Alone in the Dark (2008)

Music Week continues with Bertie meeting a composer whose work had a powerful effect on him, and whose processes aren't at all what he expected.

What is it about the music in Vampyr that appeals to me so much? I've played plenty of games with great music but this was the first to really make me think about it, to listen, to contemplate, to wonder. Maybe it's the loneliness of the cello. There's a powerful melancholy and almost yearning quality to it, in the way the bow sweeps the strings and makes that rasping, sonorous wave of noise; in and out, the sound lapping at your attention. And within it, there's a sense of aching. The more I think about it, the more it seems to be Jonathan Reid, the vampire, alone on the streets of 1918 London. Alone while coming to terms with what he is, what this world is, and where he fits within it.

Not only do I love the sound and the associations of it, I love the confidence I picture behind it. A confidence to do things differently, to strip everything back and just present a naked sound. No orchestra, no overt demonstration of musical power, no insecurity fuelling a need to impress. Instead, a cello. A cello played almost improvisationally, with scraps of melody moving irregularly as if on a whim. A cello not afraid to be ugly, to squeak by being played on the bridge. Who does that? Who commands someone to make those sounds for a game and knows they will be OK, that they will be enough?

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GreedFall

Right from the off, through something as simple as fulfilling some last-minute preparations for your big sea voyage to The New World, Greedfall shows you the lengths to which you have to go to fulfil a quest. Everyone wants to set off, but the governor still hasn't shown. You start asking around for hints on the missing nobleman and visit the places where he was last seen. In a tavern, you first have to either settle his tab or repair the furniture he broke in a drunken stupor before you get the next hint.

Having acquired information on a kidnapper, you need to pass the time until he will appear at the tavern next, from where you sneakily follow him to his lair. There you can poison the guards at the door with sleeping potions, sneak past them or attempt to kill them. Several hours pass this way. GreedFall may look like an adventure filled with dashing explorers wearing capes, but at its heart, it's a detective game - and a very, very good one at that.

Your character De Sardet - it's up to you whether they're male or female - is part of the Congregation of Merchants, one of three factions colonising the island of Teer Fradee. Together with the religious zealots of Theleme and the scientific-minded Bridge Alliance, the Congregation travelled to Teer Fradee to find a cure for a mysterious plague-like illness called the Malichor. As a legate, De Sardet does a lot of, shall we say, legwork for their cousin Constantin. As Constantin is the new Congregation governor on the island to establish diplomatic relationships, there's a lot of jogging from one end of the island to the other.

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