Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
I love the way this game looks, all muted tones and hard edged pixels – it’s hipster D&D. On the search for a magical manuscript I adventure and explore a boxy but beautiful landscape with my canine companion Dogfella.
This title is certainly a unique experience. It features simple gameplay combined with stunning aesthetics and poignant music that give this game elegance not matched by anything else I have seen. Yes, there are a couple of glitches with this PC port from the original ISO version, and I miss getting tactile with my iPad but it is still worth every penny. Magical Minimalism.
Tribes: Ascend
The Tribe series has pretty much been ignored and it's sad that few people have even heard of it and continue playing only the pretty-pretty big boy, first person shooters like CoD, Halo or Crysis. There are two things you will need to play Tribes that I reckon a lot of those CoD kids won’t necessarily possess in abundance: skill and tactics.
Decent map design makes up for the somewhat weak haloesque graphics anf Hi-Rez has polished this free-to-play capture the flag within an inch of its life. Reminding me of Unreal Tournament, it’s a whole world of fast-paced fun but with no single player available, this game is all about teamwork and speed freaks. Now where is my grenade launcher gravity bike?
Next page: The Secret World
COMMENTS
But the more people ask... the more companies should realise that there's a market out there for non-Windows gamers...
Number 11 - Windows 8 with Metro
A late entry: Windows 8 with Metro!
Explore the colourful, childish landscape with your mouse and keyboard. Win bonus points for discovering where the mystic menus have vanished to, and claim a special prize for working out how to succeed without the fabled Orb of Startness to guide you. Play with the Tiles of Frustration until you can play no more. Fight the Dread Demon of Redmond who has changed your world without explaining why.
(Players' hint: charms are not what they seem, and may sap your life force prematurely.)
Free with every PC real soon now.
Re: @Lily
I really think most of that is just a load of pretentious bollocks to excuse the fact it's crap and dismiss negative criticism as "missing the point". Experimental film directors do the exact same thing to deflect criticism of their boring, shitty art films as well. It's true, you don't have to follow a cohesive linear narrative for a movie or a game, but the fact is most creators do and always have done for good reason.
The reason I disliked Dear Esther wasn't because it jarred with my preconceived ideas of what a videogame is, or challenged my expectations, or whatever other hackneyed phrases you might like to use; it was simply because it was boring and the letters were so badly written that I physically cringed at hearing them.
To be fair, I mainly meant atrocious in that it's as though the letters were written by a angsty 14 year old for their creative writing exercise homework for English class. The environment looks pleasant enough, and I suppose if you like dog-walking simulators then the gameplay is fine. Although personally that doesn't do much for me for the same reason that I don't play any of those bus driver/roadsweeper/farmer/etc simulation games either.
