Mass Effect 3's ending

On March 6 this year, a videogame trilogy ended, enraging thousands. The final ten minutes of Mass Effect 3 veered suddenly into unexpected territory and delivered a closing segment that left many baffled and disappointed.

Some of those people felt extremely angry and decided that Bioware needed to be held to account for underdelivering on the final 1% of their stomping 100 hour space adventure. Cue the Take Back Mass Effect Facebook campaign (tagline: DEMAND A BETTER ENDING), which has received over 61,000 likes.

They had valid complaints. Mass Effect 3's ending was really weird, but demanding a new ending from Bioware and then writing one for them perhaps went a little too far. "Fans of the Mass Effect trilogy have put far too much time, effort, and money into the game to be abandoned with such a fate," the group insisted.

"Bioware desperately needs to resolve this issue. New DLC (something long) to add a new, more satisfactory ending to the game, or even a full expansion based as an epilogue to the trilogy.

"Some possible ideas include Shepard retiring or settling down with his/her love interest, returning to work as a Council SPECTRE, or traveling the galaxy as an inter-species diplomat."

In addition to that, a poll on the Bioware forums requesting a "brighter" ending gained 68000 positive votes. Some folks even made a happy ending mod to bring the ending more in line with their expectations.

In April, Bioware responded by announcing a free extended cut patch that would add extra cut scenes and clarity to the ending without changing what actually happened. It was released in June, but by then it was all a bit too late.

Still, some good came out of it. A Child's Play protest drive raised £50,000, though as the BBC reported, Child's Play closed down the drive "after it emerged many people thought they were giving money to produce a new ending for Mass Effect 3."

Bioware mentioned that they are working on Mass Effect 4 in October. It will be built in Frostbite 2, it won't feature Shepard, and Bioware haven't quite decided whether it should be a prequel or a sequel.





Diablo 3 - ERROR 37

Diablo 3 proved more popular than Blizzard had really anticipated when it released on May 15. Huge numbers had pre-ordered, many more received a bonus copy as part of the World of Warcraft annual pass deal, and still more bought it on the day. Blizzard later said that 6.3 million people were playing in the first week after launch.

Diablo 3's controversial always-online requirement meant everyone logging in to play would have to successfully connect with Blizzard's servers first. Unfortunately, with a noise like a whoopee cushion in a wind tunnel the server farms melted into a steaming puddle of silicon and couldn't be coaxed into full operation.

Rejected connections were met with the now infamous "Error 37" message. Furious fans vented their frustration on a 19 page forum thread entitled "Epic Fail Blizzard." #error37 became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter

After a few very late nights and some emergency updates, Error 37 messages started to fade, but more controversy lay ahead. After several delays the real money auction house arrived in June. Patches hiked repair costs for high level players and put in the support pillars for a disappointing endgame.

That wasn't all. Players started discovering exploits after major patches, including one that let wizards become immortal and, as Kotaku noted, another that activated god mode for Barbarians.

Then there was the incident involving Diablo co-creator, David Brevik, who spoke out about Diablo 3 in August saying "some of the decision they have made are not the decisions I would make and there have been changes in philosophy and that hasn’t gone over very well. I think in that way I am a little sad." Diablo 3 devs vented their frustration on a less-private-than-expected Facebook thread in which game director Jay Wilson responded with the message "fuck that loser." Wilson later apologised in a lengthy post on the Diablo 3 site

"What I said was expressed out of anger, and in defense of my team and the game. People can say what they want about me, but I don't take lightly when they disparage the commitment and passion of the Diablo III team," he said.

Phew. Buried under all that hoo-ha it's important to note that Diablo 3 is a good game. Very good, actually, if you forgive the post-level 60 grind. Find out why in our Diablo 3 review. Blizzard are currently planning more updates and there should be some proper expansions on the horizon.





The Tomb Raider rape scene that wasn't

By the time E3 rolled around, there was already some concern surrounding Crystal Dynamic's new direction for Lara Croft. The only footage and screenshots released so far had shown her battered, bruised, bleeding in a state of permanent pain, fear or misery.

Then, two and a half minutes into the E3 trailer, amid the falling, impaling, shivering and screaming, an assailant groped Lara. The implied rape threat was clear to many, and a flood of opinion pieces were penned in response. Here's the trailer so you can see for yourself.



The situation wasn't helped by comments executive producer Ron Rosenberg made to Kotaku. "When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character," he said. "When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character. They're more like 'I want to protect her.' There's this sort of dynamic of 'I'm going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'"

Our Tom Francis got to play through the scene to its conclusion, deliberately failing (to his considerable discomfort) the quicktime events that enable her to fight back. In the end, her attacker merely strangles her to death instead. Oh, good.

Global brand director Karl Stewart told us there's “No sexual element. He doesn’t care who you are. He has got you cornered and you are female, so there is an element of ‘oh he’s creepy, and this is slightly intimidating’, but straight out it’s: bite his ear, kick him in the nuts and shoot him in the head.”

Regarding Rosenberg's comments, he said this: “Unfortunately someone mis-spoke, rather than was mis-quoted, and said a word that isn’t in our vocabulary and shouldn’t have been said… We’re not trying to create something that causes a stir, what we’re trying to create is something that’s still in a mature world but still feels real.”

On watching the trailer, it's hard to believe that those who cut the trailer together weren't trying to cause a bit of fuss. It's still too early to tell where the developers are taking Lara, and it certainly isn't the first time a marketing campaign has misrepresented a game. It's due out on March 5 next year.





Hitman: Absolution

Where to start? Square Enix' promotional efforts have provided some of the most painful "what were they thinking?" moments of the year. The graphic murder of a squad of hypersexualised, rubberised BDSM nun assassins in the May trailer was an impressively misjudged opening gambit that worked on precisely no level.

Game director Tor Blystad later apologised for the trailer, explaining that "there are a lot of movie influences in Hitman Absolution, like Tarantino and Rodriguez." But where Tarantino re-purposes influences from asian cinema and martial arts films to create quirky and spectacular pop-cultural mash-ups, the Hitman nunsassin trailer seems to take its cues from rubbish porn and Rambo. The resultant video was exactly the sort of peurile hyperviolent nonsense that gives videogames a bad rep.

“We’re sorry that we offended people” Blystad said at E3. “That was truly not the intention of the trailer.”

“We’ve been reading as much as we could of the articles and responses” he added. “We were surprised that it turned into such a huge topic. Something similar happened with our Sniper Challenge pre-order bonus. We just wanted to make something cool, it wasn’t the intention to stir up anything.”

IO Interactive subsequently changed the level that featured the nun assassins - a crack squad sent by the Agency to slay Agent 47 - to create more context for their appearance .

It was bad, but a mistake is a mistake, right? Those involved have apologised and will probably be more thoughtful about their marketing schemes in future. As long as they don't do anything else stupid then we can all get past - OH WAIT. Just a few weeks ago a Facebook stunt encouraged players to put "Facebook hits" out on their friends. Those taking part could select insults to throw at each other. You could put out a hit on someone for having small tits, bad hair, an annoying laugh or a small penis.

The campaign was pulled in the wake of a torrent of disapproval. Depressingly, the game proved disappointing, too, ditching many of the traits that made former Hitman games special in favour of a more directed, linear experience. Find out more in our Hitman: Absolution review.




The War Z

At the time of writing, The War Z has been plucked from Steam. Valve's Doug Lombardi told RPS that Valve have removed the game so that Valve can "work with the developer and have confidence in a new build." They're also offering refunds to purchasers who file a support ticket. The problem? This build of The War Z doesn't seem to match up to the promises its developers have been making.

Steam user Shock4ndAwe captured this image showing the original product description on Steam. It promised maps between "100 and 400 square kilometers." It claims you can create "private servers" and "gain experience and spend it to learn dozen of available skills." These features aren't in there yet. What's more, PCGamesN investigated the size of War Z's map and found it to be around 10 sq km large - far smaller than promised.

In an extraordinary interview on GameSpy, executive producer of The War Z, Sergey Titov attempted to defend the Steam listing, saying "I think there's difference between false claims and perception of the text."

When challenged on the "up to 100 players" claim (only 50 players could play simultaneously at the time), he said "let's be frank: when you read "up to 100 players" -- what does it mean to you personally? I mean, for me it doesn't mean that I will play with 99 other players. Really :) And yes game supports 100 players -- heck, it supports actually over 400 players per server as of today. Do we have servers launched with this number of slots? No we don't, because this is not what our players WANT."

The War Z creators, Hammerpoint, have since released a statement that blames players for expecting the features clearly labelled on Steam. “We also want to extend our apologies to all players who misread information about game features," they said. The Steam listing has since been altered.

Before The War Z was pulled, Kotaku reported that a patch had upped the respawn time to four hours and added microtransactions that would let players pay to circumvent it. Players took to Reddit to express their anger.

It feels like this story still has a long way to run. In other news, Bohemia Interactive continue to work on a standalone version of Arma 2 mega-mod, Day Z.

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, the adventure that brought Tolkien's epic fantasy to life like never before - using text! Wait, hang on...

In the middle of the earth, in the land of the Shire, lives a brave little hobbit who we all admire. With his long wooden pipe, and fuzzy woolly toes, he lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him. Bilbo. Bilbo Baggins. He's only three feet tall. Yes, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins. The bravest little hobbit of them all.

Well, would you try ordering Thorin Oakenshield to carry your hairy arse around?

An adventuring smorgasbord, and I'm not talking about a dragon in need of a new hobby.

The Hobbit is one of those 80s classics, much beloved by everyone who ever played it, and to its credit, not a bad attempt at turning the adventure into... well, an adventure, especially by 1982 standards. At a time when GO NORTH was still seen as impressive, and GO WEST could still be typed without an immediate response of "You go west. Life is peaceful there", it dared to try... amongst other things... characters with their own lives, a real-time take on adventuring that pretty much no other commercial game tried (though there were a few, like Infocom's Border Zone), and a mix of text and graphics to both help convey the world, and punish anyone who'd bought a colour monitor for their hubris.

To hear some people talk of it, it's the greatest text adventure ever. Of course, it's not. By modern eyes, it's about as primitive as an orc's OKCupid profile. ("Name: Azog the Defiler. Hobbies: Murdering dwarf-scum, helping make what should be one movie into three snoozers. First thing people notice about me: My prosthetic murder-hand stabbing into their face as I laugh. I also enjoy jazz.")

Depending on how you play, it can also be one of the shortest adventures ever, as seen in this transcript of what happened the day Gandalf came to town while Bilbo was in no mood for anyone's shit.

Gandalf gives the curious map to you. Thorin, rising to his feet, says to you "Well Mr Baggins, all is ready for our adventure and I must say things are looking very hopeful. Shall we be off then?"

> KILL GANDALF

You attack Gandalf. With one well placed blow you cleave his skull. Gandalf is dead.

Thorin says "Well, are we just going to stand around here all day?"

> KILL THORIN

You attack Thorin. With one well placed blow you cleave his skull. Thorin is dead.

♪ Bilbo! Bilbo Baggins! The bravest little hobbit of them all! ♪

Ah, the Shire. Right on the edge of Hell, just next to Colourblindness Creek.

Of course, you're not guaranteed to take out both of these heavy-hitters. You have a random chance, which somehow ends up being more than the more canonically likely "You swing at Thorin, just as a bolt of lightning coincidentally strikes him from on high" or "You try to punch Gandalf in the cock. He laughs so hard he has a heart attack and collapses with a look of outraged shock."

It's also a fairly short adventure if you don't have them to hand. You can still run out through the Shire, like in the movie, only with fists covered with wizard intestines and wearing Thorin's head as a particularly hairy hat, as well as make it through much of Middle Earth without breaking a sweat. Mostly because in The Hobbit, Middle Earth consists of just a few screens. Trying it though didn't work so well, involving first stepping over Elrond's corpse over in Rivendell, and then getting trapped in a goblin dungeon. This is where you need to type one of the most famous lines in text adventure history - SAY TO THORIN "CARRY ME" - so that you can get a boost to open a window. With him lying in a puddle back in Bag End, the only possible result is... well... a Bad End. Restore, Restart, Quit?

Say to Thorin "Bite Me"

While the story is heavily truncated, not least by taking a red pen to Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur to trim them, just a little, down to "Thorin", The Hobbit actually does a surprisingly good job of covering the game's narrative. The world is condensed down to hilarious levels, especially if you've seen the sweeping vistas of the movie, to the point that Bilbo's house is essentially next door to Rivendell, the Lonely Mountain, and probably close enough to Mount Doom to use it as a garbage incinerator. The actual plot points though are surprisingly close in a different way, including duelling with Gollum and persuading Bard to kill Smaug the dragon, meeting up with Elrond and finally making it back alive with a chest of gold and some vaguely nifty magic ring.

The main catch is that all the random elements really get in the way - they're cool, on a technical level, but a real bloody nuisance in practice. Characters routinely disappear when you need them, or take endless cajoling to do what you need, and a world where Bilbo can beat up Thorin is a world that has no problem beating up Bilbo at a moment's notice. It can be very frustrating, if you're not using a walkthrough, in which case it's shorter than a tossed dwarf's temper.

Ah. North Yorkshire then.

Provided you've got the dreaded Java installed on your PC though, there's no reason not to give it a try - unless of course you're racing to deliver a heart to a dying superhero, in which case do that first. Alternatively, there's the PC version which can - cough - be quite easily found. If you remember the game from when it was new, you might also be interested in a project called Wilderland, which uses fancy futuristic technology to track what's going on behind the scenes, using the Spectrum version of the game (not included, but probably not an insurmountable problem to solve, ahem...)

Speaking of that Spectrum version, here it is in its entirety. Marvel at its amazing graphics. The PC version is much sleeker and higher resolution, but you just can't beat the... okay, you can beat the original, just as someone beat it with the ugly stick. Still, when people think of this game, this is typically the version they're thinking of. It's going to take Peter Jackson about 9 hours to tell this story. YouTube, 10 minutes. Including loading time. How far we've come over the last three decades, eh?

In an open letter to the The War Z and PC gaming community, creator and executive producer Sergey Titov apologized to disgruntled players for his "arrogance" that resulted in a failure to communicate with players and properly address issues within the game. "I need to admit that we failed to effectively communicate some of our plans and actions to both our existing players and to our new prospective players," Titov writes.

"I became arrogant and blinded by the early success and quick growth of The War Z, our increasing number of players, numbers we were getting from surveys, etc., and I chose not to notice the concerns and questions raised by these members of the game community as well as others. This failure is entirely on my shoulders and if anything I owe thanks to that vocal minority and admit that I should have paid attention sooner."

Controversy has been building recently due to misleading descriptions on the game's Steam page and poor community management, resulting in The War Z being pulled from Steam altogether. A contrite Titov even told us in an interview that he agreed with Steam's decision.

In the full letter, which can be read on The War Z's forum here, Titov outlines changes in how Hammerpoint Interactive will communicate with its fans and respond to criticism going forward. He also makes a final plea for players to give the game a second chance.

"I know that to some people my words won’t matter much, " writes Titov. "I understand that. I hope that will change as we move forward and deliver the features that our players have been waiting for. I can promise you that from now on things will be much more transparent, and we’ll provide better communication and engage our community to discuss upcoming features way before they appear in the game."

The experiment has ended, lovers of RPGs and musical theater. The curtains have gone down on Soon Serenade, planned as the first Broadway showtune-style role-playing game, canceled by its developer Ransom Binary due to a lack of interest. No, we're not making this up. Any of it.

Under the company name Ransom Binary, Robby Mulvany was the sole developer and songwriter of the indie project Soon Serenade. Says Mulvany, "It was probably just a little too weird for gamers. No one had done an actual musical before. I thought that first trailer would arouse curiosity, but it really didn't. I still think there's a great RPG in there, but it's just not economical to spend five years developing a game, which when you are a one-man company, that's really the only way you can do it."

The rest of Mulvany's release reads like a passive-aggressive (and considering the theme of the game, appropriately dramatic) farewell to the games business, though it also accurately touches on the realities of indie game development.

"Maybe I'll get a chance to finish one day, but until then at least I can release the soundtrack for the four-to-five people who were following the progress on this title. This is probably my last game, so it's a lousy way to go out -- considering I haven't released a title in four years now, but the industry is a lot different now than it was when I started. Sometimes you just get left behind, so it's time for me to move on to developing other types of software. Consider this: The First Star Online series has seven titles over the course of 12 years, but virtually no one reading this has probably heard of them. That's how I know it's time to move on. I think most gamers assume anyone who releases a title makes money. It's not true in the slightest. Almost all indie games completely bomb and a lot of the time developers don't even get a shot to make a second game. I was fortunate to hang on this long, but this is a very brutal business and though I exit it, I still hope to be able to talk to people looking to jump in and warn them of what they can truly expect."

All joking aside, I personally would have liked to play Soon Serenade in its final form. We wish Mr. Mulvany luck in his future endeavors. To download the soundtrack to Soon Serenade for free, go here.

Christmas. Christmas never changes. Every day this week though, Fallout: New Vegas gets into the spirit of the season as a selection of mods make wishes come true... for better or worse. Today, new friends mean new opportunities, but at what cost? The answer: Pants.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4




Zombies sighted. Crush them like they're the democratic spirit that made this country what it was, before we made it a nuclear wasteland with our ancestors' now legendary douchebaggery.









Enemies neutralised harder than that family at the start of Fallout 2, sir. Permission to put on the special power armour with a spacious enough codpiece to handle serious murder erection, sir?



Oh, this couldn't feel more wrong.



Cass, if it's wrong to use an evil paramilitary army as your personal security service to seize control of a casino from its proper owner, turn it into a fortress, and profit from a zombie apocalypse you accident'ly started, I don't want to be right.





Kinda getting that feeling, yeah, Comic Sans. Pretty sure even most folks who'd make deals with the devil would take one look at the Enclave offering to just follow orders and go "Jesus, no! Are you insane!? No! Just... just no! "



Ah, come on-



Last I heard, Satan refused to sign a deal with those guys, saying they were too ruthless. And they're just following your orders? You know there'll be some catch.



Sir! No catch! You have the Command Radio sir! While you have that, you can just phone us and we obey your every whim for reasons that make such obvious sense they hardly need explaining, sir!



Yeah. Like it's that simple. One whim to rule them all, one whim to realign them; one whim to bring them here, and in the weirdness, oh, nuke Black Mountain.



COMMENCING ORBITAL STRIKE!



What? No, wai-





Well, there goes my soul. Right then. Just happened. Burned right away to a sulphurous crisp. Text message from the devil, sayin' "Rose of Sharon Cassidy, be seeing you soon." Thanks for that, boys. Way to go.



Eh, don't go beating yourself up over it. Last I checked, beating up a few of Caesar's Legion-



...



...



Huh. Right then. Or beating up Powder Gangers and other evil sorts can wipe that clean off the ol' karmic slate. Come on. We got a casino to start running.



Yeah, about that, Trajan Pro. Not sure just putting on these fancy business suits is enough to run Mr. House's casino. For starters, pretty sure he's got an army of Securitrons who don't like us much.





Army of Securitrons who don't like you very much destroyed, sir! I shot that cowboy one who looked like he was going to do something really interesting but ended up not!



Right, okay, but it's not like we can just stand about and just act all proprietorial, like we're just role-playing casino ownership while these guys shoot zombies.



No need. Look what I found in the back.





See? Course, I don't reckon even us and our friends here will be able to to run the whole place ourselves. Enclave's good for shooting zombies, not so much at dealing blackjack. First gambler to say 'hit me'...



No shit. You got a back-up plan then?





Mr. House's old robot pets? You sure that's a good idea? They're not even working.



Least if we use these malfunctioning pets, we know they're-



No. Don't even think about it!



House-broken!



*pant* You meant 'Caesar'.



Oh, shush.





Right. So, we're all up and running, more or less, assuming 'not having the money to open any tables or buy any booze' counts as 'less', and I'm thinking it probably does. Any ideas for raising quick money in a zombie apocalypse?



Figured a good starting point would be heading to Freeside, finding all the scrap we can get, then crafting it together into more worthwhile stuff and selling it to the gun runners for starting investment capital.



That actually... sounds quite sensible.



Then I figured, screw that, let's do this.







Of all the things I've ever woken up without my pants to find, I like this one the best. 'Course, technically, we just appeared here with all our stuff still on, like something went wrong. Not sure why you had us take it off anyway.



Seemed the thing to do, I guess. Fair being fair and all that. Think we should get dressed and head back before anyone notices?



Wouldn't do much for our reps to be seen in the least stylish underwear this side of Dragon Age, though I'm pretty sure we could go to church like this and no-one'd care. Come on. We've got a casino to run and the Enclave'll be getting lonely.





Cass, when we started this casino, two long hours ago, you ever think it'd be as successful as this? Caps and chems flowing, the Lucky 38 restored to its old glory, the zombie apocalypse almost never spilling in from outside?



I don't care if the chems are better at Gomorrah. Sod'em! You tell those gamblers that only the Lucky 38 is protected by the Enclave, and- yeah, sure boss. Wonder what Mr. House thinks of how we're running his beloved casino?



Aw, I reckon he's happy to see the old girl full of life again.






My... piss tube... is filled... with impotent rage....





So what's wrong? You look like someone put Bonzi Buddy on your PIPBoy.



I dunno, Cass. Just don't feel right, is all, being in here and not out there like in the old hours.



Even with the zombie apocalypse going on out there?



I guess just sitting around in one place just 'aint for me whatever's out there. I need to feel the sand... the snow, I guess, underfoot. Taste the air, then be sick 'cause it's full of radioactive poison. You know? The open trail, that's the life for me.



And also a million or so zombies.



Point. Still, y'know.



Way I see it, we've got everything anyone could want, right here. At least until the Enclave get back to their old tricks. Come on, let's head to the VIP lounge. Just got in a new shipment of alcohol in need of popping open.



Tell you what, how 'bout you start the popping without me. Just going to go swap the guards outside, okay? Swap the guards, do a few other quick things. Business things. Like a business guy. Be there 'fore you know it.





Courier...





He's not coming back, is he, ma'am?



Depends. Would you and your soldiers likely return to your evil ways and go on a genocidal killing spree if the guy with the Command Radio suddenly vanished, leaving an obvious power vacuum for your insane masters to exploit?



Yup.



In that case, yes.




And so the Courier, who had first seen the Christmas snow in Goodsprings, continued to see Christmas, in a Mojave Wasteland forever changed by strange weather, the hordes of the undead, and some seriously dodgy shit to look up on your own time.


Rose of Sharon Cassidy continued running the Lucky 38, which turned out to be surprisingly boring after a while. Eventually, tired of waiting for the Enclave to turn evil, she packed up her caps and went west. Life was peaceful there.



Unleashed, the Enclave revelled in their ability to conquer the Mojave, before remembering that they were too stupid to do anything without orders, and that the Courier had kept the Radio. Their leader was heard to comment "Arse."



FISTO WROTE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, "CLOSED FIST, OPEN HEART!" IT SOLD SURPRISINGLY WELL!



Still brainwashed, Edward Sallow - better known as Caesar and 'Caesar' - found himself travelling with the Doctor, though was too nerve stapled to appreciate the honour. Sometimes, the Doctor used him as a coat rack.



Xenite continued demanding "Uhmmm... is this supposed to be humorous?" until being randomly flattened by a falling bison on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday.



Trudy, owner of the Prospector Saloon, reverse-engineered the weapons found in her bar, raised an army, and declared herself Boudica, Queen of the Wastes. Anyone describing her horde as "Caes-HERs Legion" was crucified, for funsies.



Mr. House's constant complaining led to the coining of the phrase "The House Always Whines". Proving the point, he spent several years bitching about this to himself until his life support system finally committed suicide.



And so the Courier's holiday season came to an end... for now. In the new world of the Mojave Wasteland, fighting continued, blood was spilled, and many lived and died - just as they had in the old world, and original game. Because Christmas... Christmas never changes.

Today's Mods: Frozen World, Zombie Mod, Enclave Commander, Zombie Apocalypse, Run The Lucky 38, More Perks

Maybe it’s just me, but I never could take Police Quest ($4.99 on GOG) 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 that good cops probably have after eating too much cheese before going to bed. It’s like a fevered nightmare of repressed paranoia, lessened only by a little guilty wish-fulfillment to round off a long day of being abused and unappreciated.

Police Quest’s goal is to simulate the experiences that a real cop might have on a daily basis. So, like most dreams, it starts out rooted in reality. You’re Sonny Bonds, a regular beat cop, going about his day in the decaying Lytton City (the bigger mystery plot shows up much later). You drive around until your radio tells you something’s going on, then you drive over there and deal with it. You stop speeding motorists. You call in the appropriate authorities at an accident scene. You chat with a hottie who turns into a spitting hellcat if you don’t let her out of a ticket (and gives you the police commissioner’s wife’s phone number if you do). You sort out trouble at a coffee house. In short, you do your job.

Badgered
 


Oh, and you die. A lot. This is where our sleeping cop’s paranoia kicks in. Even by Sierra standards, Police Quest wants you dead. Run a red light? Game over. Don’t call for backup? Bye-bye. Don’t check your gun into a locker before going into jail? The perp will pull it from your belt and pop you. This is a game where you can single-handedly face down a bar full of bikers, only to get cold-cocked by an incorrectly-handcuffed drunk. In the original version, you don’t simply have to check your car before you head off on patrol—you have to manually walk to all four sides and check them each in turn, otherwise you instantly blow a tire. The kicker? If you do the check, nothing is wrong. That’s just cruel!

Both versions of Police Quest are brutal—the original, released in 1987, uses a text-parser interface, the 1992 remake uses icons. You can muddle through the icons, but the only way you were getting anywhere with the text version was to follow the manual’s procedures down to the letter, literally.

Of course, that strict adherence to proper procedure actually makes the moments when Police Quest goes utterly insane all the funnier. For starters, while the story technically takes place over the course of a few days, in practice you never go home or off-duty for more than five minutes, making the whole adventure seem like some bizarre, mirror-universe season of 24 where Jack Bauer is a stickler for due process. Even better: in the text-driven version, you can type “remove uniform,” and Sonny will actually get his little nightstick out in the middle of a crime scene, dying of shame. Yikes.

With a heart of gold
 


Finally, there’s the game’s love interest. Oh boy. Now, I’m not saying a cop and a hooker shouldn't fall for each other. I’m just saying that I can’t not giggle at a by-the-book cop ending up with a callgirl (who happens to be your former high school sweetheart) named Sweet Cheeks. The story only gets sillier from that point too, as you use her prostitute connections to track down the titular Death Angel (a drug dealer called Jessie Bains—Sonny’s nemesis in the sequel, but largely irrelevant until the very end of this story) by going undercover and beating his friends at poker. Alternatively, you can screw up, miss the big game due to sleeping with Sweet Cheeks instead, and lose your career when your boss calls and hears her screaming out in pleasure. Being the single best game-over in Sierra history doesn’t make that feel any less out of place in a “serious” police game!



But Police Quest isn’t serious—not really. It pretends to be, but it’s the clash between its by-the-book attitude and the gamey parts that makes it so charming, and it knows it. The sequels wasted little time upping the stakes, with Sonny moving to the Homicide Department, and a third game involving an evil cult. Still, this first game was always my favorite, especially the more down-to-earth parts that simply try to convey the flavor of being on patrol. A real cop may not find Police Quest to be a realistic simulation of his profession, but at least he can appreciate that by playing it, we learn about the hookers, bar fights, and rigid rules he must abide by in order to keep us all a little bit safer.

On the next page: More Police Quest screenshots from our archive
 

Review by Ben Griffin

Lego Lord of the Rings is an emphatic reminder of just how many iconic moments there are in Peter Jackson’s fantasy epics. Recreated in blocky form – as simple puzzles, short platforming sections and quaint cutscenes – and lifting the trilogy’s score and dialogue wholesale, the Helm’s Deep siege, Balrog showdown, and, er, bit where Gandalf bangs his head on Bilbo’s lamp all make the cut.

The journey begins, as in the films, on the slopes of Mount Doom rendered in toy bricks. As Isildur, you’ll chop down orcs using repetitive prods, then defeat Sauron with three slashes while he’s dazed. It’s simple stuff, and unrevised from the previous fellowship of Lego games. Traveller’s Tales’ formulaic Lego design is feeling a little tired now, but this outing is elevated by detail, ranging from the massive (thousands of individual warriors battle in the background) to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it (Isildur faithfully wields the Narsil blade).

Middle-earth is a vast and fanciful open world, uncovered region by region until you can roam from Hobbiton to Bree to Helm’s Deep to Isengard without a single load.

It’s a shame you’re given little reason to wander immediately, seeing as most puzzles are unsolvable until you unlock a specific character – of which there are dozens. And, like in past games, your movement is so slow that it seems a ploy by devs who want to artificially extend the longevity. At least mounts make the hikes a little smoother or, if you’re on goat-back, a little bumpier.



The quests you’re given in smaller hubs are better. Early on in Bree, a gardener asks for a Mithril trowel – an effective task because you can tackle it right away, and it introduces weapon crafting. Each character (you can have up to eight on screen) has an inventory, and provided you have enough Mithril bricks, certain items can be shaped by blacksmiths into all manner of mythical swords, daggers and... rope.

Ironically, it’s more than a little Minecraft, a game after Lego’s own heart. Similarly, you won’t always craft weapons – as three hungry Hobbits camping on Weathertop, you’ll also forage sausages, tomatoes and nice, crispy bacon to knock up a mean fried breakfast.

The meat of the game lies in tag-teaming differently skilled characters. Gandalf conjures shields, Hobbits dig holes and light fires, and Gimli, to his dismay, can be tossed as no dwarf should. It’s incredibly faithful: on the Misty Mountains, for instance, you’ll find the fellowship trudging through deep snow as Legolas daintily treads on top, all as Saruman’s voice echoes on the wind in efforts to “bring down the mountain!” In fact, you’re almost discouraged from going solo. ‘Press any button to start’ is constantly flashing in the top corner like a coin-op at the end of a pier, and it can’t be disabled. This just makes the lack of online co-op, or even four-player splitscreen, all the more egregious, especially on PC.



Three films’ worth of standout scenes are made playable with such a deft touch that the game’s tired design can almost be forgiven. Fleeing Ringwraiths en route to Buckleberry Ferry is a mad into-the-camera dash; the dust-up between Gandalf and Saruman incorporates a spot of first-person staff duelling; and when Frodo puts on the ring he enters some cloudy alternate reality.

It doesn’t stray far enough from the tried-and-tested Lego mould to be an unequivocal recommendation, but Lego Lord of the Rings is an authentic, classy and perfectly paced homage. Precious, indeed.

Expect to pay: $57 / £35
Release: Out now
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Publisher: Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment
Multiplayer: Two-player
Link: thelordoftherings.lego.com

Ah, the end of the year... That time when we can all reflect on the horrendous errors of judgement we've made since the last time we promised to never drink again. A time for the wearing of jumpers, the watching of classic movies such as Weekend At Bernie's 2 and the consumption of lard sandwiches...

And it's in this hinterland between Christmas revelry and starting back to work/college/school/jail properly that we can also look back on the best games of the year.

That's what the punters at online retailer Green Man Gaming have been doing too. And they've come up with their own top ten list of 2012 which features death, dishonour and plenty of animal slaughter. Afterall, the festive season is a chance for us to slay creatures and feast on their splayed, charred carcasses with family and friends. Happy holidays!

GMG community's games of the year

10. Max Payne 3
9. Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition
8. Assassin's Creed III *
7. Hitman: Absolution
6. Guild Wars 2
5. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
4. Dishonored
3. Far Cry 3 *
2. The Walking Dead
1. Borderlands 2

* Only available from GMG in EU.
In association with Green Man Gaming. Read GMG blogger in residence James' take on all this gaming goodness in his GMG GOTY post.

The fact that FTL lets me command a craft called The Space Badger with Don Draper at the helm isn’t the main reason I love it (although it is a factor). Ever since I saw Firefly, I’ve been eager to take charge of a crew and lead them to almost certain death. FTL lets me do that, over and over again.

Your primary objective is to outrun the rebel fleet, which advances like a red wave across every sector. Dozens of jump points form an explorable web in each system. You can encounter anything from a drone guarding treasure to a planetary distress signal or a secret space shop. These quick interludes offer a short list of choices, which may result in a fight, a reward, or nothing at all.

For the first few playthroughs, these little choices formed the narrative of my ship’s journey, but that novelty began to wear off as I saw the same choices repeating. Then I started to game the system. I would always ruthlessly destroy pirates even if they tried to surrender, knowing that the more resources I earned from early sectors, the better my long term chances would be. It soon became obvious that FTL isn’t a game about canned stories or alien encounters, it’s about survival.

Then the important decisions came to the fore. Should I spend precious resources on upgrading my energy drive? Should I repair? Should I buy fuel? FTL’s upgrade systems present a fascinating ongoing conflict between the need to keep the vessel ship shape and a desire to make it better.

It helps that FTL’s most devastating weapons are a joy to use. They let you sketch streaks of laser death across the hulls of your enemies. They can teleport bombs right into your enemy’s engine room. They let you order drones to surgically slice up your enemy’s oxygen supply. You can even see the doors on their ship opening and closing frantically as the crew dash to repair what remains of their vital systems.

Everything you can do, however, can also be done to you. FTL’s campaigns are often tales of continuous, worsening crisis. Like the hero of a hardboiled detective novel, your ship becomes more battered and bruised with every encounter, limping towards the distant final boss with a naïve sense of hope.

FTL’s finely balanced systems deliver great strategy, but it’s in the slow demise of your craft that the game finds its drama. That it manages to do so much in such short bursts of time is remarkable.

Read More: Our FTL review and Tom F's FTL Diary.

Runners Up: Hotline Miami and Thirty Flights of Loving

Come, says the cassowary, turn my hide into a wallet. Come, says the tiger, carve a knapsack from my flanks. Come, says the bear, blow me up with semtex even though you’ve already maxed-out the size of your grenade pouch. You are a hunter. I am your prey. This is Nature.

Assassin's Creed 3 may have had a button which let you tickle sheep under the chin and Black Ops 2 may have single-handedly devalued the price of glue with its laissez-faire attitude to horse welfare, but it is undoubtedly Far Cry 3 which has most profoundly changed my relationship with the animal kingdom. Not only did Ubisoft’s open world shooter prove tapirs to be little more than snuffling jam-bombs, begging to be burst beneath the wheels of a hurtling jeep, but its crafting mechanic has made me view the entire natural world with a newly utilitarian avarice.

Once, I was afraid of sharks. Now I realise that their primary role on this planet is not as ferocious, pitiless predators of the deep, but as floating hand-bag farms, eager to be stuffed full of trombones, saucy photographs of dwarves, traffic cones and other assorted beachcomber tat.

As I stand on the back of my boat, machine-gunning the crystal blue waters, I like to imagine I am Ernest Hemingway.

The downside is that I now can’t help but look at someone’s pet shih tzu and calculate the number of gas canisters it could feasibly hold.

Runners-up: Assassin's Creed 3's sheep tickling, Black Ops 2's Afghani burrowing horse