Alec is away this week. I fear that if he can’t find a wifi signal on his travels he might resort to haruspicy to try and find the truths contained within the weekly Steam charts. These round-ups of the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week are his obsession and his curse.

This week: while the cat’s away…

Hi, Jerry Cheese-Muncher here. Did you know that we mice have our own version of Steam? We use it buy games for our tiny little computers. Guess what control method we prefer? That’s right! A flightstick.

Anyhow, I don’t know anything about this Hitman game but it looks a little bit like Those Fucking People And Their Cat, a game in which you control a mouse who is trying to go about his regular routine while those fucking people and their cat try to kill him at every turn. Traps, poisoned fruit slices, claws, teeth, a goddamn taser – you name it, they’ll use it to kill you. There’s an iconic scene where a bunch of mice are dangling from a wooden beam in a cellar, throttled by piano wire. You can’t win the game but you get points for dying in the most violent, gruesome, hilarious or tragic ways possible. Last night I unlocked the “swallowed by a sleeping uncle” achievement. That was a blast.

Ha! This’ll be the human equivalent of Grand Theft Cheese V. I have no idea what an Auto is but I’m guessing it’s some kind of cake? I know how much you people love cake.

Grand Theft Cheese V’s main innovation compared to previous games in the series was the introduction of other food types. Other than cheese, that is. I don’t even have to tell you how controversial the release was. Boycotts, claims of selling out, rumours that the publishers were hooking up with the Big Apple industry. It was a goddamn nightmare. Me? I enjoyed stealing the occasional piece of fruit. It’s edutainment really, showing the benefits of a varied diet and breaking down mouse stereotypes.

Oh yeah, and there’s something cathartic about getting that five star Hunted rating and killing every cat that shows up on the scene. Wish fulfillment power fantasies, you know?

This reminds me of that one game about the underwater creep with the “No Gods or Kings Only Mouse” banner. Y’know, the one set in that theme park place? This one guy I know thinks it’s just about the best thing since sliced cheese but I couldn’t figure out why chewing the brains out of that Walt guy half-way through was necessary. He seemed like a good fella!

Oh yeah! We got our own DOOM. Real good stuff with the shooting and the gore.

This’ll be that horror game based on the lab mice (and rats; we’re all rodent family, right?) you big monstrosities sent into space. Most of them exploded and the rest starved. Thanks for that, champ!

We call this one Clawhammer: Total Claw, even though all of the different animal factions use actual weapons. Guess who our equivalent of the Chaos Gods are? It’s the frickin’ humans who built houses on our fields and then try to kill us when we hang out in the houses.

I suck at Counter-Squeak: Domestic Quesoffensive. Look at that screenshot from last night’s game! I totally suck. Ha ha ha.

I tell you, this would not be number three in the mouse Steam charts. Zombies just never took off here. If I’m being honest with you, we kinda think you’re all saps for enjoying the stupid things so much, with your zombie t-shirts, mugs and giftshops. What a weird thing to celebrate, your own reanimated corpses feasting on the living!

Nah. We’re all about mummies down here in mouse land. Can’t get enough of ’em! If your game doesn’t have a Mummies mode, why even bother releasing it?

Is this one of those games where you need to pal around with people you don’t actually like very much? Oh, no way. And does it have one of those maps with all the icons on it? I’m so tired of games where you have to climb onto the countertops in every house to get all the cheese locations marked on your minimap. It this another one of those? I think I’ll steer clear.

Heck yeah! It’s good to see this at the top of the pile. But hang on just one minute…

*SNIFF*

*SNIFF SNIFF*

Can you smell something burning?

Ah, so long folks. Looks like the cat is actually going to cook and eat me while I’m still alive. Them’s the breaks! So long folks. I’d say ‘see you next time’ but Alec will be back and I’ll be dead.