Before party games with the Rabbids or co-op with Globox, Rayman was all about one dude: Rayman. No real plot, no gimmicks, no radical ‘tude? No problem. In a time when older PC gamers were going ballistic over Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, Rayman ($2.99 on GOG) reminded us that 2D gameplay and hand-drawn graphics were features to be cherished, not discarded. Without him, I might've never discovered my passion for a genre that had long been confined to consoles, and one that’s recently seen a resurrection.

Ray’s task in his first game is to rescue cute, spherical thingamajigs called Electoons from the clutches of the dastardly Mr. Dark, who has also made away with something called the Great Protoon. Where might such a subtly-diabolical villain call home? The frosting-filled, cake-covered Candy Chateau, of course.

On the way to Mr. Dark’s saccharine cathedral, you’ll need to beat up an anthropomorphic saxophone, navigate pitch-black corridors with a firefly on loan from Joe’s Diner, and use your helicopter hair to saw through ropes as thick as Hulk Hogan. As Rayman restores the balance, our golden-haired, ascot-wearing protagonist is helped by the magical fairy Betilla, who bestows powers like ledge-grabbing and a glide-enabling gyrocopter moptop.

The places you’ll go
 


Ubisoft’s imagination ran rampant during this first Rayman, and the payoff is a consistently engaging experience—one where players haven’t the slightest inkling as to what awaits them in the next stage. With nary a portly plumber or blue hedgehog in sight, Rayman sat down in the vacant throne that would rule over the majestic lands of DOS sidescrolling. It’s a game that encapsulates the essence of platformers: feeling bewildered by the challenges set before you, yet empowered and confident that you have what it takes to win.

The limbless, fist-chucking hero feels akin to a DOS-based ambassador, introducing younger generations to the wonderful world of twitch platforming and sporting sprite work that looks like a cartoon cel come to life.

And the music—oh my god, the music. Rayman’s soundtrack pumped jazzy ditties, pulse-quickening tribal drumming, and serene symphonies out of my dinky speakers in a time when CD-quality audio was still novel and a little alien. Back then, I wondered if my Sound Blaster was relaying transmissions from a higher power. Play any track for a Rayman veteran, and they’ll lose themselves to a tidal wave of nostalgia syrup. Betilla the Fairy’s soothing theme layers glimmering harps, bass, and flutes in a way that feels airy but grounded.

Back in my day
 


But for a platformer with a presentation and setting that’s so enchanting to children, the difficulty is beyond brutal. It’s a relic of arcade game restrictions that we’ve long left in the past, when saving your game was a privilege, not a right. Limited continues? Check. Enemies who are too small to hit but big enough to hurt you? Mmhmm. Blind jumps into instant-death spikes? Yup, plenty of them.

Rayman seems to force a kind of selective memory on those who play it: I have no recollection of the game’s finicky controls, minuscule field of view, or maddeningly-well-hidden Electoon cages—only of the beautiful backdrops, charming characters, and mesmerizing tunes. It’s a wonder how I didn’t doom myself to baldness after tearing my own youthful hair out over the raw frustration of Rayman’s pitfalls.

Something borrowed, something new
 


Though Rayman might've moved on to 3D pastures after his debut game (Rayman Origins notwithstanding), we still see shades of his original quest in highly praised run-’n’-jumps like Super Meat Boy and Dustforce. While it’s unlikely that Team Meat or Hitbox had the French-made, Muppet-looking hero in mind when designing their games, many of the modern games’ greatest strengths were already
present in Rayman. Much like SMB, Rayman’s classic boss fights revolve around pattern recognition, with a touch of twitch reactions mixed in. The level variety eclipses even the wildly-diverse SMB stages—who needs a Hospital or Salt Factory or buzzsaw-filled death caves when you’ve got the bongo-juggling monks of Gong Heights, or the spiked, bug-eyed Taijitu scattered around Picture City’s Eraser Plains?

Playing the game now, it’s no wonder that I never defeated Mr. Dark as a lad. Reaching the final boss means freeing every Electoon in every level of every stage. Without online FAQs to guide you through often-invisible, annoying backtracking sections, or knowledge of the infinite lives cheat (“RAYLIVES,” by the way), finishing the game is next to impossible. But the journey is far more important than the destination—and Rayman’s eye-pleasing, ear-caressing, and charming world will wash away most of the memories of the tough trials it puts you through.

Rayman’s found a revitalization via Origins, though he seems to have morphed from an cheery champion into a hyperactive Wisenheimer with a penchant for ogling buxom fairies. His true beginnings can be found at 640x480 resolution, and whether you’re discovering his escapades for the first time, or vaguely recall his treks through the Dream Forest and Band Land, Rayman’s domain is one that’s still worth visiting.

On the next page: More Rayman screenshots from our archive
 

This preview originally appeared in issue 248 of PC Gamer UK.

In a platform game, the screen is usually divided between solid land and empty space. The empty space is the fun bit – you can jump around in it, fight enemies, solve puzzles. Usually nothing very interesting happens inside the solid ground beneath your feet.

In Ibb and Obb, the solid ground becomes the empty space for another platformer, one that takes place upside-down. Portals in the ‘ground’ let you jump into that inverted world, and walk on the underside of the same floor you were walking on top of just a second ago. There are no blocks of solid ground anywhere, just a thin barrier between these two worlds.

It’s brilliant. It’s a co-op game, but both you and your partner are free to move between worlds – the challenge is to figure out where each of you should go to help the other through obstacles. Some of the portals work for both of you, but others are colour-coded to only let one of you travel through. Often, that gives one of you freedom to roam in both dimensions, while the other is stuck in one until you help them.

Ibb and Obb’s world is simple and elegant.

The puzzles start pleasingly simple, and slowly scale up in complexity until they’re as brain-bending as anything in Portal 2. In fact, Portal 2 is a good comparison: almost every puzzle in Ibb and Obb requires both of you to help each other, and the cerebral puzzling is mixed with some very satisfying momentum mechanics.

My favourite things in the game are the bounce pads. They don’t bounce you. All they do is transfer the momentum of any impact to the other side – and hence the other world.

So if one of you stands on top of a pad, the other can go into the upside-down world and jump onto the underside of it to send you flying. It’s a great feeling, and it serves as the foundation for some truly inspired puzzles.

I’ll take the high road.

Playing with Chris, I found a pad that seemed completely useless to me: it was on a raised platform, so I couldn’t get much height to jump on it, nor did I really need to be propelled into the air at that point by Chris jumping on the other side. But a raised platform in this world is a pit in the other – one too big for Chris, in the upside down world, to cross.

So I stood on the pad, Chris jumped onto its underside and sent me flying into the air. So far, no use. But when I landed, the impact sent Chris flying back up out of the chasm he was stuck in, letting him make it to the far side. I had essentially been a storage vessel for his momentum, borrowing it from him when he landed, then giving it back when I came down.

That’s a beautiful trick of physics. Generally, too, Ibb and Obb is beautiful. There’s a gorgeous elegance to its simple art style, and a perfect economy to the way it uses space, both above and below ground. It’s engrossing, clever and fun.

Scary true story. A week after ETS2 reversed, beeping, into my life, I collected a friend from a house in the middle of nowhere. We’d driven about a mile down a winding country lane when the friend enquired “Er, shouldn’t you be on the other side of the road?” Days of whisking simulated cargoes along simulated continental highways had stealthily displaced a decade and a half of unsimulated British motoring experience. I veered to the left, and blurted a confession.

This long-distance lorry driving game is as mesmerising as the swish-swish of windscreen wipers in a rain-lashed traffic jam. It’s as rhythmic as motorway driving. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre, mirror signal, manoeuvre; dip headlights, undip headlights, dip headlights, undip headlights... As your haulage business grows and you explore more and more of the seamless European venue, the suspiciously unisex scenery and slightly timid truck audio seems less and less important. What matters is identifying the most lucrative contracts, then fulfilling those contracts as speedily and safely as possible.

2012 has given us more detailed and plausible vehicles than ETS2’s DAFs, Scanias and Volvos (the FSX and X-Plane add-on scene continues to spawn a steady stream of high-fidelity gems). It’s given us lovelier landscapes (AeroFly FS springs to mind). What it hasn’t managed to do is deliver a sim with more natural momentum, more innate randomness. Dynamic job offers, ever-changing traffic flows, and thousands of miles of hand-crafted tarmac are the ever-present rumble strips that keep Zen-like relaxation from turning into bleary-eyed boredom.

In a market awash with atrocious vehicle games masquerading as simulators, ETS2 risks being damned by association. “Budget price, unpromising theme? Think I’ll stick to the winged wonders I know and love.” All those who do cross the road to avoid this articulated outsider are missing out on a sim as singular as it is soothing, as hypnotising as it is terminally unhip.

Read More: Euro Truck Simulator 2 review.

Runners Up: AeroflyFS, X-Plane.

If I have to endure another level in which I must escape from a burning building on the verge of collapse, I'll set fire to my house. I'll collapse through the floor, tumble twelve feet onto my back, crawl at tedious pace through a low section, traverse a room that's entirely on fire apart from a narrow path of miraculously not-on-fire floorspace and then climb a series of conveniently collapsed roof beams to safety.

"Phew!" I'll think, "I'd have been in a spot of bother there if I hadn't played through pretty much the same section in Black Ops 2, Max Payne 3, Far Cry 3, Medal of Honor: Warfighter and twice in Assassin's Creed 3 this year."

It's not the fire that's annoying. Things tend to catch fire a lot in videogames. No, it's the feeling that there are mission designers worldwide calling their set-pieces from the same playbook. You could tear out the pages, laminate them and resell the package as an Action Adventure Videogame Construction Kit. Shuffle the cards and lay them out in a row for an instant framework.

Let's have a go with the modern military shooter edition: escape a burning building - sniper section - flee a helicopter - warehouse section - fire at pursuers from the back of a truck - breach and clear - press X to kill prominent antagonist.

This section felt particularly incongruous when it interrupted the terrific free-roaming violence of Far Cry 3, especially considering the fact that Far Cry 3 has a fantastic dynamic fire effects built into the engine. The "escape from burning building" sequences that emerge naturally from Far Cry 3's systems are much, much better than the scripted sequence written into their early story mission.

But not all games aspire to create a dynamic open world, and nor should they. But in a dedicated, scripted action game there's an even greater need for new set-pieces and fresh settings.

Take Bulletstorm, whose opening sections dramatically undersold its capacity for bonkers theatrics. Sure, it had a "fire at pursuers from the back of a truck" bit, but in Bulletstorm's case the pursuer was a colossal red doom-wheel that careered about the landscape blowing up pipelines and threatening to stomp the player into a smear at any moment. If action games are determined to be rollercoasters, we're sorely in need of some new twists.

You know, you lot are alright. While the mood of the gaming masses is often mischaracterised by those who don’t know better - thanks to our shrillest, least rational voices, delinquent children and disgruntled petitionistas - we actually aren’t short of terrifically generous and talented people, labouring away quietly to make things better for everyone.

To name but a few: this year, Robin Scott has done great work with the Nexus sites, going above and beyond the duty of mod aggregation to build a network of unmatched quality content, collated and curated with authority. Then there’s James 'Lycerius' Moore, now famed for his decade long Civilization 2 campaign, who responded to his unexpected stardom with considerable magnaminty, releasing his saved game to the public and helping to forge the Eternal War subreddit, where players swap fiction and art based on his epic battle. Or you could rightly celebrate those responsible for The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod for KOTOR 2 - a humungous and protracted effort that saw its massive 1.8 release in July.

But this year’s award must go jointly to Durante and Nwks - the two modders who, within hours of Dark Souls’ crude port plopping onto PC, issued fixes for its resolution and framerate. They’re essentially responsible for making one of the greatest games of this year playable. Bravo.

Perhaps if I keep my fingers jammed on the fire and boost buttons, and my eyes fixed on that stunningly beautiful asteroid, I’ll stop noticing how disappointing this space sim is.

PEWPEWPEW! WHEEEEEE! OOOOOOOOH!

Nope. No good. Like the solar flares that periodically roll across its fetching mission spaces, Miner Wars’ flaws – bland combat, a crash-happy campaign, over-reliance on scripted tasks – can’t be ignored for long.

Pre- and post-release publicity made this crowdfunded curio sound like a cross between Descent, Worms, X3: Reunion and Mount & Blade. In fact, the inducements to excavate, and the opportunities for freelance exploration, alliance-forging and entrepreneurship, are severely limited. While you can visit new sectors to plunder asteroids and visit trade depots, most locations feel like deserted studio backlots waiting for their five minutes in the spotlight.



The 31 story missions have plenty of aggro and giddy interior aviation, but the rigid scripting and sparse checkpoints may leave you yearning for something sandboxier. With a truly dynamic solar system in which players developed drone-operated mines, and took on randomly-generated survey, escort and mercenary jobs, I suspect Miner Wars’ gravitational pull would have been far stronger.

Currently, the best thing about the game is its spectacular erodible topography. Jetting squid-like through the craggy coral of splintered moons and mine-riddled asteroids, it’s easy to picture moody Unreal Tournament-style duels. As it stands, the enemy AI is too crude and deathmatch options too few to realise the potential. The banks of deserted online arenas visible from the MP lobby tell their own story.

In the short term, Keen urgently need to send a repair crew down to the engine bay. In addition to the save-related crash that appears to have wrecked my latest campaign attempt, I’ve experienced slowdown and glimpsed distant starscapes through rock walls.



Can I bring up the annoying companion ships, nonexistent tutorials, and extremely naggy Nagging Nora at this point without driving a final coffin nail into what’s left of Miner Wars’ sparking cryo-chamber? Probably not, which is a shame, because if, like me, you’re a fan of Descent’s disorientating dogfights, for all its flaws this game does stir happy memories.

Haring down curving tunnels sprinkling mines in your wake... nervously peeping through hatches, missile launcher poised... speeding from self-destructing bases with MG rounds nipping at your fins... at times Miner Wars is the Descent IV we’ve been waiting for for the last decade. If Keen can take the criticism on the chin and repair and, maybe, refocus their creation, they could still carve out a snug little niche in gaming’s vast asteroid.

Expect to pay: $20 / £12
Release: Out now
Developer: Keen Software House
Publisher: Various
Multiplayer: Up to 16 players
Link: www.minerwars.com

Ever wonder what the PC games of 2012 would be like if they were text adventures? Of course not, no one in their right mind would ever wonder that. In related news: I wondered that! So, rip out your GeForce GTX 680, plug in your dusty 10" CRT monitor, and stuff your programmable eight-button mouse in a stocking, because this week we're going to imagine five of this year's games the way all PC games used to be: as text adventures.

If you're looking at leafy tropical jungles, shimmering oceans, impressive motion-capture performances, and more off-mission activities than you can throw a knife at during a knife-throwing contest, you must be playing open-world shooter Far Cry 3. But wait... that tattoo that suddenly appeared on your arm... it looks like it says... Far Cry 3: The Text Adventure!

The morning after being visited by three specters (or perhaps three jackbooted Nazi-ish occultists), Apogee has posted an all-new holiday-themed trailer for its upcoming remake of Rise of the Triad. The cold-as-ice clip—called the "Deadly Gentlemen trailer"—features a number of explosive jump-pad leaping and shooting sequences set to a hard-rockin' electronica edition of the classic Christmas carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Rise of the Triad is an Unreal Engine 3-powered remake of the old-school, run-and-gun 1994 shooter. Playing as one of five different members of H.U.N.T. (High Risk United Nations Task Force), you'll tackle a cadre of Nazis-who-aren't-called-Nazis and their supernatural demon buddies in 20 levels of goretastic single-player action. All the original multiplayer maps and modes, power-ups, and weapons are also set to return. And this time around, there won't be a Doom II dropped on our heads a few months ahead of RoT's Steam release in Q1 2013 to distract us from playing it. Well, not unless id has something they'd like to tell us...

Check out the ho-ho-homicidal mayhem here.

"BABY BORN WITH ONLY ONE HEAD!” screams the cover of the Galactic Enquirer. Fascinating. And it must be true! If you can’t trust the parody newspaper from a comedy sci-fi game, what can you trust?

I really miss the tchotchkes that used to come with games. The random crap you get in overpriced suckers editions today can never be as fun as something thrown in for no better reason than because the creators could, or wanted to make a big cardboard box rattle seductively when you picked it up in the shop. Novellas, cloth maps, replica Zorkmids: if the tchotchke sucked, it didn’t matter. When it was good, it was a nice surprise—like the first time you learned how to spell the word “tchotchke.” (You’re welcome.)

Galactic Enquirer was one of those: a 22-page introduction to Space Quest V’s story, universe, and characters that quickly set the tone of the adventure ahead. You get wacky pet pix of shaved Tribbles, spaced-out horoscopes, and best of all, there were zany transporter bloopers. The comedy didn’t come from the gags themselves, but imagining the awkward day some unsuspecting Sierra employee was thrown a pair of cheap plastic buttocks and told, “Put these on your face, you’re now the Rear Admiral.”



Yes, we’re in official guilty pleasure territory with Space Quest V ($5 on GOG with IV and VI), and yes, most of the jokes are, in themselves, pretty damn weak. Most work by being so geeky that you smile because you’re in on the gag, they're being delivered so shamelessly that they break through the crap barrier at warp factor 10. The villain is Captain Raemes T. Quirke. The love interest? Ambassador Beatrice Wankmeister.

But that’s okay. They’re cheap gags, and they don’t pretend to be anything else. Space Quest was always Sierra’s “throw-it-in” series, where you’d find the Blues Brothers on one screen and a Toys R Us parody next door, and usually getting away with it despite never being that great. SQ4 had some inspired bits, especially its central "time travel by visiting fake Space Quest sequels" gimmick, but the rest were better enjoyed for the idea of wacky space adventures than the actual adventuring.

Except Space Quest V. The plot remains simple—illegal toxic waste dumping leads to evil mutant Pukoids threatening the galaxy—but it's executed with surprising finesse. The puzzles don't rely too much on obscure solutions, the action is spread over multiple worlds (all tiny, but that’s okay), and for the first time, SQ bothered with a bit of actual character development to link it together. One of the early puzzles involves defeating a ruthless fembot assassin called W-D40 on the planet Kiz Urazgubi (say it out loud) by ramming a banana up her exhaust pipe. In Space Quest, normally that would be it, puzzle over, move on. Here, she gets reprogrammed to be a little less psychotic and sticks around until the end as an essential ally.



The most important change, though, was that while previous games had occasionally given you a ship to get from point A to point B, Space Quest Vfinally promoted its long-suffering janitor hero Roger Wilco to Captain (of a garbage scow, of course) complete with a crew, a mission, and a bright-red shirt to hide his inevitable bloody injuries. Sierra designers always did love their comedy death scenes.

Having a ship made the game for me. When it comes to space RPGs, Elitebores me about as much as trading fictional goods for fictional gold should bore anyone. I’ve always loved more narrative-heavy games like Privateer; with intrigue, characters, and freedom to explore. Here, it’s a weak illusion: if you go to places in the wrong order, you’re just told to go away; there’s absolutely no discovering of strange new worlds or teaching sexy aliens of this thing we humans call kissing anywhere to be found. Somehow though, it doesn’t matter as much as it might. Just having the option of pointlessly raising the shields, going to warp, and activating the self-destruct on a whim makes you feel far more in command than you actually are.



Really, most of SQ5's enjoyment is from wish fulfillment. Every nerd wants their own spaceship, but most of us admit we'd be an awful captain. Roger is in exactly the same boat—he’s in charge only because a rat chewed the wrong computer cable at Starcon Academy, and he gets about as much respect as Wesley Crusher. Yet he still wins the love of his crew, gets the girl, and saves the universe. He never becomes a great captain; but through luck and determination, and more luck, at least he ends up an adequate one.

I’d be okay with that. Just as long as I still get to sit in the big chair.

On the next page: More Space Quest V screenshots from our archive
 

Christmas. Christmas never changes. Every day this week though, Fallout: New Vegas gets into the spirit of the season as a selection of mods make wishes come true... for better or worse. Today, the wasteland beckons, but not quite as the Courier and his partner Cassidy expect.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2




Morning there, Myriad Pro. Hand on fire? Guessing that means you found some new toys around town, or really need to put a few skill points into cooking, stat.



Was that a...



Pun not intended. What's up with that anyway?



Book of magic spells in Doc Mitchell's old place - "Vol 1: Hellfire". Gotta say, suddenly I find myself more ambivalent 'bout setting the world on fire. Not the only new toy I found either. Look at this here fellow from Trudy's place.



"Big Bomb"?





...



...





And that's the story of how we got chased right out of Goodsprings...



SHUT UP AND KEEP RUNNING I THINK THEY HAVE PITCHFORKS!





Think we can prob'ly take a breather now, don't you think? Hey, Nipton. You remember this place? Legion raided it way back when, stuck all the people up on crosses, burned it to the ground for sins committed. Ah, nostalgia.



Yeah. Think... think things might have changed a bit since, Arial Black.





Shiny new caravans? Pretty houses? A welcome banner over the town hall and not a single crucified townsperson? Tssk. Some places have no respect for tradition.





Don't worry, I won't have you forcibly sold cookies or made to attend a PTA meeting. It's useful that you happened by. I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton, to memorize every detail. And then, when you move on-



What do you mean, the fate of Nipton? Place looks Stepford new to me.



Indeed, Courier. This was a town drowning in moral sickness, cowardice, decay... but overnight, look! A wretched hive, stripped of all decadence, of all filth; rendered pure as the mysterious white snow all around. It is become... perfection.



The Legion's gone into the decorating biz now? Caesar's Legion?



That's 'Caesar'.



Whatever.



Was this our direct doing? No, but it is as I dreamed. Clean. Orderly. Quiet. A true civilisation of the wastelands, away from guns and fiends. There will be book clubs, Courier, and amateur dramatics every weekend. There will be salsa.





The hell, boss? I WAS STANDING RIGHT HERE!



Still are, so quit your yapping. Had to be done, and you know it, for the thin end of the wedge and all good folks who don't need subjecting to the first all ghoul version of King Lear. C'mon, I reckon things may be worse'n we thought.





Don't know about worse there, Marker Felt, but definitely pornier and with a hell of a lot more guns and people wandering around to use those guns. Not one person out there wished for world peace or somesuch?



Extra lighting from those Electro-City folks is handy, mind, what with the nights suddenly actually being dark and everything. And at least we're not going to fall for that Door business again.



We agreed never to speak of The Door again!





Hey, look. A door in the middle of nowhere. Think we should open it?



Can't think of a reason not to.





AAAARGH!



AAAARGH!





AAAARGH!



AAAARGH!





GRAAAARGH!



Meh.





Weirdest thing, portal to Hell ending up spitting us out over at a place called "The Bison Steve Hotel". Funny old world, 'aint it? Anyhoo, let's find us some good old walking music on this here PIPBoy radio, shall we?



Second thoughts, let's chat some more about The Door. Just saying, if I ever have to listen to Big Iron again I'm going to have to smash the nearest person with a PIPBoy's head in with a golfclub - then mine.



No, look, Cass. My radio's picking up all kinds of stations now. J-Pop, Christian Rock, old propaganda. Classic Christmas songs!






Suddenly Big Iron isn't sounding so bad. Hey, what's that? Is that an Enclave logo on that radio in your pack? Tell me you just picked that up off a corpse somewhere, or us two are going to have some serious Words.



Don't be silly, Cass, you know I'd have nothing to do with those incredibly powerful, genocidal zealots, most likely.



This is exactly why people hate travelling with amnesiacs. I catch you dosing my food with FEV or anything and you'll be singing Old World Blues from here to wherever I finally finish kicking your ass.



Never rightly said I had amnesia as I recall. Just don't talk much about the old days. Anyway, don't be worried. You'll never catch me doing that, pardner.



Well, good. That's... wait a minute, when you say 'never catch you', you mean-





What in the seven hells is this thing supposed to be?



No idea. Door's open though...




Today's Mods: Frozen World, Female Caesar's Legion, Increased Legion Presence, Increased Wasteland Spawns, Cortex Scrambler, The TARDIS In The Wasteland, Wacky Weapons, The 8 Books, Electro-City, Nipton Rebuilt, The Door, CONELRAD, Radio Free Wasteland