Have You Played... The Occupation?

Would that doing a games journalism was about sneaking around the offices of a big company, stealing people's answerphone tapes and rifling through their private documents. Sadly it is not, but The Occupation is!

You play a more than usually intrepid journo, who's reporting on an explosion - notionally a terrorist attack - that happened at a government contracted research group. Some months after the explosion, which killed 23 people, the government has introduced The Union Act. You're sort of poking around at it all, like a child picking at a scab, and have arranged interviews with various people at the Bowman Carson Group.

Time in The Occupation moves at real-time pace. Your interviews are set for certain times, and people have schedules to stick to and phone calls to have, so you have to keep an eye on your watch. You have to avoid security guards doing their rounds in the restricted areas, as you copy computer files and open safes, collecting info for some tasty GOTCHA! questions later on.

It's a very nice idea for a stealth game. Nobody is going to kill you. The worst that'll happen is that you'll get sternly told off and not get the interview you hoped for. Doesn't mean it doesn't get really hard by the end, though. I absolutely flubbed it.