A lot of games have done the "retro" style before. Maybe it's been done to death by game devs who think just using chiptune-style music and pixel graphics make a game appealing to the "retro crowd." Hypnospace Outlaw is a game that does the style right in a way that I haven't really seen before.

The people who made Hypnospace possible made it fantastically in such a way that even if you didn't grow up with the internet in the 90's you can still enjoy the exaggerated parodies of the culture at the time. The music, the format, the people, everything feels realistic, despite you never interacting with the real world. The people is something that I want to emphasize, because while you never interact with people directly (except for a couple of your employers,) the people still feel like real people. You really feel like you know them just from reading their pages because they just put themselves out there and be who they are.

The game-play is pretty simple, but by no means bad. Hypnospace is best described as an "Internet Simulator," You basically play a proto-cyber cop enforcing real laws and policies that your employer. Merchantsoft, has. You explore peoples pages looking for infractions. You get paid in a virtual (and worthless) currency and continue your job from chapter to chapter. What kind of crazy stuff will you stumble upon? Pirated Music? Company Secrets? Hackers? You never know what to expect.

Hypnospace is most certainly one of my favorite games. I look forward to see what the creators have planned for the future, and the potential from the modding community.