Next Humble Indie Bundle to feature Introversion Games?

Bargain games stalwart Lewie Procter has alerted us to this post on DIY Gamer , which seems to suggest that the latest Humble Indie Bundle might include Introversion software.

Multiwinia Thumbnail

, which seems to suggest that the latest Humble Indie Bundle might include Introversion software. All Introversion's games to date are included, with the low-tech delights of Darwinia, Uplink, Defcon and Multiwinia listed in Mac and PC varieties.

The bundle was discovered by sneaky internet users poking about in Steam, who stumbled across Subscription 12283, aka Introversion Humble Indie Bundle Retail. There's no word on release date, and Humble Indie themselves haven't commented on it. But Introversion are an ideal match for the Humble Bundle - their low-fi approach and refusal to sell out have made them one of the most-loved developers in the world, and the Bundle gives a lot of its proceeds to charity.

According to DIY Gamer, Introversion have fallen on hard times, though, with their fascinating strategy heist title Subversion being put on hold indefinitely so they could concentrate on something else. Hopefully the Humble Bundle will put some cash in Introversion's coffers - and remind the world that they still exist.

Fight undead gingerbread on a moonbase in Killing Floor's new Twisted Christmas event

I love having new excuses to hop back into Killing Floor .

. Tripwire continues to sprinkle absurd themes (like Summer Sideshow, or Hillbilly Horrorsin October) into its wave-based survival game, and each is a pleasant, casual context that tempers some of KF's inherent, backpedaly hecticness.

Going live sometime on Tuesday, December's special event is Twisted Christmas III: Evil Santa's Moonbase. It features low gravity monster-killing, a dwarven battle axe, new character and weapon DLC, and an in-game scavenger hunt. Tripwire invited me to play the new content in advance, and I've shared some footage of our match below.

http://youtu.be/idui9cJtnMg

Tripwire told me that Twisted Christmas III was put together over the past three or four months. President John Gibson says the promotional events continue to boost interest in Killing Floor, which hit a millionin sales back in February 2012. “The sales are cool, but really it's just fun for us to developers to step out of our game. To say, 'Hey, let's make a guy with a gingerbread cane as a spike on his arm,'” Gibson says.

Compared to previous KF promo levels (like the terrific Portal 2crossover stage), the new Moonbase map felt a little confining to me, especially considering the new verticality provided by lowered gravity. But the weapons were fantastic: the Zed Eradication Device feels obnoxiously powerful and cool—it's a split between a high-end DOOM weapon, Ghostbusters' proton gun, and the Aliens motion tracker.

To unlock the ZED for purchase (permanently, for all team members), you have to work together to find 16 weapon parts scattered through the map in a single round—a metagame that should provide another excuse to replay the map. I also liked the Dwarfish axe, a handsome melee weapon that can knock enemies back, and the resulting physics usually sends them flying awkwardly, hilariously into the ceiling. Shotguns also propel you through the air if you fire them mid-jump. “The automatic shotgun basically becomes a jetpack,” one Tripwire dev commented during our match.

Twisted Christmas III runs until January 3. Watch the official event trailer below, and visit Tripwire's helpful Twisted Christmas IIIpage for a look at the new weapon and character DLC associated with the event.

http://youtu.be/L2JHYGvo4F4

Test Chamber – The First Minutes Of Street Fighter V's New Story Mode

With the release of the new cinematic story mode, A Shadow Falls, Street Fighter V finally has a big single-player mode to round out the online offerings.

With the release of the new cinematic story mode, A Shadow Falls, Street Fighter V finally has a big single-player mode to round out the online offerings. While you can read my impressions of my full playthrough here, I wanted to show off the first few sequences of the game in order to give you a feel of how the mode works.

Join Daniel Tack and me as we check out the first few fights and cutscenes in Street Fighter V's general story mode. We talk about how this new mode compares to the basic character story mode that was included with launch, and if we'd recommend you jumping in now that this story mode exists.

The new general story mode, A Shadow Falls, was implemented as a part of the June update that went live last week. It is a free title update, but you must also download the free story DLC in order to access it. Street Fighter V released in February of this year to middling reviews. To read about why it wasn't a true contender like several of its predecessors, you can head here.

For more Test Chamber, click the banner below, or check out our hub.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - everything you need to know

Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel's playful sci-fi adventure - will get a sequel on May 5, 2017.  James Gunn, who directed the first movie, is back at the helm, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (as it’s known) started shooting late last year. While details are scant, as the film is still far away, there are plenty of news snippets to be had. So, I’ve gathered all the info up in one place, and here

Introversion on why they're done with Darwinia

We had the chance to catch up with Introversion at Bit of Alright recently, to talk about their new project, Prison Architect, the fate of Subversion and their plans for the future.

recently, to talk about their new project, Prison Architect, the fate of Subversion and their plans for the future. One thing's for sure, Darwinia won't be part of it. Creative director, Chris Delay and managing director Mark Morris told us how the company ended up working on one game for so long when, in the beginning, they set out determined to keep making new games every one or two years.

"We'd started it in 2002 and it didn't ship until 2005" said creative director Chris Delay. "Then we had Multiwinia, which was 2008. And we had Darwinia+, which was 2010. So we've kind of been working on Darwinia for 10 years and it was never meant to be that big a project. To say that we were sick of it is an understatement."

One of the strengths of a small team of indie developers is their ability to throw up new ideas and change direction faster than large, publisher-funded studios. In Introversion's case, Darwinia's runaway success only slowed them down.

"We kind-of accidentally got trapped into making all of these different versions of Darwinia," said Mark Morris. "Because we won the IGF award, there were a lot of different people asking about different versions, and different ports so we kind-of naturally went down that route with it."

The experience of releasing an acclaimed title brings with it the lure of financial stability, and the threat of creative stagnation. After years of uncertainty during development the ability to fall back on a proven idea can prove tempting. "It's very difficult to know what to jump into next," said Mark.

"You've got this game, it's gained a bit of traction, people like it, you've put all this effort in, and you've launched it. It's natural then to to keep working on that on different platforms because you know it's a safe bet."

The decade of Darwinia development clashed with Introversion's ethos. They released Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon in their first six years, demonstrating a determination to keep working on fresh projects. This had been their plan from the very beginning.

"When we started the company we didn't want to do loads of sequels," Mark explained. "Back at the turn of the century, all of the old creativity that existed when me and Chris were growing up in the 80s and 90s had gone and it was all big-budget AAA stuff. Thankfully, we've returned to that now. The indie scene has brought that back."

Introversion recently demonstrated that willingness to drop everything and start something new when they announced that they were putting their long-running bank heist game, Subversion, on hold to work on something entirely new. That something was Prison Architect. You can find out more about how that's shaping up in our Prison Architect preview.

Introversion: "It's unlikely that we'll work with Microsoft again"

Mark Morris - the business mind behind Introversion - has declared at GDC that he doesnt believe the team would ever work alongside industrial giant Microsoft in the future.

Multiwinia Thumbnail

"Do we regret working with Microsoft?" said Morris. "No, but it's unlikely we'll work with them again ... they make you work harder on the production value, but they don't back it up with sales."

Referring to the Xbox Live Arcade ports of Darwinia and Multiwinia, Morris remarked: "XBLA were good to us and put us in the deal of the week, but it had no impact. Steam promotion was an order of magnitude better."

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD saunters onto Steam

If you're currently caressing a well-worn crossbow loaded with a spider larger than your fist and a snarling fuzzball of teeth, then...actually, let's stop right there.

If you're currently caressing a well-worn crossbow loaded with a spider larger than your fist and a snarling fuzzball of teeth, then...actually, let's stop right there. We don't want to know. What we do know is the PC version of the knuckle-dusting adventure Oddworld: Stranger's Wrathis now on Steam with a graphical overhaul and a price discount to boot. Now that's a deal any thrifty bounty hunter appreciates.

Here's the full rundown of Wrath's boosted features straight from the Sleg's mouth:

Added 12 brand new Steam achievements. Concept art and movie extras for completing each region of the game. Support for new languages added. Improved controls especially for PC. All 84 character models have been updated with increased polygon counts and higher resolution textures. Added difficulty levels to the game. All environments have been given higher resolution textures. Added Easter eggs to the game. French and German audio has been added. Full text translations for French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Stranger's Wrath HD is 30% off until the deal ends this Sunday. The Oddboxx, a collection of all four Oddworld games, is also on sale. Previous owners of Wrath receive a free upgrade to HD, so unlike Stranger's mania for moneymaking, your wallet can kick up its dusty boots in relief.

10 Games To Play After Inside

We’ve all had the feeling.

We’ve all had the feeling. You wait with excitement for a long-anticipated game, and luckily it’s everything you hoped it would be. But all too soon, it’s over, and you still want more! Few recent games evoke that sensation more than Inside, the dark and dreamlike adventure from Playdead. Its recent release has led to almost universal praise, but it’s also a brief game that only takes a few hours to complete. While we wholeheartedly encourage a replay or two, at some point you’re going to want to move on to something else. Here are ten great games that scratch at least some part of the same itch.


Limbo
Developer: Playdead

This one is perhaps obvious, but if you haven’t been plugged into Playdead’s previous work, you should track down a copy of Limbo right away. In many ways, Inside is an evolution of many of the gameplay, visual, and audio concepts first explored by the studio in its previous game. While many of the themes are different, Limbo’s black and white aesthetic, surprising puzzles, and vulnerable boy protagonist all make this the clear next choice if you’ve already fallen in love with the developer’s latest game.


Braid
Developer: Number None

Jonathan Blow’s stellar puzzle/platformer set the stage for many indie games to follow. With its post-modern repackaging of familiar video game conceits like Mario’s rescue of the princess, and sparse but elegant puzzle design that twists expectation, Braid is a thoughtful and ultimately painful meditation on the nature of life and love. And like Inside, its final minutes are not what you expect.


Fez
Developer: Polytron

While its brightly colored visuals and lush world may seem in stark opposition to the grim environs of Inside, the two games share much in common. Both games delight in subverting expectation, and challenging players to think in new ways. And like Inside, Fez features a second layer of puzzles beyond what seems like the end of the game, many of which reach to a new layer of critical examination and discovery.


Kentucky Route Zero
Developer: Cardboard Computer

Inside has some clever puzzles, but its thoughtful thematic concepts and evocative setting are also a big part of its appeal. That’s why we’d point you towards Kentucky Route Zero, a point and click adventure that is as much about understanding yourself as it is about progressing the narrative. With its quiet and deliberate pacing, and the mystery of figuring out what’s really going on, Kentucky Route Zero will tap into that same sensation of wonder and bewilderment that Inside nails so well.


The Swapper
Developer: Facepalm Games

Inside’s powerful and creepy tone is at least in part established through the haunting and eerily silent world. As your character runs ever-forward, the lack of distraction often accentuates the small sounds and notable sights that you encounter along the way. Similarly, The Swapper features a similarly dark and quiet setting, this time aboard a damaged space station. In addition, just like in Inside, The Swapper encourages you to solve puzzles by controlling others, but in Facepalm's game, it’s all about clones of yourself.

Next Page: Five more games to satisfy your post-Inside hunger

Introversion's Chris Delay on shifting from Subversion to Prison Architect: "I wanted to build Alcatraz"

One week ago, Introversion dramatically announced that they have shifted development away from their procedural bank-heist sim, Subversion to work a completely new game for submission to the Independent Games Festival.

Prison Architect

One week ago, Introversion dramatically announced that they have shifted development away from their procedural bank-heist sim, Subversion to work a completely new game for submission to the Independent Games Festival. Their new game is called Prison Architect. It lets players construct and maintain high security prisons. We got in touch with Introversion's Chris Delay to find out why the team decided to put Subversion on hold, how they made the decision to drop a game that they've been working on for years, and what inspired them to make Prison Architect instead.

PC Gamer: From what we saw on the outside, Subversion looked ambitious, fresh and exciting, with some fantastic tech behind it. Why did you decide to put the project on indefinite hiatus?

Chris Delay: It certainly was all those things, but we struggled to find a really solid “core game” within the tech that we'd developed. We did what no game designer should do – we had more fun making the game tech than players would ever have playing it. There has to be some action at the core of a game, that is typically repeated thousands of times, that is simply fun and rewarding to do again and again. Everything else is theme and setting, which are also crucial, but they have to be built on the foundations of a core game. We worked on Subversion for so long that we struggled to remember what the game was supposed to be about. Eventually we realised there simply wasn't a core game, and no amount of technology or polish would solve that.

PC Gamer: Will Introversion eventually return to try and finish Subversion, or is it more likely that it'll become an important lesson, but never materialise as a full release?

Chris Delay: The way we think about it, Subversion has become fertile ground for our future projects. We've had several ideas that are based on Subversion already, Prison Architect is just one of them. Certainly the game we've talked about in our blog will never be released – if we do go back to Subversion we will be making some fundamental changes. We wouldn't go back to it now unless we felt we could reach the core game very quickly indeed – we are done with years of open ended tech development.

PC Gamer: What lessons have you learned from your work on Subversion that you'll carry through to work on Prison Architect and future projects?

Chris Delay: Probably the biggest lesson is to get to the core game as quickly as possible, whatever the cost. With Subversion we had this idea that if we just developed an incredible simulation of a procedurally generated world, that a game would emerge from it. We thought it would be enough to have a massively interactive world – just think of the possibilities! So we just kept throwing more tech at the problem, developing newer and more complex simulations, hoping an emergent game would be waiting for us at the end. We should have seen the danger signs with that earlier I think.

PC Gamer: In the post announcing the shift from Subversion to Prison Architect, you mentioned that you "could see how much of the tech that we'd designed for Subversion was directly applicable." Can you talk about any themes or technology that will be making the jump from Subversion into Prison Architect?

Chris Delay: There was an unfinished mission in Subversion where you had to bust a team member out from a maximum security prison. This mission had loads of specialist code for simulating the inner workings of prisons, and the behaviours of guards and prisoners. It was far too ambitious for its own good, much like most of Subversion. The core idea had been to simulate a prison in a lot of detail, then just let the player figure out how to bust his teammate out by exploiting whatever loopholes in the security setup he could find. It's a nice idea in principle, but in reality that kind of unbounded thinking is what ended Subversion. After all the work required to do a prison properly, most players would probably just blow a hole in the wall with explosives and headshot the guards anyway.

However we did have a map editor for Subversion, and I'd been working on producing a plausible prison layout for the mission. And I'd found that laying out that map was actually quite a lot of fun. I spent a lot longer tinkering with my prison layout than playing the mission.

PC Gamer: You mentioned in your announcement that the idea for Prison Architect sprung almost fully formed into your brain. Where did that idea come from?

Chris Delay: I was actually on holiday in San Francisco with my wife, and I'd been thinking quite a lot about Subversion and what was going wrong with it. I was toying with various radical rethinks of the core idea, trying to find something that was interesting. Three things then happened : we took a tour around Alcatraz, which was absolutely amazing because it's such an atmospheric place to visit. I then made a connection to the prison mission in Subversion, but imagined turning the whole thing on its head – let the player build the prison and setup the security. In other words, I wanted to build Alcatraz, not escape from it. The core of the game was set down right there, before I even got off the boat and back onto land! Then the third thing is that I was thinking quite a lot about this new idea in the taxi home from the airport, and the taxi driver turned out to be an ex-prison guard in one of Her Majesty's Prisons in the UK. So I spent about two hours taking notes from this guy about all the things that had happened to him, and all the things he'd seen over the years. And I could just see gameplay in virtually everything he said about how jails worked.

PC Gamer: How did everyone react when you returned from holiday with a whole new game idea?

Chris Delay: My wife spent quite a while trying to talk me out of it actually. I was telling her that I was thinking about dropping Subversion altogether, and switching onto a new idea that I'd had literally that morning. It had to be done though, to be honest I'd been looking for a way out of Subversion for a few months before the idea for Prison Architect came forward. I'd been trying to find ways to cut it down to the bare essentials, or release it somehow in a very early state, but basically they were all attempts to get out of having to finish it, because I couldn't really see how to.

I actually planned how to present the news to the other guys at Introversion quite carefully, because I knew it could go down very badly indeed. They'd been waiting for me to “get it together” with Subversion for years as well. In the end I actually gave a powerpoint presentation on the new idea, and the need for us to change to it! I had my core messages very clearly thought out, because I really did think this could be a company ending moment if I delivered it wrongly! In the end it wasn't that tough to sell the idea to them, because I think they could see the potential in the new idea straight away as well, and they also shared my worries about Subversion going off the rails forever. So from that first meeting we agreed to put subversion on hold and do a six week “first playable” of Prison Architect, and by the end of that period we already had more of a game than Subversion had ever been.

PC Gamer: You mentioned scribbling the design brief onto a notepad on the flight home, and how that reminded you of working on Uplink. And Prison Architect will be the first game you've submitted to the IGF since Darwinia. Does the new project feel like a symbolic return to Introversion's roots? A new beginning?

Chris Delay: Certainly the hand written notepad feels like a return to Introversion's roots – its exactly how Uplink started its life, in a notebook I carried around at university. It's difficult to say though, Introversion is definitely a different company now than it was then, not least because we are all different people now. But there's something very satisfying about having a core game documented in ten hand written pages or so, that remain the principle guide to the game even now.

PC Gamer: Does spending six years on one project rob it of some of its freshness? Is it more exciting to be working on something new for the first time in a while?

Chris Delay: Although Subversion has been in development for that long, you have to remember that we've shipped Defcon, Multiwinia and Darwinia+ in that time, as well as a couple of unreleased projects like Chronometer! So Subversion has always been a background project, until about 2 years ago I think. Subversion was always the exciting new project, and never really got boring because we were always developing such cool stuff, and we were picking up great feedback from the press and our fans about what we were doing. It was only once we started work on it fulltime, and we never seemed to be able to reach a point where you could play a mission, that we realised we had some problems.

PC Gamer: You guys have been through a lot. How do you think Introversion has changed in over the years?

Chris Delay: Yeah we have been through a lot, and it feels like we've been doing this for a long time now. Uplink feels like a different era altogether, closer to University for me than Introversion. Each person at Introversion sees our history slightly differently. I think we had our most incredible years when we were doing Darwinia and then Defcon straight after – both games we are hugely proud of. We also took the IGF prize around the same time in 2006, and did the Steam deal, which continues to be our best business partnership to this day. I mean, we just love Valve to bits! How often does one company make so many of your favourite games AND provide you with the best storefront for your own work? Once Defcon was done we started expanding, and I feel like we fell off the boil quite seriously, pursuing a console version of Darwinia which shipped in 2010, way later than planned. Multiwinia was part of that project (being the multiplayer component to Darwinia that Microsoft required for their console), and that also fell a little flat, I think it's our weakest game, although I'm still very happy with it, and disappointed more people didn't play it in the end. During this time we scaled up to ten fulltime staff in a London office and a handful of freelancers, so it was getting pretty big for a while.

But now all that is over, we are back to the original three founders and some highly talented freelancers, all working out of our bedrooms once again (Myself and Mark both work in bedrooms now, that isn't a lie) and it feels like the old Introversion again. Our core mission now is to make the next original game, and that was our intention when we started out in 2001, and I think that's a very healthy mission for an indie game developer. For a while during 2008 and 2009 I don't think you could say that was our core mission, so it feels good to be back.

SimCity noir video paints an urban landscape black and white

Midnight on the beat, and I could tell this city has an old heart.

Midnight on the beat, and I could tell this city has an old heart. Homicide watch wasn't an exciting job—murder stopped becoming a punchline for me long ago—but it kept me on the streets, and that's where you go if you want both a lesson in personality and how to avoid a fender-bender when the garbage man's drunk again.

Me? I came from some spitball of a town further upstate. Figured I'd join the force. Make a difference. Honor, valor, and all that. Everyone I met then were total strangers. Funny—they still seem like strangers now.

This place runs and breathes on oil drills, both a paradise for a man with black blood in his veins and a curse for the schmuck with blood painted on his face. Things were a mess for the longest time. The outside world felt like it didn't existsometimes, and the city's own problems almost drove the boys and girls down at city hall into a panic. I guess it got to me—I came here for the big-time life, not a tug of war with reality.

I remember a buddy of mine, Calvin Chan, telling me to just "slow it down and look closer to see the more beautiful things in life." It's been a good anchor during dark times. It's a city with warts, after all—but it's my city.

How Real is Too Real? Dan Pinchbeck Looks At UltraViolence In Games

How Real is Too Real? Dan Pinchbeck Looks At UltraViolence In Games “Caroline, you’re alive!” exclaims our massive-headed hero, BJ Blazkowicz. There’s a pause, then the wheelchair bound Becker responds: “Well, if you call shitting in a bag alive.” It’s the funniest line in Wolfenstein: The New Order and pretty much encapsulates the central issue with the game. The New Order is a damn good shooter.

Infinifactory is "like SpaceChem...but in 3D"

Zachary Barth's Infiniminer was Minecraft before Minecraft was Minecraft, kickstarting the whole cubey, block-digging genre that has made other people lots of money over the years.

Infinifactory

was Minecraft before Minecraft was Minecraft, kickstarting the whole cubey, block-digging genre that has made other people lots of money over the years. He's been sticking to 2D art for more recent games such as SpaceChem and Ironclad Tactics, but now he's borrowing the 'Infini' prefix and returning to 3D for the very-difficult-to-type Infinifactory. Infinifactory. I'm pretty sure I spelled it right that time. Infinifactory (sob) is "like SpaceChem...but in 3D", in the words of Zachtronic Industries.

Coming to Steam Early Access later this year, Infinifactory will let you "build factories that assemble products for your alien overlords", the challenge being "not to die in the process". I.e. the same challenge I face making a cup of a tea. You'll design and run factories from a first-person perspective, complete a story campaign featuring over 30 puzzles (and also audio logs, interestingly), and compare your solutions with those of your chums, presuming they are also playing Infinifactory. A sandbox mode is included too, along with Steam Workshop support.

If you're a fan of Spacechem—like we are—you'll want to keep an eye on Infinifactory, two eyes when you can spare them. Here's our reviewof the game that will now be known as "Infinifactory...but in 2D".

Whore of the Orient is the new game from L.A. Noire's director

Depending on who you talk to, LA Noire was either a compelling masterpiece or a grand folly.

LANoire

was either a compelling masterpiece or a grand folly. One thing's for sure, though; its creator Brendan McNamara had an ambitious idea for a game and followed it through.

His next game seems to be taking a similar retro-tact to LA Noire. According to Kotaku, it's “one of the great untold stories of the 20th century.” Oh yeah, it's also called Whore of the Orient - but we're not sure how long that name will stick before a concerned parent makes them change it to “Chinese Detective Story”.

As Kotaku points out, Whore of the Orient is the nickname for Shanghai, which could lead to a lot of sexist jokes we're not even going to begin to make. Its huge population and dodgy quarters make it comparable to LA Noire's vision of 1940s Los Angeles.

Of course, Brendan McNamara's Team Bondi studios were controversially shut downafter the release of LA Noire, but it seems McNamara's got a new chum in the form of Mad Max director George Miller, whose KMM Studios are backing Whore of the Orient. It's also more than likely that LA Noire's groundbreaking MotionScan facial animation will return - McNamara owns Depth Analysis, the company behind it.

The Shot Heard ‘Round The Indie World – James Mielke

The Shot Heard ‘Round The Indie World – James Mielke The last time we met I spoke about the second coming of BitSummit, aptly titled BitSummit MMXIV. The build-up to the event was an all-consuming time-crushing organizational apocalypse, but somehow we pulled it off. The results, if I can be clear, were pretty spectacular. The first BitSummit was a one-day event that catered to around 180 people in

Last chance: we're giving away a five-game Steam bundle, with Bundle Stars

Our five-week, five-million-key giveaway has come to an end.

Our five-week, five-million-key giveaway has come to an end. Here's the thing: we've still got some Steam keys left over. This, then, is Giveaway Redux. Over the next few days, you have one final chance to grab a bundle of five games . That's $40 of entertainment, for free. If you missed any of our featured games from the last five weeks—SpaceChem, Dino D-Day, Really Big Sky, Gun Monkeys or GTR Evolution—they're all now back, and available to claim just one last time. Head below for this final set of free Steam keys.

As always, we're running this giveaway in association with Bundle Stars, a digital store that sells a wide range of games, and arranges them into bundles to offer discounts of up to 97%. You'll also find plenty of discounts on individual games on their front page. Newly available this week is the Reboot 6.0 Bundle , which lets you grab Postal, Expeditions: Conquistador, Knytt Underground, Blockland, Steel Storm: Complete Edition and Rock of Ages for an astonishingly low price. Buy it before 1st August, 4pm BST, and this bundle of Steam games, worth $67, can be yours for just £1.49/$1.99.

This last chance giveaway will close forever on Sunday, 3rd August, at midnight PST. Be warned, once the keys are gone, they're gone for good, and may well run out before the deadline. Grab them now, before it's too late.


Spacechem
Dino D-Day
Really Big Sky
Gun Monkeys
GTR Evolution

The remaindering Steam keys must be claimed by 00:00 PST on 3 August 2014. The offer is open to owners of eligible Steam accounts. By taking part in this giveaway you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the further rules which can be viewed at www.futuretcs.com.

This promotion is managed by Bundle Stars, a division of Focus Multimedia Limited. Future Publishing Limited are not responsible for the Steam keys relating to GTR Evolution. Contact Bundle Stars directly by emailing support@bundlestars.comif you have any questions or concerns about entering your key or downloading the game.

LA Noire Complete out this week, launch trailer kicks off hunt for killer arsonist

http://youtu.be/5LU67L8Wv9g
LA Noire was released yesterday in the US and will come out this Friday in Europe, letting us all step into the shoes of 1940s detective Cole Phelps.

LA Noire was released yesterday in the US and will come out this Friday in Europe, letting us all step into the shoes of 1940s detective Cole Phelps. You start out as a humble cop, but your talent for shouting at people until they break down in tears soon puts you in line for promotion, and it's not long before you're careering about town, accidentally running people over and occasionally solving the odd crime.

It's been out for months on consoles, but is arriving on PC with higher resolutions and 3D support, if your monitor's up for it. All of the DLC that came out after console release is bundled in there as well. See some of the fantastic facial animation tech in action in the PC launch trailer above. It's the first Rockstar game to come over to PC since GTA 4. Still no word on a Red Dead Redemption port, though.

It’s Quite Simply A Matter of Murder

Ah, elegant dinner parties, the stables of high society.

A Matter of Murder screen

Ah, elegant dinner parties, the stables of high society. Filled with good food, drinks, so-so company and a bit of gossip. However, such an event isn’t complete without a bit of murder. It’s true one cannot simply hold such an event and expect it to be the talk of the town without an untimely demise. Developer Worthing & Moncrieff is inviting players to such an event in their rogue-like point-and-click puzzle game A Matter of Murder .

A guest at a Victorian English house party has been found dead, a victim of a cold-blooded murder. It is up to the player to find out who is responsible for this dastardly deed. Players will question guests, and search for clues all around the rather elegant manor. The game features procedurally generated content allowing players a unique experience for each play-through. This also includes randomly implemented plot-altering elements that can change the course of the entire story. Plus a wide range of increasingly difficult puzzles to solve.

A Matter of Murder is set to release April 18 for Windows PC, Mac, and mobile. The game will be priced at $2.99 (USD). To learn more about the game visit the official website, “like” on Facebook, and follow on Twitter. To learn more about the developer Worthing & Moncrieff, visit their website.

We have one million SpaceChem Steam keys to give away, with Bundle Stars

SpaceChem is a puzzle game about building factories to create increasingly complex molecules.

Our next giveaway, for Dino D-Day, is live here.

SpaceChem is a puzzle game about building factories to create increasingly complex molecules. It's clever, absorbing, and a great way to test your logical reasoning power. We enjoyed its cerebral charms so much it earned a score of 89 in our review. Now we're teaming up with Bundle Starsto give you SpaceChem for free. We have a million copies to give away, so don't be shy, click through to grab your Steam key.

SpaceChem is just the start of a huge five-part giveaway we're running on PCGamer.com in the coming weeks. We're giving away millions of Steam keys, so keep an eye on the site for the latest offer every Wednesday. As mentioned, this is all in association with Bundle Stars. As well as selling games independently, they specialise in bundling them together to create deals that discount games by up to 97%. This giveaway is your opportunity to build a free Steam bundle over five weeks. To begin, Follow the instructions in the form below to claim your SpaceChem Steam key.

Here's a video of SpaceChem, which should explain things nicely while you wait for the game to install.

A total of 1,000,000 Steam keys are available for SpaceChem, which must be claimed by 17:00 GMT on 2 July 2014. The offer is open to owners of eligible Steam accounts. By taking part in this giveaway you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the further rules which can be viewed at www.futuretcs.com.

This promotion is managed by Bundle Stars, a division of Focus Multimedia Limited. Future Publishing Limited are not responsible for the Steam keys relating to SpaceChem. Contact Bundle Stars directly by emailing support@bundlestars.comif you have any questions or concerns about entering your key or downloading the game.

Steam Autumn Sale continues: Total War, LA Noire, VVVVVV, Fallout: New Vegas super cheap

What's this, every Total War title except Shogun and Shogun 2, with all accompanying DLC for just £8.74 / $12.49?

Total War totally on sale

except Shogun and Shogun 2, with all accompanying DLC for just £8.74 / $12.49? What are you doing to us, Steam sale? I was planning to eat, and perhaps sleep this weekend but NO, you have to throw hundreds of hours of world class strategy gaming at me for a price that my buying finger can't not click on.

Wait, there's more? Gravity mangling platformer VVVVVV, for just 99p / $1.24? That's less than I paid for my cup of coffee this morning. The slick shouting-at-people-until-they-crack simulator LA Noire, which has only been out for two minutes, is half price. And Fallout: New Vegasand all its DLC packs are available at prices that make the upcoming Ultimate Editionseem a little redundant.

Also on sale today:

The deals will change around again in six hours time, so keep an eye on the Steam front page. The Autumn sale will wrap up on Sunday, giving us some time to play everything we've bought before the big Christmas sale kicks off.

...

Jump to Section: Best Price Comments First, let’s be clear… Avatar is much more than a film. It’s a prescribed cinematic experience. Pure effect. The greatest sideshow on Earth. Cameron's aim is to take our franchise-frazzled minds and plug us back in to the mainline; to conjur the wonder of those early silent-movie audiences, aghast and alarmed as a steam-train chugged from horizon to foreground.

One day left to grab your free copy of SpaceChem, new free game tomorrow

Hundreds of thousands have already claimed their Steam key for the excellent puzzle game, SpaceChem.

Hundreds of thousands have already claimed their Steam key for the excellent puzzle game, SpaceChem. A quick reminder for those who haven't, you have until tomorrow at 5PM UK time to get your free key here. As mentioned, we'll be changing up the giveaway every Wednesday, which means we'll have a million Steam keys for a new game to give away tomorrow. I can't say what it'll be yet, but I can say it has dinosaurs in it.

We're teaming up with Bundle Starsfor this—our biggest giveaway ever. They specialise in selling indie bundles at heavy discounts, but also sell individual games. Right now, for example, Mount & Blade: Warband is 75% off, and the insane Postal games are going for pittance.

SpaceChem was released in 2011 by Zachtronics, who also made the fast-paced card-based battler, Ironclad Tactics. SpaceChem earned a score of 89 in our review, which praised the puzzle game for its challenging difficulty and interesting story.

SpaceChem is just the first of five games we're giving away over the coming weeks. Entry will require a Facebook like or a Twitter follow, depending on the week, but for a click you'll get a Steam key you can redeem straight away. If you've already taken a key for SpaceChem, allow me to thank you on behalf of your brain cells for the exercise. Come back tomorrow for free dinosaurs.

Red Dead Redemption "absent from our release plans" say Rockstar

In an lengthy Q&A session on the Rockstar site , the developer insists that they will release all of their games on PC "whenever it is viable (technically, developmentally and business-wise)," but suggest that we won't be seeing Red Dead Redemption PC any time soon.

Red Dead Redemption

"We hope that with the announcement that L.A. Noire is coming to PC this fall, and the knowledge that our next big game Max Payne 3 will have a PC release (plus that we've released both Grand Theft Auto IV and the Episodes from Liberty City for PC), we can finally put to rest any misconceptions that we've 'abandoned the PC platform'" say Rockstar.

"We do know that, yes, there is just one title absent from our PC release plans – that game of course being Red Dead Redemption, and of course we're well aware that some fans have been asking for it.

"All we can say is that whenever it is viable (technically, developmentally and business-wise) for us to release a game for PC (or any other particular platform) – we will and we usually do; unfortunately, that is just not the case 100% of the time for all platforms."

There's no mention of any technical, developmental or business reasons why Red Dead Redemption can't come to the PC, but the fact that it's listed as "absent from our release plans" suggests that we won't be lassoing chargers in Red Dead's wild west for a while. A shame, but we can look forward to LA Noire in November and Max Payne 3 in next March.

The Mean Greens Review: Little Men, Big War

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to take plastic army men and go outside and build forts with them.

The Mean Greens review

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to take plastic army men and go outside and build forts with them. Inside I would position them around my other toys and then do my best to knock them all over by shooting rubber bands at them. When I discovered 3DO’s Army Men franchise, I was so happy to see a game that allowed me to run around as an actual plastic soldier and shoot at other plastic soldiers. Fighting on the edge of a bathtub or flying over ant-infested picnic areas are some of my favorite gaming memories as a kid.

Eventually the Army Men games faded into obscurity when 3DO released more than one lackluster spin-off (let us do our best to forget).

Now, years later, Virtual Basement arrives to the scene with The Mean Greens , a spiritual successor to the deserted Army Men franchise.

The Mean Greens review

Familiar to players who enjoyed Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes , the staple game of the Army Men franchise, The Mean Greens features green plastic soldiers fighting tan plastic soldiers throughout battlefields that exist in our reality. The Mean Greens has players battling across bath tubs, in freezers, and one level even takes place inside of a fish tank. Clearly the developers had fun creating these levels, and that fun echoes throughout the experience.

The level design in The Mean Greens is certainly the highlight of the game. While a handful of the game’s levels are purely environmental, keeping the focus on the deathmatch mode, a few levels are objective based. These levels require players to do things like use their flamethrowers to light candles on a birthday cake, or thaw out blocks of ice in a freezer to free your team’s frozen T-rex toy. The unique gameplay perspective (you’re tiny little men, so normally small objects are giant!) and the fun map designs kept the gameplay fresh and exciting round after round.

The Mean Greens review

Shooting is very standard: WASD to move, Mouse to aim/shoot, and a few other keys for throwing grenades and rolling around. Anyone who has played a third-person shooter on the PC will have no trouble getting a grasp on The Mean Greens’ controls. The combat in the game is also very standard. Using the flamethrower to melt the plastic soldiers is rewarding, but other than that there are not any twists or unique elements to hook me into the game beyond the fact that I’m a tiny plastic toy.

The Mean Greens is a multiplayer-focused game, there is no single-player. A server browser allows players to select a server that works best from them, and once chosen the game zips players right onto a team and into the battle. Equipped with a rifle, shotgun, flamethrower, bazooka, sniper rifle, and grenades, players can hit the ground running and not have to worry about starting their gameplay experience at a disadvantage since everyone has the exact same weaponry. The downside to this equality is that there is nothing to work towards. As fun as the levels are, without a carrot on the stick to chase after, the initial excitement of first experiencing The Mean Greens is going to fade and I’ll have very few reasons to keep playing the game.

Currently the multiplayer community is pretty healthy. It’s late on a Sunday night and I just scanned the server browser to see that a few hundred people were online. Considering that many multiplayer-only indie games suffer from low player counts, the few hundred players online at such an odd hour bode well for the game’s longevity.

If you’re looking for a new multiplayer shooter to put some hours into, The Mean Greens is an excellent choice. My only concern is that the gameplay isn’t the main attraction here but instead it’s the cool map designs that steal the show, and after playing through some of the maps five or six times, I’m already getting a little burned out.

Pros

Great map design Everyone begins on equal footing Relatively healthy online player count

Cons

Nothing to work towards, what you see is what you get Multiplayer-only Gameplay mechanics are very simplistic

A review copy of the game was provided to IGM for the purpose of this review.

We're giving away five million Steam keys in five weeks, with Bundle Stars

Later today a million visitors to PCGamer.com with an eligible Steam account can get a free Steam key.

Later today a million visitors to PCGamer.com with an eligible Steam account can get a free Steam key. We're giving away five games in the next five weeks, each available for seven days before being replaced, with a million Steam keys up for grabs every time.

Zachtronics Industries' SpaceChemwill be our first giveaway. We gave this excellent puzzle game a score of 89when it was released, and you can grab yourself a copy at 4PM BST today. A different free game from Bundle Stars will follow on each subsequent Wednesday, and you can expect a lot of variety from the lineup.

The redemption method involves giving a single Facebook like/follow to the presented Facebook/Twitter account. Once that's done you can pluck your Steam key from the page and redeem it right away.

We're running the giveaway in association with Bundle Stars, who sell games individually, but specialise in bundling them together to sell them with greater discounts. Over the coming weeks you'll be able to build a free Steam bundle from our super-secret lineup. After SpaceChem, there are four games to go. Come back each week to find out what they are, and be sure to pop by later today to get SpaceChem, which is a very neat game that looks like this:

LA Noire PC release date announced, system specifications revealed

[bcvideo id="1034060257001"]
Rockstar have sent over details of the LA Noire Complete Edition, which will be out on November 8.

Rockstar have sent over details of the LA Noire Complete Edition, which will be out on November 8. The Complete Edition of the detect-'em-up will cost $49.99/ €49.99/£39.99 and include all of the follow up DLC cases added after launch on the consoles, "including the “Nicholson Electroplating” Arson case, “Reefer Madness” Vice case, “The Consul's Car” Traffic case, “The Naked City” Vice case and “A Slip of the Tongue” Traffic case."

We can expect the PC version of LA Noire to make good use of the PC's extra clout with "increased resolution and graphical detail" and support for Nvidia 3D vision. Get a sense of how well it'll run on your rig with the system specifications below. Apparently LA noire will need a "DVD Drive" to run. Don't tell LA Noire hero Cole Phelps, he'll shoot you on sight. He'll never have seen such technology, being from the '40s and all. Also, he's a bit of a dick.

LA Noire System Specifications

Operating System: Windows 7 / Windows Vista Service Pack 1 / Windows XP Service Pack 3 / OnLive for PC or Mac; Processor: Intel Dual Core 2.2GHz to Quad Core 3.2GHz / AMD Dual Core 2.4Ghz to Quad Core 3.2Ghz; RAM: 2GB to 8GB; Hard drive space: 16GB; Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 512MB to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1536MB / Radeon HD 3000 512MB to Radeon HD 6850 1024MB; Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9 Compatible; DVD Drive.

The Best Indie Games Of E3 2016

E3 is full of exciting press conferences and triple-A title announcements, but there are also plenty of indie games that are displayed on the show floor.

E3 is full of exciting press conferences and triple-A title announcements, but there are also plenty of indie games that are displayed on the show floor. Each year, we take a look at what the indies have to offer, and this year had some beautiful games on display. Here are some of the best indies from E3 2016.

Come back to this story over the weekend as we highlight additional games that caught our attention.

Masquerada: Songs and Shadows
Developer: Witching Hour Studios
Publisher: Ysbryd Games
Release: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac

Masquerada is an isometric RPG inspired from the likes of Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age. Battles are played out in either real time or you can pause combat to plan out your tactics. In the Venetian city of Ombre, class is distinguished and segregated by those who wear masks, and those who do not. These masks hold an ancient power, and Cicero wields some of these masks to unleash special attacks. You play as the investigator and hero Cicero who was exiled because of a crime he committed five years ago against the government. Now, he's been called back to uncover what happened to the diplomat Razitof Azrus, who has mysteriously been kidnapped. This leads him to an even larger conspiracy, and sets him in opposition to a guild known as Masquerada who hope to possess all masks for selfish gain.

As you progress, you form a party of members who help you solve the case. The story is intriguing, and the voice cast is phenomenal with talent such as Jennifer Hale and Matthew Mercer. The beautiful art style also helps this title stand out. - Elise Favis

Absolver
Developer: Sloclap
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release: 2017
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Each time we revisit a list of franchises we'd like to see revived, one game stands out: Bioware's Jade Empire. We don't know if that series will ever get another chance, but developer Sloclap is scratching that strategic martial arts itch with the upcoming Absolver.

In a lengthy demo, we got a chance to learn more about the complex systems underpinning one of the best E3 surprises. Absolver takes place in the fictional Adal Empire, where mask-wearing Absolvers are a tyrannical regime's enforcers.

The masks not only grant the power to resurrect, but also brainwash their wearers. The protagonists have broken free of the mind control, but that puts them at risk.

At its heart, Absolver is a challenging experience that borrows a bit from the Souls franchise. Attacking, blocking, and evading deplete a stamina meter. Surviving combat isn't about button-mashing, but instead requires studying enemies and waiting to strike when the opportunity is perfect.

But Absolver isn't a Souls clone with a kung fu vibe. As we mentioned, it blends in the multiple martial arts style approach that made us fall in love with Jade Empire. However, it goes much deeper than Bioware did.

Players can configure four stances that can be easily swapped in the heat of combat. These are made up of three basic moves and a powerful strike. Every move ends in a specific stance, so you may find yourself with access to different power strikes during a chain depending on when you decide to trigger it.

In addition to the stances, Absolver features different styles, each with its own special ability. One allows you to evade attacks. The one we used features a parry that opens foes up to counter attack.

You can also bait your opponent into blocking or parrying at the wrong time by activating a feint. This is as simple as tapping the block button in the middle of a move animation. It's an extremely deep system that becomes intuitive quickly and gives players the opportunity to define how they fight.

Because some moves may appear as random drops (though the details are still being finalized), players will have the ability to teach one another new skills. There are resurrection altars throughout the game, which also make a great place to spar with friends.

Sloclap is planning to implement a mentorship feature that allows moves to be learned through sparring. Being defeated near an altar doesn't have any penalty right now, making them ideal locations to test your skills against friends.

Absolver borrows from Journey for its matchmaking, putting players together based on in-game location and progression. However, you'll be able to make friends within the game after you figure out who is willing to assist and which players are only in it to give others a hard time. You can team up with two other players for cooperative play. You'll also be able to fight in one-versus-one and three-versus-three matches.

Thirty minutes was enough time to get the basics, but Absolver already feels like a deep experience that will take much longer to master. We're eager to dive back in at the next opportunity.

For a first hands-on opportunity of a newly announced game, Absolver is already shaping up quite nicely.  - Mike Futter

Abzû
Developer: Giant Squid
Publisher: 505 Games
Release: August 2
Platforms: PS4, PC

Every time I see Abzû, something new catches my attention. The game has received acclaim for its beauty and simulation of the teeming sea, but it's certainly more than a diving simulator.

Developer Giant Squid isn't divulging much on the title's story, but rest assured it has one. I played the newest demo at this year's show, and while the swimming and exploration feel as great and alluring as ever, I was introduced to a new area called the secret world. While the game's oceanic world is home to plenty of mysteries – from mechanical portals to glyphs and statues you can meditate on – the secret world is practically another dimension. It's almost like a dream world where the water itself is below you and temples of light beckon in the distance.

The secret world is a hub for the game, and not only will you return to it throughout, but its portals of light rejuvenate the sea life back in the normal game environment. If it has this kind of wondrous power, what else is it capable of? I can't wait to find out, and I'm sure Abzû has plenty more surprises in store. - Matthew Kato

Manifold Garden
Developer: William Chyr
Release: TBA
Platform: PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, Linux

William Chyr's mind-bending puzzle game drops players into a surreal, M.C. Escher-like world and gives them the freedom to shift gravity as they see fit. Players can walk up to any perpendicular surface, and with a quick press of the button, the entire environment flips 90 degrees. Once you get accustomed to walking up walls, ceilings, and the undersides of staircases, gravity cubes add an extra wrinkle to navigation. These colored boxes must be picked up and moved to floor plates to activate switches and doors, but they can only move when you are orientated to the correct surface, and will fall when their gravitational plane is activated. Navigating the world can be a bit dizzying, but Manifold Garden's stark visuals offer up some remarkable landscapes. - Jeff Marchiafava

Thimbleweed Park
Developer: Terrible Toybox
Release Date: January 2017
Platforms: Xbox One, PC, iOS, Android

Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick are masterful pioneers of the adventure genre. Their hit Maniac Mansion from 1987 became a cult classic. The oddities and quirky storylines return in Thimbleweed Park, which is a throwback, old-school adventure game. It uses the verb system that was widely used in older adventure titles, but from what I played, Thimbleweed Park doesn't have as obtuse puzzle solutions as the genre is known for – which is a good thing.

Thimbleweed Park doesn't just play like a late '80s adventure game; its pixelated aesthetic also helps evoke that era. In the short demo I played, I got to know two FBI agents investigating a murder and a bad-mouthed clown who worried about his appearance in hilarious ways. The humor is often corny and slapstick; two features that I love about adventure games. When I finished playing, I only craved more. The game is planned for release in early 2017. - Elise Favis

The Long Journey Home
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Release Date: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

The Long Journey Home is a space exploration RPG where you manage a ship and crew after being stranded and nearly left for dead in a faraway galaxy. As you pick up the pieces, you attempt to find your way home, and on your way, you explore planets, engage with alien lifeforms, and manage resources carefully. It's a game similar to FTL: Faster Than Light with roguelike influences, where your journey will be different each time in this procedurally generated universe, and it also features permadeath. Your crew members can also die, so careful management of resources is a must. You can build upgrades or useful items for your ship by trading with aliens, completing quests, and scanning planets. Moral dilemmas are a normal occurrence, and the way you respond and interact with aliens will affect your reputation with them, making your trip home either tougher or easier. - Elise Favis

Strafe
Developer: Pixel Titans
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release: 2017
Platforms: PC

It's not unfair to suggest that Strafe shamelessly borrows from the pantheon of FPS forefathers. During our hands-on with Pixel Titans' homage to Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament, the team pointed out all of the nods to the genre's formative games.

Unlike its inspiration, Strafe isn't a linear story experience or multiplayer arena shooter. It's more akin to roguelike darling Spelunky, with procedurally generated 90s-era visuals and four zones that each have their own aesthetics, room designs, enemies, and weapons.

At the start of each Strafe game, you'll choose from a shotgun, machine gun, or rail gun. This will be your main weapon through your entire run. It can be upgraded by paying collected scrap at an upgrade station, but with the exception of limited pickups, you won't be using a weapon wheel to access bottomless pockets.

Strafe plays extremely fast, with crafty enemies and hidden (but not infinite) monster closets that will punish you for backtracking or taking too long. Blood is persistent, acting like a trail of breadcrumbs as you make your way to the exit.

Gamers are understandably starting to get roguelike fatique. The term has become as welcome as "MOBA" and "digital collectible card game." However, Strafe deviates enough from the formula, distilling the FPS genre to its most basic elements: blowing stuff up and then blowing more stuff up. - Mike Futter

Eitr
Developer: Eneme Entertainment
Release: 2016
Platform: PS4, PC

From Software's punishing Dark Souls has becoming a defining series for
modern action RPGs thanks to its old-school difficulty and demanding combat.
The series' influences can be felt in any number of challenging games, and Eitr
is no exception. Eneme Entertainment's striking isometric RPG demands deft
timing and a firm understanding of both your character and your enemies'
attacks and abilities in order to survive. You'll travel through nine Norse
worlds as the Shield Maiden, taking on all sorts of deadly enemies and
collecting an armory's worth of randomly generated loot along the way. Eitr is
an unforgivingly difficult game, but the stunning retro visuals and creative
environments and enemies have us eager to adventure further. - Jeff Marchiafava

Brutal
Developer: Stormcloud Games
Release:  August
Platform: PS4 (PC, Mac, Linux – TBA)

Brutal is a roguelike from Scotland's Stormcloud Games, and the title's visual style speaks to the studio's love of the old ASCII games.

Letters play an important part in Brutal. Not only do players make their way through 26 randomly-generated, lettered levels, but you collect them as part of the process of creating weapons. There are four characters to choose from (Mage, Warrior, Amazon, and Ranger, each with a skill tree), and the only way to make sure you don't start all the way back at the beginning if you die is by making an offering of loot to the gods at alters that appear in some levels. How much you offer is up to you, but if it's not enough the gods will spurn your attempt (the amount you donate will be saved for later alters, however).

Other unknowns confront you on your way, whether that's traps, turrets, and other level surprises; 23 varieties of enemies; or the potions you find that may be helpful or harmful. You don't know what a potion does until you drink it, and its effect changes if you die and start over.

Brutal also supports local two-player co-op as well as a dungeon editor through which you can share your creations. - Matthew Kato

Tacoma
Developer: Fullbright
Release:  2017
Platform: Xbox One, PC

Developer Fullbright is attempting to capture the quiet magic of Gone Home once again except this time in a more fantastical setting: the seemingly abandoned space station Tacoma. You play as operations specialist Amy as she boards the station in order to obtain the artificial intelligence that runs the place as well as figure out what happened to the crew. The demo we saw at E3 was filled with mystery and I came away pretty impressed and wanting to play more of the game.

You can read our full preview of the E3 demo here. - Javy Gwaltney

SpaceChem gets bigger and cheaper, sandbox competition launched

SpaceChem is a game about circuitry pretending to be a game about chemistry.

SpaceChem

SpaceChem is a game about circuitry pretending to be a game about chemistry. You have to create a machine that will build molecules, building routes that will bring the required atoms into the correct arrangement and deposit the finished product into the exit zone. It's a smart, challenging puzzler that earned a lofty score of 89 in our SpaceChem review. If you're intrigued, SpaceChem has just gone cheaper to celebrate the addition of a new sandbox mode.

There are no molecules to make in sandbox, but you'll get unlimited access to the circuit building tools, and Zachtronics have launched a competition to recognise the very best creations. The winner will receive a boxed copy of SpaceChem for posterity. The real reward will be the opportunity to show off your awesome machine. Zachtronics are expecting some impressive entries. "I suspect that some people will be building molecular computers, but that certainly doesn't mean that's the only thing we're looking for" they say.

To enter, you can submit the save file of your sandbox creation to zach@zachtronicsindustries.com with a 500 word explanation of your machine. The deadline is January 1. If you like the idea of playing ultra-advanced pipemania with the stuff of the universe, there's a SpaceChem demo available. If you enjoy that, you can buy SpaceChemnow at the reduced price of $10.

Saturday Crapshoot: Police Quest

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities.

Police Quest

rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, we pick up the shield, reach for a nightstick, and prepare to retread some very, very mean streets with the Lytton PD's top Sierra suicide squad .

LA Noire is coming soon to the PC. But crime? Crime has always been with us. Laura Bow's notebook saw her through two major cases back in the 1920s. Discworld Noir was funny, clever, and a brilliant spin on Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. On the indie side, The Blackwell Legacy games are doing a great job of telling mysterious ghost stories. During the FMV era, it turned out The Dame Was Loaded, and then of course, there was a game simply known as 'Noir' - and a personal favourite of mine, the (later, not sucky) Tex Murphy games, which took those classical stylings into the Future. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? We do. We've painstakingly dug it out a million times.

But few of those cases are stranger, quirkier, or just plain messed up as gaming's original interactive police procedural adventure. Prepare for the insanity that awaits... In Pursuit of the Death Angel.

Maybe it's just me, but I never could take Police Quest very seriously. I know I probably should. It's certainly a serious game - an interactive police-procedural adventure, written by a real cop, and supposedly used by others as a training tool. For me though, it was always something else - closer to the dreams I imagine good cops having after eating too much cheese before bed. It's like a fevered nightmare of repressed paranoia and self-doubt, lessened only by a little guilty wish-fulfillment to round off a long day of being abused and unappreciated by the world they serve.

But I may be wrong. I've never been an American beat cop myself. I don't even really know how American cops work outside of TV and movies, not just because I'm far too boring to ever have gotten on the wrong side of the law, but because - as you can probably tell from my accent - I'm English. Yes, from England. God Save The Queen, and all that. It means I grew up with a very different kind of police force. Our police don't usually get to carry guns for instance. We don't have many donut shops. Instead of Miranda Rights, our officially approved caution is “You're bloody nicked, mate!”, to which our villains admit “It's a fair cop..." and resignedly hold out their wrists for the cuffs...

...okay, so some of that may be, as we apparently love to say, 'bollocks'. Still, it's a different world. Even ignoring that though, Police Quest is a goofier game than people credit it for. I think the moment that clinched it for me (in the original version, which used a text parser rather than icons) was when I realised that you can type 'remove uniform' at any point and main character Sonny Bonds actually will get his little nightstick out in the middle of a crime scene. And then die. Of shame.

Here's why Police Quest was so special. Sierra contracted an actual police officer, Jim Walls, to design them a realistic police game. He did. Unfortunately, Walls was trained to catch crooks, not create adventure games, and so the game he created was... initially... eh. It assumed the player knew the police procedure that obviously came naturally to him, and had effectively nothing to point you in the right direction, or any extra bits and pieces around the side. It needed fixing. Who did Sierra assign to fix it? Al Lowe. Yes, the creator of Leisure Suit Larry. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, really. Yes, the two styles - by-the-book policing and by-Christ-who-came-up-with-this Sierra design - clash at every turn, but that's what makes the result so much fun. Later Police Quest games lacked same quirky charm. In the second for instance, you had to keep practicing with your gun and making sure to use proper ear protection or you'd die when you actually had to use it, but that was firmly more 'annoying' than quirky. By the third game, the last that Walls worked on, the main plot was ridiculously silly, with the series' early star Sonny Bonds finding out that the drugs kingpin he put away in the first game now has a family with their own satanic style cult (which was oddly less deadly than a naked lunatic in the park who he also arrests), but not particularly interesting.

After that, there was one more game set in Los Angeles, which nobody liked very much, before the series morphed into Police Quest: SWAT - an FMV adventure, one of the worst strategy games you'll ever play, a pretty solid squad-based FPS, and finally SWAT4, which was excellent.

The basic structure of Police Quest 1 is that you, as basically good cop Sonny Bonds, just patrol the streets of the fictional, decaying city of Lytton, fighting crime by pretty much leaving the manual open in front of you and doing everything it says. In a way, it's Copy Protection: The Game, especially in the original version of the game, which used a text parser interface. In the VGA remake (where most of the shots here come from, obviously), it was Sierra's standard SCI point-and-click interface, and you could - just about - muddle through everything, apart from looking up your locker code in the manual at the start of the game, the arrest codes when you book someone, and having to check the map.

By Sierra's standards, the series is about a 0.4 on the Sadism Scale. It will kill you for the slightest mistake, and believe me, we're talking slightest mistakes here, but at least it generally has the decency to do it immediately rather than letting you play into a no-win situation. Generally.

The actual plot of the game does technically link most of the cases you investigate, but it's not very well done. There's a new drugs boss in town, Jesse Bains, better known as the Death Angel, which doesn't sound like a guy I'd choose to buy my illegal drugs from, but what would I know? I don't even drink. Sonny visits a few crime scenes which turn out to involve his activities, another cop's kid dies after taking drugs from his supply, and eventually Sonny is sent undercover to put an end to his reign of peripheral villainy. The most dramatic moment prior to that is when one of the Death Angel's minions is arrested but due to be released on a technicality, and Sonny has to rush over to the court with... the paperwork to stop that from happening. Call Police Camera Action!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...


The Case Files of Sonny Bonds, Volume Only

Being the adventures of a Good Cop in a Bad City. Except when he's not.

Chapter 1: Sonny Bonds vs. Health And Safety

Playing Sierra games, the basic rule to remember was that anything that could even theoretically kill you would totally kill you, as would pretty much everything else. Cross a completely empty road? A car will suddenly appear to knock you over. In King's Quest 2, the portal that took you to the different areas was on the other side of a bridge that would only let you cross it a handful of times, for no better reason than to screw you over when you got to the end of the game but were unable to reach the ending. Stuff like that. Here, you have a gun. Shoot that gun without drawing it, and Sonny will blow his own feet off. If you expect anything different, you don't know Sierra. In Quest for Glory, an inexperienced thief could kill themselves by typing 'pick nose' and promptly stabbing a lockpick up one nostril and into their brain. A gun? No way are you going to be let off screwing up with that in your inventory.

But Police Quest takes this to a whole new level. Here, mild embarrassment can kill. Aside from being able to strip naked and die instantly, the shower room lets you change into a towel and walk out into the station, at which point a female narcotics detective, Laura, appears, has a bit of a giggle at you being out of uniform, and... you die. This, despite the fact that Laura is the station's resident prankster, who spends the entire game torturing your Sergeant with things like putting Mace on his memos and releasing a live chicken into his office, and clearly wouldn't give the faintest shit.

Right from the start, Sonny comes across as that straight-A student throwing a tantrum at getting a B+ in PE, almost to the point that Walls and co felt afraid he would be seen as the avatar of all police work, and must never, ever, be permitted to get away with even the smallest infraction in the line of duty, be it taking a bribe, or slightly increasing the odds of a fellow officer seeing his cock before filing the necessary paperwork to request permission to propose, marry the no-doubt terrified maiden in a traditional church service, and finish the manual on what he's actually meant to do with it.

In case you're wondering, yes. This will indeed make it all the more awkward when his love interest turns out to be a prostitute called Sweet Cheeks. But that's for later! First, there's... the car.

The VGA remake is slightly more lenient, but the original version of Police Quest was merciless here. Simply getting into your car and going out on patrol without doing a safety check was insufficient. Fair enough, you might thing. Except! You didn't just type 'perform safety check' or similar. You had to manually walk to all four sides of the car and check them out in turn, otherwise as soon as you left the station... your tyre would explode. The really cruel bit though... the cruelty that made Sierra "Sierra"... is that this is Schrodinger's Cockup. If you actually perform the check, the car is fine.

The driving is completely different in the EGA and VGA versions of the game, mostly because the EGA one is Hell, and the VGA one simply boring as it. In the VGA one, Sonny races along and very occasionally you have to stop at an intersection to avoid hitting something. The biggest pain is circling round the map to be on the right side of the road for the building you want. The EGA version gives you full control, but a tiny, tiny little sprite. Nudging anything will kill you, shooting a light will kill you, and the pixel-perfect precision you often need to stop somewhere will simply make you pray for death.

You've got to wonder whether Jim Walls lived like this, in a constant state of paranoia. I imagine him putting on plastic gloves to switch his bedside lamp off at night, just in case of a loose wire, and putting rubber around his keys, just in case he tripped while going down the stairs and impaled them through his eyeball. Both of them. At once. Which shouldn't even be possible. But you never know!

Chapter 2: Sonny Bonds and the Last Temptation

Before the plot proper kicks in, Sonny has to attend several incidents - a crashed car, where the job is largely to call in the big boys to handle it, a drunk driver who will smash you over the head if you're silly enough to handcuff him from behind, and a stolen car where you have a shoot-out. And then, there's Helen Hots/Tawnee Helmut (depending on EGA/VGA), who doesn't carry a gun, but does have a couple of other deadly weapons at her disposal. By which I mean she has breasts. Two of them, in fact.

Sonny turns out not to have been particularly well trained for this, practically slobbering against her car. She notices. "I'm so sorry, Officer," she simpers. "I just didn't see that stop sign. I'm so embarrassed. I promise I'll never do it again. I'll do anything if you'll let me go. Anything. "

Time to play our first round of Good Sonny, Bad Sonny!

Good Sonny: Despite his 'vitals turning to jello', Sonny resists her sultry siren ways and writes her the ticket she deserves. "I'm sorry, Miss, but running stop signs is very dangerous," he tells her, drawing a line in the sand. "I'd like to let you off with a warning, but I can't."

She nods sadly, realising that her gambit has failed. Having met an honest policeman, she resolves to drive away, maintaining the speed limit, and buy a cardigan. This experience sticks with her for the rest of her life, which she devotes to building homes for orphans in Africa, until finally being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for services to humanity. Unfortunately, she's too busy rescuing kittens from a burning tree to accept, but her doting son does so in her name. His name? Sonny Bonds Jr.

"YOU LITTLE NAZI!" she shrieks. "All you care about is making your quota! You don't care about PEOPLE! You just joined the force so you could carry a gun and feel like a man! You worthless little sack of brass buttons! Get your butt out of my sight, Officer Scummy Bonds! If you think I'm gonna pay a red cent of this ticket, you're dead wrong! What's your badge number? I'm gonna report you for harassment! They're gonna hang your butt out to dry! By the time I'm through with you, you won't be able to get a job as a rent-a-cop at a trailer park! Go on! Beat it, you stupid piece of white trash!"

"Have a nice day, miss," Sonny replies.

"SHOVE IT, PIG! Kiss your job goodbye! OINK OINK OINK!"

And so she vanishes, as Sonny ponders: "You're doing your job; you're trying to discourage reckless driving. Sometimes it seems it'd be a lot easier to let these people kill themselves off.

But what if... what if he hadn't been an honest cop?

Bad Sonny: "Two breasts, hmm?" thinks Sonny's alternate universe doppleganger, stroking the goatee that he obviously has, before reaching out to test the merchandise.

"Well, how rude," says the smiling woman, attempting to be offended. "But if that's what it takes, I suppose it's all right with me!"

"Your heart slips up into your throat," says the Narrator, unbiased in his view of this sordid little dealing. "You quickly trade your integrity for a shot at cheap thrills and torrid sex!"

"My phone number is 555-4369," she says with a smile. "Give me a call some time!"

And with that, Sonny waddles off, truncheon standing straight and true. Oddly (for Police Quest), you get to leave the screen alive. In fact, as far as I know, there's no repercussion for this at all. Unless of course, you push your luck. That sexy number? Find a phone, and you can call it.

"Hello? Helen speaking."

Sonny immediately asks for the date he was promised. "I don't know who you're trying to call, Sonny Bonds, but I recognise your voice!" shouts the woman on the other end.

"Oh my gawd!" Sonny realises. "It's Police Commissioner Hacker's wife!"

And thus, tricked, humiliated, and with his career in tatters, he retreats back to his empty apartment of failure in the certain knowledge that tonight, the only boob he's going to be touching... is himself.

Chapter 3: Sonny Bonds in: A Case of the Crabs

Not long after getting blue-balled on the Thin Blue Line, Sonny is called in to the local cops' pet coffee shop, Carol's, to deal with a complaint about some bikers causing trouble in the less salubrious bar next door - Wino Willy's. Sonny gets out of his car and heads in, realising too late that he's the main character in a Sierra adventure game and he's just allowed himself to be surrounded.

"Please move your motorcycles," he tells them anyway. "You're interfering with the business next door."

"Well, if it aint Little Boy Blue," spits the head biker. "Hey, Little Boy Blue, how'd you like me to help you swallow your tongue? Then you'd REALLY be blue!" HAR! Come to poppa, piggy!"

Bad Sonny: Sonny grits his teeth. "Sir, people do not talk this way."

"What? We're authentic crooks, the likes of which police officers like you might face in your-"

"You're as convincing as the average angel in a nativity play, only with a stupid beard, a tiny penis, and a brand new airhole," says Sonny, drawing his gun and shooting the guy dead.

I may possibly have changed the dialogue there. A little. Still, even if Bad Sonny does opt to shoot him dead, it doesn't end well for him. The all-knowing Narrator is unimpressed, to say the least.

"You pull your revolver and shoot the unarmed biker right between the eyes. (No, we're not going to reward your violence with animation of blood and brains hitting the back wall.) The biker's old lady brings you up on charges and sues you and the Lytton police department for several million dollars. Internal affairs finds you guilty. You spend the next 30 years of your life as an alcoholic shoe salesman, before drowning in a puddle of rainwater in the gutter."

Wow. Harsh. And somehow, I suspect Bad Sonny's last thoughts were along the lines of "But there were four of them, they were armed with pool cues and god only knows what else, and they just directly threatened to murder me in front of witnesses! This was so unfaiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-"

Good Sonny: Good Sonny instead reaches for his nightstick.

"I'll make you eat that, pig," growls the biker, but Sonny has Right on his side. One smack to the balls, and it is the other man down on the ground squealing.

"Hey, uh, we'll move the bikes, okay?" mutters one of the other bikers, totally not suddenly flaring up with adrenaline and attacking the intruder. "We'll just do that now, okay? We're leavin'."

As they go, Sonny sees a friendly face at the back of the bar - his old high-school crush, "Sweet Cheeks" Marie, who also has two breasts, and a clear willingness to let him touch them, no charge.

"Well, Marie, what's new on the street?" he asks, and immediately regrets his choice of phrase.

"Tell ya what, Sonny, I heard rumours about some new drug lord comin' in and takin' over everybody's action. The word is that he's really bad. A vicious dude, y'know? But I'm not sure I buy into that."

Stunned at the concept that a predatory druglord might be both 'bad' and a 'vicious dude', the average kingpin being cut from the same cloth as a Care Bears doll, Sonny listens on. "I met this guy who claimed to be him. The Death Angel. He was one weird dude, but he treated me okay."

"Did you notice anything unusual about him? Did he mention any names?"

"All business, 'aint ya, honey? This dude was a real sharp dresser. One thing I noticed about him; he had a tattoo of a little red rose over his left nipple. It was kinda cute, actually. Most of the stuff he said was just B.S. You guys will say anything to impress a girl, wont'cha?"

Sonny ums-and-ahas over this, and then pretty much immediately proves her point. "Ah, listen, Marie, you've been a big help. Let me give you a tip. We're going to be starting a weep of local- um- ladies of the evening. It's called Operation Trick Trap. The streets are going to be crawling with cops. You'd better lie low for a few days. I'd hate to see you behind bars."

And yes, we're still following Good Sonny - a cop who just passed secret information about a forthcoming sting directly to a prostitute, and thus we can assume, all the others as well. Once again: Being seen in a towel = Game Over. Directly sabotaging his own department's operation because he wants to recreate Pretty Woman on a street cop's budget? Eh. The universe understands.

Officer of the Year, everyone. Officer of the Year.

Chapter 4: Sonny Bonds Does A Little Undercover Work

But it turns out not to matter. Sweet Cheeks doesn't follow his advice, and is soon banged up. Then she's arrested and taken to jail. Luckily for her, the investigation into the Death Angel has swung into high gear by this point, and the net is closing in on his hideout - the Hotel Delphoria. A series of illegal poker games are taking place behind the scenes, and the bartender in charge of sending players/suckers to lose their money is one of Sweet Cheeks' friends. Sonny, now officially working in Narcotics, cuts a deal - if she helps him bust Bains, the Lytton PD will be far too busy to care about prosecuting yet another random streetwalker. She accepts, and a plan is formed.

The plan is this: Stupid. Pretty much the first thing that happens in Police Quest is that you read a newspaper announcing that Sonny has been nominated for Officer of the Year. He's also been present at every single major Death Angel related crime scene in the city, as well as been the pivotal reason that one of his lieutenants was jailed. In short, he's about the most recognisable cop in the city right now, especially to anyone smart enough to have been watching his own intricate criminal network.

The Lytton PD's solution? Sonny should bleach his hair white, go and play high stakes poker, and then promptly draw attention to his disguise by calling himself "Whitey".

Idiots.

The slightly more detailed plan is that Marie will go and pretend to be touting for business in the bar. Sonny will pick her up, at which point she'll 'recognise' him and start loudly telling her bartender friend just how awesome and rich and good at poker not that there are any illegal games going on round here of course oh no of course not cough he is. The bartender will promptly invite him to the games, at which point all he has to do is beat a roomful of poker players who are probably armed and dangerous and most likely cheating, in the hope that the Death Angel will conveniently show up, be impressed by Whitey's balls instead of cutting them off with a serrated scalpel, and invite him up to his penthouse.

Once again: Idiots . Never mind that yes, it works. Or does it?

Bad Sonny: This is probably the best 'death' in Sierra history. As before, Sonny gets his invite. However, the poker game isn't for a few hours, and he and Marie head upstairs to debrief. That is not a euphemism. Now that "Whitey" is officially invited into the games, Marie's part is finished. He's supposed to call her a cab ("Marie?" "Yes?" "You're a cab.") and get her out of the way.

But there's... another alternative.

I'm starting to understand why Sonny gets so nervous around women...

Good Sonny: Good Sonny once again puts duties ahead of boobies, and sends her away. Unlike Helen/Tawnee though, she understands. In fact, their love quickly blossoms. In Police Quest 2, Marie officially puts her Sweet Cheeks behind her... metaphorically speaking... and she and Sonny get married, just in time for her to be knifed in a parking lot in revenge for what's basically about to happen right now.

Their relationship would later be chronicled further here, in Leisure Suit Larry 6.

Chapter 5: Sonny Bonds Saves The UniverseSlightly Inconveniences The Drugs Trade

With Marie dispatched, it's time to take out the Death Angel once and for about ten seconds before he shows up again in the next game, "The Revenge". Sonny time-travels forwards a few hours for the poker, and hands over the entry fee. The bartender takes him around the back, carefully pats him down for weapons, and immediately realises that there is no way his main one should be in its current position after several hours in an expensive hotel room with a reasonably priced Marie.

No, of course not. But what happens is no less silly. Sierra's VGA adventures especially were actually pretty good about their mini-games, and you very rarely had to bother with them if you didn't want to. The same is true here. You can play all-stakes poker with the gangsters, or you can just assume you won and get on with it. Or you can click the most pointless button in the history of adventure gaming:

Having won the poker game, "Whitey" is promptly invited back for another high-stakes game, where the Death Angel puts in an appearance. Another skipped poker game later, and just as planned, it's up to the penthouse. Despite being wired and with a backup team standing by, the bartender's pat-down means Sonny can't actually be armed himself. Except that she doesn't bother this time, so he could have been. Still, there was no way anyone could have known that. Soon enough, it's just him and Bains.

"You play a good game of poker, Mr. Bankstein," says Bains, using the nom-de-plume 'Frank Magpie' for no particular reason. "That proves to me you're sharp. There's something I want to tell you. My name isn't Frank Magpie. It's Jesse Bains. I tell you this, a complete stranger, to point out that no matter how accurate this game's police procedure happens to be, never mind the repeatedly demonstrated lethality of our world, its writing is going to be weaker than week old piss right to the end."

"I see."

"Anyway, you may have heard the name before. No? Maybe this will help. Some of my men have coined an amusing little nickname for me: The Death Angel. Starting to sound familiar?"

"Um... yes, I think so. You're becoming famous, Mr. Bains."

"Yes, unfortunately, I've gained a little too much notoriety lately. Consequently, and against all the evidence, I just can't be too careful. I'm sure you understand the need for an occasional alias, Whitey, the man I know nothing about except that he just cheated to beat me at Poker."

"Oh, yes, I know exactly what you mean," says "Whitey".

"Of course you do, Whitey. I have a nice little operation here, as you may have noticed. And there's more going on here than meets the eye. I'm in the process of expanding, and could use a good man. This can be quite a lucrative deal. What I had in mind for you..."

And then the phone rings. "Excuse me for a moment, won't you? I'll take the call in the other room. Help yourself to a refreshment at the bar. I'll be back momentarily, undoubtedly to kill you."

And of course, he will. Thinking quickly though, Sonny uses his wire to call for back-up, just before Bains returns - with a gun. (In another great Schroedinger's Cockup moment, if you do this, you get a box saying 'Five Minutes Later' to compensate for the fact that the backup team is not in fact The Flash. If not, Bains walks back in about ten seconds later, having apparently gone from "What? He's a what? " to "But before you go... what are you wearing? You watching the big game this Saturday? Nah, I'm just chilling out. Maybe killing a hooker. Y'know. Stuff. Anyway, better go. You hang up. No, you hang up. You hang- The asshole hung up! I WILL TORTURE HIS FAMILY TO DEATH.")

The backup team moves into position, and despite hanging over his table and sofa in the most obvious way possible, Bains is oblivious to them. "I just got a most interesting phone call," he tells Sonny. "It seems that one of our playing partners recognised you from somewhere, Mr. Banksten. Fortunately, he happened to be glancing through the newspaper and son-of-a-gun, he recognised the big winner at our poker game. Mr Banksten, a.k.a. Officer Sonny Bonds of the LPD. Officer of the Year, eh? How impressive! What a shame you'll be receiving that award posthumously."

"Yeah, now I think about it, that was dumb," Sonny doesn't say. Nor does he add: "Wait. I was assuming this whole game was time-compressed or something, that I'd been home a few times and been on a couple of different shifts. You're saying that in one day, one single day, I've arrested three people, been in two major gunfights, attended a birthday party, cleaned up an entire gang, been promoted to Narcotics and taken part in multiple sting operations, one of which directly resulted in your No 2 being murdered about five seconds after being incarcerated - which happened like five minutes after I arrested him - and still had several hours when I could have been screwing my hooker love interest before coming down here, having a drink and arresting you? In a single day? I'm the Jack Bauer of proper proceedure!"

What Bains does say is "I do hope you've made peace with whatever gods have abandoned you here, Mr. Bonds," and to his credit, that's not an awful supervillain line. Unfortunately, he immediately ruins it by either adding "In other words: KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE!" or getting shot several times by the backup team, depending on whether or not you screwed up calling them or not.

Assuming everything went well though, Bonds heads over to the body, shuddering at the sight of the first person he's seen gunned down in front of him... at least, the first that didn't lead to an instant Game Over... only to realise... to nobody's surprise... nobody's surprise at all...

"Detective Anglin! Call for an ambulance! This man is alive!"


POSTSCRIPT

Please whistle your favourite badass cop music here. Thank you.

JESSE BAINS , aka THE DEATH ANGEL , was convicted of numerous felonies, including the attempted murder of a police officer and posesession of narcotics with intent to sell. "It'll be a long, long time before Jesse Bains sees the light of day," announced the Mayor. Police Quest 2 came out the next year. So much for that. He died in that one, but that didn't stop him being a pain in Police Quest 3 too.

MARIE "SWEET CHEEKS" WILKANS gave up her life of prostitution, because there was no way she could continue that and be the love interest in a series that actual cops were starting to use as a training tool - as terrifying as that idea should be. She quickly resigned herself to even fans of the series remembering her as "Marie Wilkins", occasionally sharing a sympathetic drink with the other oddly named characters of the PQ universe, including President Hickle, Willy Wily and Chief Whipplestick.

SONNY BONDS was promoted to the Homicide division just in time. His former partner, Laura, never did get to see him in a towel, but was soon drummed out of the police force with the discovery that she was the Gremlin. He later started the Lytton PD's very own SWAT team, where he passes his days waiting for either a sequel to come out, or his wife to be kidnapped for the fifteenth time.

SCHRODINGER'S COCKUP has yet to be accepted as a term on TV Tropes.

HELEN HOTS and TAWNEE V. HELMUTT still have two breasts.

MR WHITMAN made this awesome collection of how it could all have gone wrong in EGA

SCRAP104 did the same for the 1992 VGA remake, which was a fair bit more forgiving.

BAD SONNY BONDS regrets nothing, bitches.

Powered by Blogger.