The best urban setting games

In this 1990 point-and-click adventure, you find yourself in Las Vegas with no memory of how you got there. Solve puzzles, gather clues, and uncover the mystery behind your amnesia...

Half comic book, half arcade game, Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988) offers a delightfully weird aesthetic with its paneled visual style and pulp serial vibe. You’ll punch, p...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dy...

Beneath a Steel Sky is a classic point-and-click adventure game released in 1994, developed by Revolution Software. Set in a dystopian, cyberpunk future, the game is renowned for i...

Before co-op brawlers were everywhere, there was Double Dragon (1988 on DOS). Two brothers, one kidnapped girlfriend, and enough street thugs to populate a small city—that&rs...

Set in a foggy, postcard-perfect version of the British capital, Eagle Eye Mysteries in London takes the educational detective formula and gives it a polite accent. You play a youn...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Felony! is a strange and ambitious early action game that puts you in the role of a criminal on the run. Instead of focusing on a single mechanic, it thro...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

There’s something oddly admirable about a game that hands you a polyester-clad disaster like Larry and says, “Go on, make him succeed.” Leisure Suit Larry 1: In t...

The spiritual sequel to SimTower, Yoot Tower asks the important question: what if you were god, but only over elevators, sushi bars, and the occasional alien invasion? It’s a...

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York expands the formula by giving you a larger playground and more opportunities to cause cartoonish chaos. Released in 1992, it follows a similar struct...

Noctropolis feels like stepping into a fever dream of a comic book you read when you were twelve and maybe shouldn’t have. A surreal noir adventure with gothic heroes, femme ...

Released in 1996 for DOS, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo brings you back to foggy Victorian London, where murders, morphine, and moustaches abound. ...

The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown was developed by Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts for DOS and other systems. The game takes place in the fictional ...

Martian Memorandum is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Access Software. It was released in 1991 and is the sequel to the game Mean Streets. The game is s...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games in 2002. It's the fourth main entry in the GTA series...

Before London called, Eagle Eye Mysteries: The Original laid the groundwork with a simpler, more classroom-friendly approach to detective work. This is edutainment done with confid...

Ever dreamt of running ancient Rome without the toga chafing? Caesar hands you the reins of a budding province and expects you to not burn it to the ground—ideally. This city...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...