Condition of the Working Class in England?” You know,
that sort of thing. Was any of it credible? It hardly
mattered. The content will out.
Three years later, and the world has changed. It’s like a
gritty reboot: darker, stranger, hornier. And yet, even
today, rumours that RDR2 will come to PC persist.
Recently, a Reddit user posted the LinkedIn profile of Nan
Ma,formerphysicsprogrammer for Rockstar Toronto. A
nowdeletedentryinMa’s list of work referenced “Red
DeadRedemption 2 (PS4, XB1, PC)”.
Butdoestheworld need a PC version of Red Dead
Redemption 2? Afterall, thanks to last year’s console
release,thegamehas already been thoroughly dissected
onsocialmedia.Every opinion has already been fed to the
voidmassofknowledge. Given that, is there any point
evenplayingit?TheSpy would say yes, not least because
TheSpyhaspersonally and painstakingly blocked every
singleTwitteruserin order to protest the idea that a
game’sshelflifeis only as long as its spot in an algorithmic
trendinglist.Alsobecause RDR2 offers an amazing, world
fullofthingstodiscover and rabbits to skin.VALVETIME
Nowletusjourneyback further, to the year 2007, which- undertherulesofThe Spy’s Theory of Informational
Relativity– happened about a century ago. If you don’t
believeTheSpy,how else do you explain 2007 being the
yearrickrollingwasinvented? It was also the year
Half-Life2:EpisodeTwo was released, and thus the first
yearsomeonefirstasked when Episode Three would be
out.Theanswer,aswe all know, is heavy, uncontrollable
sobbing.Andyet,there’s still hope. Valve’s new VR system,
Index,willshiponJuly 1. And, “later this year”, Valve says
it willreleasea “flagship VR game” to support it.
Whatwillit be?Well, last year, an anonymous source
toldUploadVRthatone of Valve’s upcoming VR projects
was a Half-Life prequel.
And that means there’s an
infinitesimally small chance
you could be playing a new
Half-Life game by the end
oftheyear.Whenever that
is.Spyout.
The Spy
1
Thelate-’00swereroughforPC
enthusiasts,butthisissueshows
signsofwhatwouldbecomea massive
upswinginthepopularityofdesktop
gaming.It featuresbothLeft4 Dead 2 and
Stalker:CallofPripyat. Theseareboth
greatgamesthathighlightthePC’s
greateststrengths:beit a commitmentto
a specificvision,orjustsupportfor
hundredsofsillymods.3
Also in this issue, PC Gamer
looked ahead to gaming’s biggest
secrets: those rumoured releases that
were still many years out. Some, like
the StarCraft MMO or Total World War,
just didn’t happen. Others, like Elite 4
and Hitman 5, wouldn’t arrive until well
into the next decade. And some, like
Half-Life 2: Episode Three, exist now
primarily as a meme.(^2)
The review
section is no
slouch either,
thanks to Arma II’s
brilliantly in-depth
war simming (and
AI issues), and The
Sims III’s
celebration of soap
opera drama.
ISSUE
202, July 2009
ON THE COVER
Left 4 Dead 2
IN THE CHARTS
Mama Do – Pixie Lott
C
Thismonth in... 2009
THREEYEARSLATER, AND THE
WORLDHASCHANGED. IT’S LIKE
A GRITTYREBOOTongratulations, reader, you have
caught The Spy in a nostalgic
mood. Let us journey together on a
trip through time, back to the
carefree days of mid-to-late 2016.
You do remember 2016, right? It’d
be understandable if you didn’t.
The Spy has long theorised that
information has a sort of emotional
mass, and that its unchecked dissemination in the
internetage has caused – and excuse the technical
jargon– a gravitational clusterfuck of hot takes so
d it dilates time itself. And that’s why 2016 feels
wasover a decade ago.A refresher then: that presidential election, Captain
America: Civil War, that referendum, Damn Daniel,
mafix wolves”. More relevant to our interests, 2016
o a time of rampant rumourmongering around
ar’smuch anticipated wild west adventure sequel.
month, it seemed, a new scrap of information was
tated by web writers desperate to feed their
arved audience. “Have these clouds arranged into
uraterendition of Red Dead Redemption 2’s map?”
hesoundtrack to
art:Mall Cop 2
heexistence of a Red
edemption 2 release
date?”“Willthe story of Red
DeadRedemption 2 be a
savage indictment of
Friedrich Engels’ Thedenseit
likeitwA
A
“Im
wasals
Rocksta
Everym
regurgit
SEO-sta
anaccu
“Doest
PaulBla
revealth
THE SPYThe Spy knows the DeadRe
secret to time travel.
It’s called waiting.
NEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT
BUTWHOWATCHESTHESPY?
The Spy