline mic? It's amazing what you can get for $20-50 now, a basic dedicated dynamic cardioid mic can go a long way

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

​@@AnomieDomine Right now I just use a detachable mic on my headset (a wireless HyperX Cloud something or other). I used to have a Blue Snowball years and years ago which I think sounded better but that eventually broke just with the so many times I dropped it and moving with it. I've been wanting to get a HyperX Quadcast or Blue Yeti at some point but they're a bit more expensive. I'd welcome any other recommendations you have! As for my process, well...I've always just done what I've seen others do without really understanding what I'm doing haha... But anyway, I first record via Audacity and then run that through three different EQ presets being bass boost, treble boost, and then low rolloff for speech. After that, yeah, I compress it with the settings being: Threshold(-30db), Noise Floor(-50db), Ratio(3.5:1), Attack Time(0.10secs), and Release Time(1.0secs). Then I usually find a bit where I'm taking a breath and use that as my noise reduction sample before applying that to my whole sound file with those settings being: Noise Reduction (30db), Sensitivity(10.00), and Frequency smoothing (6 bands). When I do all of that, I run it through Adobe Podcasts' Enhance Speech free tool that supposedly cleans up the audio. I think it helps but it does make my voice sound...different. But I know when I first started using it, I had several comments saying my audio had improved. Anyway, sorry for the long write up. If any of this makes sense to you and you think I should be changing it up then let me know! I appreciate any help or advice you can give!

[@vmkkith]

Another skip month for me.

[@StealthyshiroeanHumbleReviews]

Ah, dang. That's too bad. Hopefully next month will have something for you!