Mercurysteam Scrapland

Scrapland is set in a futuristic city called Chimera, inhabited by robots that regard humans as vermin. With its huge billboards, aerial highways, and flying craft, Chimera looks a lot like something from The Fifth Element or Star Wars: Episode II -- it's a classy look, and the graphical style isn't overdone. You can explore the city freely and land your ship at a number of predefined parking areas to access major buildings, or use the city's mass transit system to travel quickly between zones.

You play D-Tritus, a robot who finds his way down to the city and takes a job -- the only one left -- as a journalist. He's given a ship by a friendly mechanic and sets off to make a name for himself. Wouldn't you know it, not a day goes by before a prominent city official is murdered under mysterious circumstances. D-Tritus looks for the scoop.

Murders are unusual events in Chimera. Each robot stores his blueprint in the Great Database, a vast and arcane repository of information. If they're destroyed, their body can be recreated from the database -- for a fee, of course. But the perpetrator of this particular misdeed had the foresight to delete his victim's details ahead of time, removing all chance of a resurrection. Sneaky.

There's plenty going on in the city's airways too. Need some money? Pick on a freighter or two. Destroying them with your ship's guns or missiles leaves a chunk of cash for your coffers. Of course, it's also likely to attract the attention of the local constabulary, but you can deal with them in the same way.