Among The Best Games For PC, The Top Free Game Is A Bossa Nova Noir Called Gravity Bones

Though its several years old now, this great bossa nova noir game, Gravity Bones, still remains our number one pick for among the best games ford PC in the free category. It is a short standalone game in which the first person player seems to be some kind of secret agent.

This two level game is short and sweet; you can play right through it in 20 minutes. Organized about missions, the first level in particular has a learning process built into the environment in a nice and efficient way. The game is downloaded as a zip file, requiring no installation. It uses about 20MB of disk space.

None of that though really gives you a sense of what's so great and fun about this game. It is experience-based and beautifully realized. Though technically a first-person game that description is misleading. This one kind of busts open a genre all of its own: bossa nova noir!

It wouldn't be accurate to deny it having a story, but the sense of story is much more sophisticated than the paint-by-numbers storytelling of so many popular games. As the various tasks are fulfilled a story does take shape, but what is exactly happening is always a bit up in the air. Indeed, in keeping with the distinctive visual style, it wouldn't be unfair to compare this game to a avant garde film: which is to say that the story is subject to considerable interpretation.

Just a few brief moments after starting, the player is injected right into the action. You discover yourself stepping off an elevator amid some sort of Euro-spy scene. Even as the elevator descends (which is kind of funny, down from where exactly are you coming?), you're aware of coming into dressed guests of some black tie cocktail party. The fete is spread out over a series of terraces overlooking breathtaking vistas of a mountain enveloped lake. A cool bossa nova sound track accompanies your meandering through the crowd of squares (inside joke). You're initial mission has already begun.

This first level, really more a test run, is rapidly completed. Then you're coming off a second elevator and things are a little more elaborate and complicated this time, as you have to find your way through back corridors and across catwalks on an ominous and stormy night.

I have almost no criticisms of this elegant and compact great little game. The one thing I didn't like though was the clue cards, invariably telling you to head to a furnace room. I could have totally done without those. And, in fact, I did do without them. I simply ignored them and had a lot more fun finding my way about through exploratory trial and error. At most the cards should be optional, I think. My method was loads more fun.

The aesthetics of this game are beautiful and the play is engaging. I really appreciated the creator's wise choice to not resort to the standard polygon realism so rampant in the gaming world today. Instead, the choice to conjure up a vivid and original world is far more beautiful and satisfying than would have been the same challenges put into the usual boring "realism." The espionage sensibility evokes a sense of playful self-mocking that doesn't slip over into cloying irony.

This short and sweet game is still a total winner. If you haven't yet checked it out, you definitely should. For both play and aesthetics alike it remains our number one choice among the best games for PC in the free category.