Joystiq older than one year ago

No smartphone is safe from cheap indie games (unless it's a Blackberry). Just as the Steam mobile app goes out of beta, allowing unfortunate impulse purchases from iOS or Android devices, the Humble Indie Bundle has announced its first Android release, available now.

Under the same "pay whatever, support charity" pricing scheme as previous Humble Bundles, the Humble Bundle for Android offers Android versions of Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and Edge, with a bonus copy of World of Goo available to anyone who exceeds the average payment.

All of these games are cross-platform, so you get them on your Android phone and Windows, OSX, and Linux. That's a pretty appealing deal for the price of however much you end up paying.

The 2.0 update for Super Mario Bros. Crossover, coming in Q1 2012, gives the homemade blend-em-up a bit more flash and a wider spectrum of nostalgia. And the new SNES and Gameboy visuals don't detract from the game's real purpose, which is to destroy that aloof minion Lakitu in new and interesting ways.

This is how nice things like Humble Indie Bundles stop happening: the Humble Indie Bundle 4, which also supports charities like the Red Cross and Child's Play, has people abusing the system for grinchy gain. Here's how the scam worked: oogie-boogies purchased the bundle for a penny, then used the Steam codes from the bundle "to 'legitimize' automated Steam accounts in order to increase their odds of winning prizes in Valve's current raffle promotion."

"This is unfair to legitimate entrants and is definitely not what we wanted to encourage with Humble Indie Bundle 4," wrote organizers on the Humble Bundle blog. "It's a lose-lose situation for the indie developers, charities, Valve, and Humble Bundle."

New orders now have a required purchase price of $1 to obtain Steam keys. For those who can't afford the dollar (*glares at your $5 mocha*), a Steam key can be provided by contacting the support team and promising "not to resell" or "otherwise abuse it."

It's a fair compromise to a sad situation that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Today has been a pretty good news day for the dusty old codgers here at Joystiq; not only will the original Sonic the Hedgehog be included in Sonic Generations as an unlockable, but Steam has gone and sweetened the nostalgia pot by giving away Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic 3 and Knuckles with every Generations pre-order.

Sonic Generations hits Steam November 4, but the pre-order bonuses become instantly available at check-out. And look at it this way, even if Generations ends up being a flop, you can tell yourself you spent 30 dollars on two Genesis ports, which is a much more palatable sense of disappointment.

[Thanks, Prezten!]

Gaijin Games has announced a sequel to the fourth entry in its lauded Bit.Trip series, Bit.Trip Runner, entitled