Summary

Three games, one disc (or download), one temptingly low price. That’s the elevator pitch for Curve Digital’s Triple Features – Action Pack, a bundle that folds together Alien Breed, Hue, and The Swindle under a single, budget-friendly banner. On paper it sounds like a no-brainer: three well-reviewed indies, two of which launched at double the cost of this entire compilation, plus a clutch of DLC and quality-of-life updates baked in. But bundles can be Trojan horses—one barn-burner propping up two clunkers—so the real question is whether each game still holds up today, how well they run on modern hardware, and if the whole package is genuinely worth your finite gaming hours. After putting all three titles through their paces on PS5 (via back-compat), Series X, Switch OLED, and a mid-range PC, here’s the deep dive.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

Aliien Breed (Team17, 2012 remastered edition) – isometric, twin-stick sci-fi survival horror
Hue (Fiddlesticks, 2016) – colour-shifting puzzle-platformer with a heartfelt narrative
The Swindle (Size Five Games, 2015) – steampunk, procedurally-generated burglary rogue-lite

All three titles arrive complete with their post-launch DLC—extra levels for Alien Breed, the “Colourblind” assist mode for Hue, and the “Moonbreaker” update for The Swindle that added new enemy types and an endless lunar-heist mode. No micro-transactions, no cut content, no nasty surprises.

ALIEN BREED: THE UNSUNG HERO

Originally released in the early ’90s, Alien Breed was Britain’s answer to Doom, but slower, meaner, and obsessed with resource management. This 2012 “remaster” is a ground-up Unreal Engine rebuild that keeps the claustrophobic corridors and relentless enemy waves, yet layers on modern lighting, online co-op, and dual-stick aiming.

Gameplay loop: spawn in a derelict space hulk, collect keycards, unlock doors, restore power nodes, and sprint to the evacuation bay before the xenomorphs overrun you. Ammo is scarce, health packs scarcer, and the map is riddled with vents that belch out face-huggers at the worst possible moment. Think Dead Space viewed from a skewed top-down angle, with a sprinkle of Diablo loot RNG.

Performance: 1080p/60 fps on last-gen consoles, 1440p/60 fps on PS5/Series X via back-compat. Switch runs at 720p handheld/900p docked but maintains 60 fps with only minor dips when the screen floods with acid-spitting brutes. Load times on current-gen SSDs are sub-five seconds—crucial for a game that still uses mid-level checkpoints.

Graphics: the Unreal 3 codebase shows its age—textures are muddy up close and character models are blocky—but the neon emergency lights and volumetric fog still sell the Alien-inspired atmosphere. The soundtrack, a pulse-pounding industrial score, remains one of the most underrated in indie horror.

Replay value: the campaign is short (five-ish hours), but three difficulty tiers, New Game+, and two-player co-op (local or online) dramatically extend shelf life. Leaderboards for level clear-times and a surprisingly active Discord speed-running community give it modern legs.

Verdict on Alien Breed: the star of the pack. If you missed it in 2012, here’s your second chance at a cult classic.

HUE: COLOUR-BY-NUMBERS PLATFORMING

Hue is a puzzle-platformer built around one genius mechanic: you can phase background colours in and out, turning previously solid obstacles into negative space you can walk through. Imagine Portal if your portal gun repainted reality instead of punching holes in it.

Story: you’re searching for your mother, a scientist who discovered the colour spectrum’s hidden eighth hue and vanished into it. Narrative beats are delivered via poignant letters voiced by British actress Anna Acton, and the writing is genuinely moving—equal parts children’s storybook and existential sci-fi.

Gameplay: each new area gifts you an extra colour (up to eight). You swap palettes on the fly with the right stick, instantly transforming the level geometry. Early puzzles teach you to hop over purple blocks, then phase purple out to drop through them. By hour three you’re chaining mid-air colour swaps to bypass laser grids, ricocheting off trampolines that only exist when cyan is active, and wrestling with colour-blind assist symbols that keep the game playable for everyone.

Performance: locked 60 fps on every platform; resolution scales from 720p (Switch handheld) to native 4K on PS5/Series X. The minimalist art style—silhouette foregrounds with bold colour backdrops—hides any aging. Load times are under two seconds thanks to tiny level footprints.

Length & replay: four to five hours for the critical path, eight if you’re a completionist hunting every hidden beaker. There’s no procedural generation, but secret rooms and time-trial medals give speed-runners something to chew on.

Verdict on Hue: a short, sweet, mechanically elegant gem that will resonate with fans of Braid, Limbo, or Monument Valley. Not the meatiest game here, but arguably the most inventive.

THE SWINDLE: STEAMPUNK SPY-THIEF ROGUE-LITE

The Swindle is 2D stealth meets Spelunky: every run generates a new Victorian London packed with steam-powered robots, patrolling bobbies, and safes stuffed with cash you can spend on permanent upgrades—provided you can escape alive.

Core loop: land on a rooftop, hack doors, avoid CCTV, pickpocket guards, blow open walls with dynamite, and bounce back to your airship before the 100-day timer hits zero. Each successful heist earns dough for jump-boost rigs, EMP mines, computer viruses, and even a double-jump cyber-butt (yes, really). Death sends you back to day one, but unlocked blueprints persist, forging that “just one more heist” hook.

Controls: movement is floaty by design—your burglar slides across icy ledges and must commit to jumps—but once you adapt, the game feels great at 60 fps. Procedural generation seeds vertical sandboxes that reward creative pathing: you can dig through bricks, possess a guard, or simply smash a window and hope the alarm doesn’t cascade.

Difficulty: brutal but fair. Early days let you mug dim-witted constables; later levels introduce teleporting drones and psychic inspectors who can sense you through walls. The final 10-day stretch is a nail-biting scramble to rob the Bank of England—fail and you’ll watch 8 hours of progress evaporate in a heartbeat.

Performance: identical 60 fps across all machines. Switch version benefits from optional touch-menu support for quick gadget selection. PC allows ultrawide 21:9 resolutions, but art is pixel-based so the bump is modest.

Length & replay: runs average 40-60 minutes once you know the ropes, yet the randomised levels and 30-plus gadgets mean you’ll squeeze 20+ hours before you finally crack the Bank. Daily seeded runs and online leaderboards keep competitive thieves invested.

Verdict on The Swindle: the deepest, grindiest, and most polarising of the trio. If you adore rogue-lites with tangible meta-progression, this could be your next obsession. If permadeath frustrates you, brace for rage quits.

CROSS-PLATFORM NITTY-GRITTY

Trophies/Achievements? All three games include full sets, stacking separately if you already own the stand-alone versions. Cloud saves work across PS4/PS5 and Xbox consoles; Switch keeps one local save per game. No physical extras—just a vanilla disc and a paper insert with download codes for the OSTs (a nice touch). The bundle activates as three individual items in your library, so you can delete one without touching the others.

VALUE PROPOSITION

At launch, buying each game separately would set you back roughly $35 on consoles and $30 on PC. The Action Pack retails for $14.99 digitally and $19.99 physically, with frequent sales dipping to $9.99. Even at full price you’re paying under five bucks per title, and you’re getting the definitive editions. For newcomers, that’s sensational bang for buck; for double-dippers, the convenience of a single download and updated patches may alone justify the repurchase—especially if you’re library curating on a next-gen SSD.

WHAT’S MISSING?

No bonus behind-the-scenes videos, no developer commentary, no exclusive skins or weapons. It’s a bare-bones collection, and the menus are literally the same launchers you’d see if you bought each game à la carte. A unified launcher, concept-art gallery, or even a platinum stamp for completing all three games would have elevated the package from “great deal” to “essential collector’s item.”

WHO SHOULD BUY THIS?

Bargain hunters who never dipped into Curve’s back catalogue
Couch co-op fans looking for a hidden twin-stick gem (Alien Breed)
Puzzle aficionados who want something breezy between AAA marathons (Hue)
Rogue-lite addicts chasing the next “one more run” fix (The Swindle)
Trophy/achievement hunters—three quick platinum/1000-GS lists in one purchase

Who should skip? Players who already 100 %’ed all three games or anyone allergic to pixel art, permadeath, or isometric perspectives.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Curve Digital’s Triple Features – Action Pack isn’t a flashy remaster collection; it’s a no-nonsense greatest-hits album that bundles three distinctly flavoured indies at impulse-buy pricing. Alien Breed delivers gritty co-op carnage, Hue enchants with cerebral colour-shifting, and The Swindle punishes and rewards in equal measure. Each game still feels fresh, performs flawlessly on modern hardware, and offers enough mechanical depth to stand on its own. Add in the smorgasbord of DLC and the sub-$15 sticker price, and the Action Pack becomes one of the smartest impulse purchases on any digital storefront this year. You won’t get lavish behind-the-scenes content, but you will get dozens of hours of tightly designed, endlessly replayable action across three wildly different genres. In short: it’s the rare bundle where every horse in the stable is a thoroughbred.