They're usually called "god rays", actually, for fairly obvious reasons.

At this point I effectively only use digital distribution (Steam, GOG.com, Green Man Gaming, GamersGate, Direct2Drive, Humble Indie Bundles, Origin). In the rare cases I want a console game, I'll shop around for the lowest price at the time.

Steam sales are there for a reason. Nobody's crazy enough to buy a game outside of a sale unless they REALLY REALLY need the game now (which tends to be exceptional).

Plus, Steam heralded the arrival of a bunch of other services (Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Impulse, GOG, Green Man Gaming, etc.) with dirt cheap prices. Now it's fairly easy to get a game for 50% off mere months after release. If Steam doesn't have the cheapest price, all the better! Competition is healthy.

I can't help it: those armors are ridiculous.

Somebody had to say it. I'm so sorry.

I'm surprised the most recent rebirth isn't on this list: Deus Ex.

It just so happens that the rebirth has made it to the top of many "best of 2011" lists. Funnily enough, like with many other games on this list, it is considered better by those who've never played the original at the time, whereas people who did tend to prefer the first game.

Sure, it may not be the iconic game that, say, Donkey Kong is, but it's still easily one of the most important games of all time.

I know it might be stretching the definition of "holiday release", but still... Sword of the Stars II. This game should've been delayed at the very least to holiday 2012, perhaps even later. If you think any game on your list was botched, think again. I find SOTS more enjoyable than Total War (which are arguably similar on many fronts), but SOTS2 was such a pitiful excuse for a game it overshadowed Elemental on the scale of broken and nearly reached Big Rigs.

At least they're patching it, but patching this is akin to putting plasters on a sinking ship.

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TW2 would certainly be deserving of a GOTY award, if only because it shows that serious, deep and genuinely interesting RPGs exist beyond the ridiculously shallow Bioware stuff (hey, I still liked Mass Effect and DAO, but TW2 is in another class entirely).

The initial concept sounded like a lot of fun, but this just doesn't seem like it. I was hoping for a game that'd *actually* do away with death altogether, no matter the form. This just means you have to annoyingly reconstruct your body every five seconds or risk getting in a tedious minigame that means game over if you fail it just once.

I guess changing the dynamics such that dying is impossible was too big a challenge for them.

The addition of AA and AF already add so much.

Maybe they need to ponder on what makes Steam so insanely popular. HINT: It's not the name.

I've spent less money than I would've on this game at retail price, yet bought 4 games for that. Thank you, Steam.

To those saying certain bad parts (graphics, animations, gameplay) of the game were done on purpose, I'm sorry but do you recall the universal panning of "Eat Lead : The Return of Matt Hazard"? It was a game that tried to parody corridor shooters with identical enemies... by being full of corridors and identical enemies.

You simply can't go in and say "but it was done ON PURPOSE!" If the devs of Big Rigs said all the bugs were done on purpose, would you give it a 9/10?

Talk about a letdown... I have all but Dead Nation, and I don't give a shit about that. So basically I get crappy Home items and 30 days of Plus? That's just horrid, and unfair. Credit or a wider selection of games would have been much better.

Wait, no forum trolls? :O

I thought that was the most vile and obvious race of all time, gaming or not.

Yes, customer TVs are not polarized lights. You need high-end projectors for that.

This is also why the home 3D glasses are so expensive (well, that and racketeering) while cinemas can recoup the lost glasses on every showing quite easily. Active shutters require LCD panels, which are far more expensive than simple polarized filters.

@HeavyTank: Thank you. Every time I read about PC gaming on general gaming sites, I facepalm at the Blizzard whoring (and sometimes Valve whoring). Don't get me wrong, I don't like Blizzard's games but I respect their achievements and I adore Steam and love Valve. But there are so many other developers that only do stuff on the PC it's disingenuous to just speak about Blizzard.

Guild Wars 2 will be bloody epic, and I'm giddy with excitement over Dawn of War 2: Retribution.

This video made me crave for a new Wipeout on PS3 :(

Anything that remotely resembles strategy games (like city builders) feels woefully inadequate for consoles. I don't get why developers continue trying to shoehorn them in. They're always flops and more often than not tend to make the PC version suck.