
Borderlands, Fallout, Stalker, Rage - it just never gets old... although it does sometimes feel as if originality is in as short supply following the fall of civilisation as oil, water and soap.
Still, we've trawled the mutant-infested wastelands to find five post-apocalyptic video games that attempted to do things differently.
Unfortunately, eight "Evil Dukes" have stolen the Eight Eyeballs, and banished the Great King to the wastelands. Enter Orin the Falconer and his pet bird, Cutrus (like "citrus" but more unwieldy to pronounce), who is the only one who can reunite the Eyeballs on the Altar of Peace, by first entering the House of Ruth. Or something.
It's like the weird fever dream of somebody who went to bed after eating a lemon, and reading 'Seven Brides For Seven Brothers' while on acid.
Despite that, even he doesn't really know what the story was all about - something to do with the entire multiverse being a computer simulation, and some machine that had malfunctioned and inadvertently rewritten the 'code' of our universe so that it resembled a sort of quasi-medieval fantasy realm. Also there were aliens, and a robot called Wardwarf. And a main character called Low, who was named after the David Bowie album.
Who knows what it was all about? That's what happens when you try to be too original and clever for your own good.
It's basically Planet of the Apes, but with loved-up birds going on dates.
It was nothing like Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012, which is more Mad Max via Crazy Taxi - with players embarking on vehicular duels in a variety of bizarre transports (including the hot dog-themed truck above). Whereas many post-apocalyptic games feature players fighting over food, medical supplies or ammunition, Vacation 2012 made tourism the most fought-over commodity of the future.
Like a bunch of demented travel agents, the combatants are squabbling over tourists - who must be kidnapped, and forced to tour the crumbling, hellish sights of the space-year 2012 AD.
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