If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it. Little architecture joke for you there, just to kick off a dry topic with a giggle. You see, appreciating architecture is for people in beige cardigans. Folks who subscribe to magazines printed on paper so thick you can still calculate the tree s age. You know the type I mean. Spectacled couples with non-Ikea coffee tables. Thirty-year-olds. People like you! Here are 11 examples of very satisfying architecture in PC games.

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Hurry, hurry. There are only 37 Steam sales each year – miss a bargain now and you’ll regret it for the rest of your days. (Until the next one).

As always, the latest Steam Autumn sale is a sensory overload of cut-price delights. We’re here to guide you through the white noise and make a few informed choices.

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First-person explore-o-puzzler Infra has been one of my favourite gaming surprises of recent years, sending me tromping around the dams, sewers, and bridges of a European city as a structural analyst investigating infrastructure damage. Who could have guessed I’d be so happy wandering along a river snapping photos of crumbling concrete? Now Loiste Interactive want to send us back to Stalburg in an expansion, set on a prison island, as well as in a curious spin-off game about repairing and managing run-down tenements.

Loiste have announced their next big game too, and it’s not more Infra. (more…)

The final episode of Infra [official site], a first-person explore-o-adventure game about a structural analyst investigating infrastructure decay around the fictional European city of Stalburg, is now out. Having no preconceptions of such a game, I have been surprised and delighted by Infra, not quite sure what it even is as I wander dams and drainage tunnels, fiddle with machinery to solve puzzles, and snap photos of damage.

Oskari Samiola, a co-founder at developers Loiste Interactive, told me that “we wanted to show that you can make a (good) game from nearly everything.”

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Over the weekend I slipped on the hard hat and hi-vis jacket of a structural analyst investigating damage to a hydroelectric dam and drainage tunnels along a river in Infra [official site]. It’s a first-person explore-o-adventure game with puzzles to solve and large infrastructure projects to admire. I’m not one for puzzling but I did hugely wandering through these industrial installations, snapping pictures of damage and hazards for my report. I was playing now because developers Loiste Interactive have announced the third and final episode will launch this Wednesday and wow, a disaster sure is coming to the city of Stalburg. (more…)