Doctor Who/Recap/TAG/E01 City of the Daleks

"Amy: Can I meet John Lennon? The Doctor: What? Not Ringo? Why doesn't anyone ever want to meet Ringo? Amy: There's no such thing as a sexy drummer..."

The first in the Adventure Games series, fully canonical licensed games. "City of the Daleks" kicks things off, written by Phil Ford, who wrote the animated Tenth Doctor adventure "Dreamland".

The Doctor takes Amy to London, 1963, 'the coolest place not just on earth, but the whole galaxy' to see The Beatles. Except, it's in ruins. Along with the rest of the planet. Clearly that's not right. The Doctor and Amy suddenly see a woman running, and a Dalek follows giving chase while calling her the last remaining human being; woah, what? Cue the opening sequence, rendered in 3D like the rest of the game. It's like we're just watching an episode or something.

After distracting the Dalek with an explosive, the woman is able to escape by jumping down a manhole. Before the Doctor and Amy can go after her, a few more Daleks appear. You can't just run on past them; they'll shoot you dead first. After a bit of stealth and a dash of intuitive thinking, the Doctor and Amy manage to get underground.

They find themselves in the sewers, and wonder where the woman they saw earlier go- oh look, there she is. With a lead pipe. Since the Doctor and Amy are clearly not Daleks, she (named Sylvia, by the way) lowers her guard and tells the two what exactly happened. It seems the Daleks came in through an immense crack in the sky, with so many of them that they even blocked out the sun. The human population shrunk quickly, with a few managing to survive a bit longer than the rest; Sylvia is apparently the last one. The Doctor is rather frustrated over all this: the Daleks never had the power to change time before. What's allowing them to do it now? Speaking of Daleks, a few suddenly show up. Time to run.

Near the exit, Sylvia begins to set up a trap as Amy and the Doctor begin climbing out. Unfortunately, Sylvia takes too long and the Dalek catches up. She dies, and the Dalek activates the trap which explodes and supposedly kills it too. The Doctor and Amy get out safely, but clearly aren't happy. They have got to get back to the TARDI- oh sheesh, more Daleks are on patrol. Eventually they get to the TARDIS after some more stealth.

The TARDIS lands on Skaro, the home planet of the Daleks and where the whole problem most likely started from. What's interesting about the planet is that everything's been rebuilt, despite what happened in Remembrance Of The Daleks. Time to find out what's going on! Except Amy is starting to feel weird and nonexistent: turns out she's a walking Temporal Paradox that is still around only because of the TARDIS protecting her. Unfortunately, time is catching up and eventually Amy Pond will cease to exist. Luckily the Daleks have some stuff that the Doctor can use to create a chronon blocker to delay Amy's disappearance. The Doctor goes on a fetch quest while Amy stays put to relax, sneaking by more Daleks on patrol as he swipes the necessary materials.

He returns with the pieces necessary, constructs the chronon blocker in the form of a fancy bracelet, and Amy is saved! For the moment, anyway. Now they can start investigating. The Doctor figures the answers lie in the Supreme Council Chamber, but they first must find out if anyone's in there. So they go on another stealth mission to the visualizer room, and then one more to disable the giant eye in the room that acts as security (also a librarian, kinda). They are then able to see who's in the Supreme Council Chamber, and it is none other than the Dalek Emperor. And apparently there's a thingy there too; could it be what's causing all this? Only one way to find out: go ask the Emperor himself. They take a lift up to the floor where the room is located, and are immediately caught by some Daleks. They don't shoot them, but instead take them straight to the Dalek Emperor. After some interrogation, they find out they've managed to possess the Eye of Time; a powerful natural entity containing more power than every TARDIS ever existed, once owned by the Time Lords, lost when Gallifrey disappeared, and somehow discovered by the Daleks.

The Doctor and Amy quickly distract the Dalek Emperor so they can make their escape. Which is to jump into the Eye of Time. They emerge to a point in time right before the Daleks returned with the Eye; Skaro is still in ruins as well as the Dalek Emperor. They don't have much time until the Daleks return with the Eye, but the Emperor will be sending Daleks to chase after the Doctor and Amy even sooner. They set a trap and they're off to the visualizer room, but it seems the time jump has rendered the chronon blocker useless and now Amy is beginning to disappear again. In the visualizer room, they steal the visualizer eye which controls the vision of all the Daleks. The Doctor needs a few more materials to create a device that will interfere with the Daleks' vision, and Amy volunteers to fetch them. Since the planet is still in ruins, Varga plants have appeared in the hallways. Interestingly, the Daleks and Varga plants can't see Amy if she's in the middle of fading out. How convenient.

Amy returns with the items, and the visual limiter is complete. And just in time, too: the Daleks have returned with the Eye. Unfortunately the range is quite limited, but the Doctor believes they can boost it to create a larger radius if they attach it to the base of the dead Dalek Emperor. The problem is there are a rather large number of Daleks on patrol, leaving almost no room to sneak by. Amy makes use of herself fading away to zip by the patrol and is able to secure the visual limiter. The device is successful, and now all the Daleks can't see. In panic, they begin shooting wildly in an attempt to hit something. The Doctor carefully weaves through the lightshow and disables the generators powering the Eye of Time, but now needs to rush back to Amy or it explodes.

The two leap into the Eye of Time before that, and they return right back to where they started on Skaro with everything still in ruins. Amy is no longer fading away as well, so there's only one last thing to check. In the TARDIS, they eavesdrop on a phone call being made by Sylvia who is alive and well (as well as Earth in general). Now they can go meet Ringo!

You can download it for free from the official website here. Unless you live outside Britain, in which case you can get it from Direct 2 Drive. But you'll have to pay $4.95.

Tropes

 * Action Survivor: Sylvia, the last remaining in London, who dies setting up a Dalek trap.
 * After the End: Well, what do you expect when the Doctor arrives after the Daleks have?
 * Apocalypse How: Class 3, at least.
 * Continuity Nod: The Varga plants, that first appeared in "Mission to the Unknown".
 * The Doctor mentions meeting yetis, dinosaurs and giant rats in the London Underground.
 * Plus the new Dalek Emperor, who resembles the one in "The Parting of the Ways", and is of course no less of an evil nutter.
 * Cursed with Awesome: Amy phasing in and out of existence can make the stealth based missions easier.
 * Delayed Ripple Effect: Justified by the TARDIS protecting Amy.
 * Exposition Fairy: Amy falls into this role whenever she's following the Doctor.
 * Sylvia conveniently cues you in on how the world ended.
 * Gotta Catch Em All: The card-collecting sidequest.
 * Shout-Out: The story takes place in 1963, the year Doctor Who debuted on television.
 * Stealth Based Mission: The entire game, as the Daleks take the straightforward approach to seeing you and Amy.
 * Temporal Paradox: If the Daleks successfully wiped out humanity in 1963, then how is it that Amy exists? Well, the TARDIS protected her but now time has started to catch up to her and now she's beginning to vanish, presenting another problem for the Doctor to deal with.
 * Back To The Future style.
 * Too Dumb to Live: In some stealth sections, especially the Varga Plant section at the beginning of Act 3, Amy will take so long to catch up to the Doctor that she walks right into the villains' range.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Whenever you solve a puzzle, "I Am The Doctor" plays. Apparently, sonicking computer consoles warrants an awesome fanfare.