PCWorld – August 2019

AUGUST 2019 PCWorld 107

HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW
TRAILER: GO.PCWORLD.COM/HYP
There was a magical period in the early days
of the Internet where it felt like anyone could
make a website, and everyone did. Hypno-
space Outlaw is an homage to that era, to
GeoCities and AOL and all the weirdness that
came with it.
It’s wrapped in a wild story about HypnOS,
an operating system that only functions while
the user is asleep. You’re a “Hypnospace
Enforcer” tasked with stopping illicit activity, be
it file sharing or
harassment or
malware distri-
bution. It’s silly
fun, in a Hackers
sort of way.
But the real
hook is nostal-
gia. Your
in-fiction job
mostly requires
trawling
through a vast

collection of faux-‘90s webpages, laden with

ugly gifs and dad-rock jingles and eye-searing

colors. It’s a meticulously detailed recreation

of what that period felt like, everyone explor-

ing this new medium before self-expression

consolidated around the handful of universal

sites we have today.

TOTAL WAR: THREE

KINGDOMS

TRAILER: GO.PCWORLD.COM/TWTK

After two excellent and creative Total War:

Warhammer games, I didn’t know what a To t a l

War based in human history could do to

refresh the formula. Turns out the answer was in

historical fiction, drawing on elements of the

Romance of the Three Kingdoms saga for a To t a l

War that embellishes history with larger-than-

life characters and grandiose battles. Did it all

happen this way? Doubtful, but Three King-

doms is full of personality and lends itself to the

Total War: Three Kingdoms

Hypnospace Outlaw