This week’s best free PC games

As
Noddy Holder once screeched, “it’s Chriiiiiiistmaaaaaaaas” next week,
so the next time you see me rounding up the week’s best free PC games
it’ll be either just before or just after the New Year. No bother,
though: before then we’ll be counting down the top 10 PC freebies of the
year, and this week there’s a nice collection of titles to get stuck
into, including a gorgeous platformer, a point-and-click adventure set
within an angry space station, and a game I enjoyed but in which I have
no idea what the hell happened.
Armed With Wings: Culmination
Sun Studios. Play it on
Kongregate.

Across the Armed With Wings series, creator Daniel Sun has been
striving to perfect his hack-and-slash platformer formula. Culmination
is, as the name would suggest, a statement of all he’s learned over the
past several years – and it’s quite remarkable.
With smooth platforming movement and surprisingly solid combat
mechanics, it’s a game designed to bring the big-budget action feel to a
smaller indie release. But the production values shine through.
Gorgeous, desaturated landscapes are populated by intimidating
silhouettes that convey a surprising amount of detail, while an
initially low-key soundtrack swells and builds to an astonishing
post-rock crescendo.
Playing through the game on the lower difficulty level unlock the
hard setting, which presents a completely different game. Meanwhile,
finishing each level unlocks it to play at your leisure, outside the
story mode. It’s rare to find such an accomplished all-round package as
Culmination without paying a penny. Take the opportunity to experience
it.
Quasar
Crystal Shard. Download it from
Big Blue Cup.

A traditional, low-resolution point-and-click adventure built in the
ever-useful Adventure Game Studio, Quasar begins with a good old
argument. You’ve been stuck on this bloomin’ space station for goodness
knows how long, and patience between its staff is wearing thin. Before
long, everyone’s stormed off – and it’s your opening task to make things
right again.
The game’s aim is to explore relationships between characters, and to
experiment with multiple player characters to boot. It does a decent
job, with mostly well-written dialogue and some convincing traits.
Its puzzles fall into the trap of being ‘easy once you know how’,
with even its small number of rooms requiring plenty of exploration and
experimentation right from the start. But once you get into its vibe,
it’s a competent and surprisingly pretty little adventure game that
satisfyingly achieves what it set out to do.
These Robotic Hearts of Mine
Alan Hazelden. Play it on
Newgrounds.

These Robotic Hearts of Mine already won plaudits on iOS and Android,
and it’s not difficult to see why. In Alan Hazelden’s latest puzzle
game, it’s your job to ensure that every heart on the screen is standing
upright. To do this you must manipulate them by turning cogs,
completing your aims within the fewest moves possible.
But the simple idea is improved tenfold by the mysterious story that
begins to unravel between levels, and by the surprising atmosphere that
the low-key soundtrack and consistent visual design work together to
create. The result is a game that impresses far more than you initially
assume it will.
Pirouette
Increpare/Hayden Scott-Baron. Play it on the
Increpare website.

The utterly surreal Pirouette might have confused me more than any
other game I’ve played in the last few months, but it also managed to
grab me and keep me captivated throughout its short running time – and
the ending, bizarre and incomprehensible as it is, hints at some
fabulously deranged ideas.
It would be silly to spoil too much, so let’s leave it at this: You
walk from left to right, as baroque strings play a delightful tune,
speaking to your many wives during the last moments before they die. The
writing is striking in its unrelenting strangeness, too: a weird mix of
overly formal and surprisingly chatty works wonders for a game this odd