The best lawn mower I've ever owned was an old Lawn Boy 21" commercial, which was basically a 427 Hemi stuck on top of four wheels and an adamantium blade. Its window-shaking roar frightened small children, and its complete lack of safety features frightened me; it could also cut down small trees with almost no effort if I tipped it up and took a good run at them. I miss it terribly.
My tale isn't exactly relevant to Law Mower, a retro-styled action game set for release on August 10, but reading about it did immediately make me think of that glorious old machine. "Law Mower is a game about one man's epic journey to achieve his life's purpose—to cut every blade of grass in the world," the Steam description explains in words that stir my very soul. But it's not just the grass that needs cutting.
"A man's home is his castle, and every house needs maintenance. Sometimes your neighbors don't keep up and ruin your home's value. Mow their yards in the dead of night and destroy their flowerbeds. When the police come, just leave town and mow somewhere else. If anyone tries to stop you, show them your blades."
I'm honestly starting to wonder if my dad was a consultant on this game.
Law Mower will come with 45 maps split into three campaigns—Knee Deep in the Crud, The Moors That Smell, and Thy Grass Exhumed—each of them taking place at a different time of year. You'll have to fend off dogs, unhappy homeowners, and the army, apparently, as you struggle to make the place look like somebody actually lives there, and there's multiplayer action too, including deathmatch, co-op, CTF, and Domination modes. On top of all that, there's also a map editor and mod support, so you can easily create and share your own yards and gas-driven implements for keeping them looking good with angry digital dads around the world.
Best of all, there's a free demo on Steam, so you can get a feel for what all this weirdness is about. It's multiplayer only but it supports bots; I thought one of them was coming to help me cut my grass when I first started playing, but he was actually there to kill me. I took care of him easily enough, but shortly thereafter the guy across the road got me, and when I went for some payback he got me again. See if he ever gets his extension ladder back.
Law Mower is scheduled for release on August 10.