Perimeter: Emperor's Testament

The original perimeter was one of those games that was easier to admire than enjoy. The developers really chewed up the RTS rulebook creating bizarre nuggets of sci-fi strategy so original as to be almost unenjoyable. Getting your head round the unit-morphing systems and the terraforming principles felt a little like learning the periodic table back in 2004 when the game first surfaced. With the release of this update, it feels like revision time.

This belated sequel doesn't raise the bar over its predecessor. The units, graphics, gameplay and missions don't break much new ground - in fact, the once-impressive visuals are now dated. The admirably innovative gameplay still feels like it's from Mars. Missions are set on strange, malleable alien worlds where all the terrain can be morphed by your industrious terraforming bots. Creating flat spaces allows you to build generators, which create energy, used to build structures and units. It's impressive stuff, although everything can be morphed, morphed and morphed again to the point where sometimes you no longer know what you're morphing, or why.

Even for a seasoned Perimeter panhandler, this standalone expansion is tough from the outset. Without a tutorial, this is going to be rocketscience to anyone who's not played the original. But for those boffins who clicked with Perimeter's out-there gameplay, this expansion packs a raft of rock-hard missions to keep eggheads distracted for weeks.