PC Gamer - UK (2022-07)

I

t’s such a great pitch, isn’t it?
Braces! Aliens! Smoking! All the
threat and precision of XCOM, but
with the immediacy of a third-person
shooter. You can tell from the
construction of this intro that it
doesn’t deliver. The Bureau is a deeply
strange game: a cut-and-shut of
different ideas that never really
coheres. It’s a cover shooter with
some inconsequential conversational
elements; like someone made a Mass
Effect game after hearing it described
by six different stupid aliens. The
result is akin to wearing a fedora in
2022: it feels like a great, stylish
choice people will admire.
But, actually, you look like
a right twat.

THE BUREAU: XCOM

DECLASSIFIED

00

F

orget the lost, heretical

technology of the past. There is

one source of guidance now. One

truth. And to live outside that truth

is to risk ruin, ridicule and

destruction. I am, of course, talking

about trying to play Dawn of War

with the original disks rather than

just buying it again on Steam,

complete with all 76 expansion packs

that have been released since. It’s the

smart choice, partly because the box

copy is probably lost in my parents’

loft, and partly because I’m not

certain my PC even has a disk drive.

The Dark Age of Physical Media may

have passed, but Dawn of

War still bangs. No mercy for

those snivelling xenos.

WARHAMMER 40,000:

DAWN OF WAR

S

pore feels like Pixar’s take on the

xenomorph origin story in

Prometheus. It’s more revealing than

I’d like. When faced with the

question of carnivore or herbivore, I

choose a life of meat. Soon, I’m

chasing weaker creatures around the

primordial soup, snapping their soft

extremities with my disgusting beak.

It’s like watching a petri dish in

fast-forward, and there’s something

rather satisfying about levelling up so

I can eat bigger animals. So

satisfying, in fact, that I might

not to grow legs at all.

SPORE

T

he expectation with FMV

games is that they’re always

cheap and often rubbish. It’s

not that the actors are bad – more

that there’s nobody in production

used to directing. The X-Files Game

could have been an amazing

disaster, then, especially

considering how inelegantly some

of the episodes have aged.

But it’s something of an anomaly. It

cost $6 million and was filmed over

four years, with scenes shot around

the schedule of the series. It’s quite

telling that the central plot point is

that Mulder and Scully have gone

missing, but they do turn up

eventually. But what could have been

a gnawing disappointment turns into

a positive: as FBI agent Craig

Willmore, I have to team up with

assistant director Skinner. I was

braced for Mitch Pileggi to phone it

in. Instead, we get to see a side of

Skinner only glimpsed in the show,

expressing genuine concern about his

missing agents. And you can elicit

grumpy responses by offering him

Fox Mulder’s alien literature: a

venomous, “I don’t want that.”

It suffers from all the problems

FMV games usually do. You move

around the world like you’re

shrink-wrapped. And it’s easy to miss

stuff. I head out with Skinner on my

first case, then have to return to the

office because I forgot to pick up my

badge. I try not to make eye-contact

with the FBI mastodon as I sneak

back to my desk. But X-Files

obsessives should consider trying to

find it, just because of the loving level

of detail it has. Yes, it’s like a

three-hour, 6/10 episode

from season two. But it’s

hard to imagine anything

like this existing now.

THEY’RE BACK

EXPECT TO PAY
£15-£80 on eBay

DEVELOPER

HyperBole Studios

PUBLISHER

Fox Interactive

NEED TO KNOW

FOX HUNTING

Spending quality time with Skinner in THE X-FILES GAME

BELOW: Skinner, bearing down on you, like a threateningly
sexy Specsavers advert.

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