If you’re a fan of fighting games, the newest Humble Bundle should be all but impossible to resist. Even fans of sprite-based games in general should be drooling at this.
The newest bundle celebrates 25 years of Neo Geo with a collection of more than 20 games. The collection includes games from the Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, King of Fighters and Fatal Fury series as well as a bunch of others.
The best part? A whole bunch of these titles can be demoed directly in your browser with two minutes of playtime for each one. Just enough time to figure out how much of your memory is nostalgia and how much is accurate.
Of course, since this is a Humble Bundle, you can pay what you want across three pricing tiers. $10 gets you the most games. If you drop $40, you’ll get a Metal Slug t-shirt, as well.
Some of these games retail for almost $10 a piece on Steam, so there’s a ton of value to be had.
While I grew up in the age of the Neo Geo, we had the standard NES in my house, swapped out for a Sega Genesis at some point. I remember staring at the Neo Geo console and games in the cabinet at Funcoland – long before Funcoland folded into EB Games and then GameStop – marveling at the incredibly expensive games and system, wondering what kind of magic they held inside. While I’ve played a few of these titles here and there in the intervening years, it’s hard to resist picking the bundle up to see what I missed. Then again, maybe I should leave the magic (and my wallet) where it is.
The bundle is up for the next two weeks, so you’ve got some time to think about it.