I finished Rayman Origins.
I really liked platformers and really liked the old Rayman games. I got the original on the PC ages ago and played that quite a bit. Rayman 2 was one of my favorite Dreamcast games. Rayman 3 was merely okay and the Rabbids games have been pure crap. Dirty Frenchman Michel Ancel decided to take a chance and go back to 2D for this game. From what I understand, it was originally supposed to be episodic content but they threw it all together in a package and sold it for every platform under the sun. While platformers are thriving in the indie scene, the platformer genre is kind of like the racing genre: everyone is moving away from it and it happens to be one of my favorite kinds of games.
This game is fantastic and as I said on a previous post, this is the best platformer I've played this generation since Mario Galaxy. The graphics are crisp and fluid, the soundtrack is great (I wanted to buy the soundtrack but apparently the only version out there is something with just 12 tracks on it...wtf), the controls are tight, and the gameplay is varied. This is old skool platforming at its best so there will be several instances in the game where you need to be precise in what you do because the game is very unforgiving, especially in the latter stages. Fortunately the game gives you infinite lives because some areas are definitely going to be trial and error experiences. However, unlike many flawed platformers, you are at fault if you fuck up. That is where a lot of the challenge and fun comes in, knowing that you can beat this, you just need to practice and hope that you pull it of your ass and make it through the stage.
This game was $15 on the sale but let's face it, next summer sale, it will probably be $3. You can't go wrong with this game at any price. When I got it, it came with a free copy of Rayman 2. After spending hours trying to get it to run, it won't. So I got the PS2 version via PSN so I'm going to play that sometime. I'm excited to see what is in store for Rayman Legends.
Time on the steam clock: 9.9 hours
Indie Cred: None - This game was originally planned to have episodic content, which definitely scores it some indie cred but incredulously, Ubisoft sold out and charged full price for this game!
Buy? Yes!
Next game will be Ben There, Dan That!.