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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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PC demos for Machinarium, Risen

You should definitely try one of them.

PC owners get free tasters for hand-drawn point-and-click adventure Machinarium and unlovely role-playing game Risen today.

The first three levels of Machinarium are available, in both PC and Mac versions, from Big Download.

The game is a beautiful tale of a discarded robot making his way through a rusting dystopia, from the Czech master animators Amanita Design, who created Flash classic Samorost. Read Dan P's hands-on thoughts to learn more. It's out on 16th October.

Meanwhile, PC gamers can also fetch a demo of today's big RPG launch, Risen, direct from publisher Deep Silver.

Risen's the new game from Gothic developer Piranha Bytes. You can find the other Dan's judgement in this morning's review, but be warned, it's not that flattering: "horrible graphics, opaque design and clumsy combat". Ouch.