Chrome game invites you to yell 'Enhance!' at your computer screen
Zoom in. Zoom in. Enhance. Enhance! Now you're Harrison Ford in Blade Runner.
Our computers are modern marvels of technology, but they haven't quite reached the sci-fi promised land of futuristic crime solving. You know, where you can tell them to enhance cruddy photos to gather case-breaking evidence. Now at least we can simulate that feeling with the game Enhance.Computer.
Enhance.Computer runs in desktop Chrome and is a deeply satisfying experience for anyone who ever watched Harrison Ford say "enhance" in Blade Runner.
The game comes from programmer and artist Nicole He, who described it in a tweet this week as "a cyberpunk game you play by yelling at your computer like you're in a movie."
The game responds to voice commands, including "zoom in," "zoom out," "move up" and, of course, "enhance." You play Detective CYB3R, the user of a crime-predicting AI that's reminiscent of Minority Report.
You have to locate a code hidden inside a photo to prevent a crime. An unforgiving timer makes it tougher than you think. So far, I've failed at every attempt.
I did manage to find the code in one photo, but the voice recognition software failed to understand me in time to prevent the crime. So the game isn't perfect, but the sheer enjoyment you get from yelling at your computer is enough to make up for any shortcomings.