2011 saw its share of disappointments, but it was also a year that contained a good number of nice surprises. Some were games we just didn't see coming—they snuck up on us and grabbed us with their excellence. Others were games that we thought were going to be terrible or at best so-so, but which would up being…

Ubisoft is coming to PAX this week with nearly a dozen games and a slew of freebies. They say it will be their biggest line up for the annual show to date.

When PC title From Dust was released, PC gamers discovered that, yes, you must have an always-on internet connection. Previous claims stated that it wouldn't. Now, Ubisoft is ready to make amends.

Ubisoft's release of From Dust on the PC has been, in every sense of the word, a disaster. Just the fact that the game requires an always-on Internet connection—putting the lie to earlier claims that it wouldn't—is a throat-slash to its credibility. The additional fact it's a glitch-strewn port of a console game is…

From Dust is a very good video game that starts badly. It's dull, at first. Pick up dirt. Drop dirt. Pick up water. Spill water. You're a god! Re-shaping the land. And you'll be forgiven for feeling drowsy.

From Dust and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet are both part of Microsoft's Summer of Arcade Games promotion for the Xbox 360. Neither is supposed to be out, but for some reason, both now are.

Breathe in, drain a lake. Breathe out, flood a valley. The battle between god-graced humanity and unforgiving nature is distilled down to two simple actions in Ubisoft's From Dust.

I've played as army men, bounty hunters, spies and killers. I've built towering office buildings as a city planner. Raised beasts as a super being. Strategized as a world-conquering general. But I've never been the breath of god.

You could be on the receiving end of a "free" copy of co-op dungeon crawler Crimson Alliance, pictured above, Xbox 360 owners, if you go all-in on this year's "Summer of Arcade" games for Xbox Live Arcade. What's on the list?

Blockbuster video games rarely released during the summer. But scale is no measure of quality; and while not all are of AAA-proportions, we'll demonstrate that this summer's schedule could include some of the strangest and boldest titles of the year.

Every year Microsoft selects a handful of Xbox Live Arcade games it considers the very best the platform has to offer and releases them once a week as part of the Summer of Arcade promotion. With Ubisoft's From Dust and Fuelcell's Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet making the cut this time around, we're in for one hell…

Being a god in Ubisoft's From Dust ain't easy. Though you can manipulate the elements of this world, you'll sometimes feel less like an all-powerful deity than you might a hopeful local politician, a cog in a powerful, sluggish, bureaucratic machine.

This is another gorgeous look at From Dust, the next game from Out Of This World (aka Another World) creator Eric Chahi. Bound for Xbox Live Arcade, PC and PlayStation Network sometime this year, From Dust lets you play god, protecting the inhabitants of an island from natural disaster.

A cursor spins lazily over a primitive ocean. A button is pressed, and water is gathered in a great ball, hovering in the air. The cursor moves, the water drops, and lakes are formed. This is From Dust.

Eric Chahi made the acclaimed game Out of This World, then Heart of Darkness, then took a break from game-making, during which time he fell in love with volcanoes. Now he's making this.

Eric Chahi likes lava. He likes talking about lava. He likes e-mailing a photo (above) of some lava that he photographed on Reunion Island. This man likes volcanoes more than you or I do.