Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion standalone expansion
I love Sins of the Solar Empire, it’s a great multiplayer real-time strategy game even though some may say it’s starting to show its age. However, this feels more of a patch than a standalone expansion, with a disappointing lack of brand new content.
That said, the nips and tucks make this almost worth the extra money and will certainly keep me busy for the foreseeable future. There are updated tech trees, new races and victory conditions but (boo) still no campaign mode. This expansion has immense scope and updated graphics – all the better to see my Titian class Battleship hurtling through space.
Rayman Origins
Fast-paced and action-packed with lots of entertaining and stimulating new puzzles, Rayman Origins is the future of side scrolling platform games. A great soundtrack complements the Pixar quality gameplay and design. Each level involves collecting Electoons and is helpfully split into short, sharp, checkpointed stages.
These facets all combine to create a wonderfully immersive experience. Explore creepy underwater caverns and Gourmand (omnomnom) Land in four-player local mode for some hilarious pandemonium. Retaining everything that made the title a classic Rayman Origins injects the fun back into gaming and is a proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Pixel perfect Rayman Origins is pure magic.
Ten... PC games you may have missed
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.
