Download Games Roundup

It's always the way. The minute you dare to write something off in the download world, up pop a bunch of quality titles to make you look like a babbling buffoon.

After months in the wilderness (partly due to those nice hacker fellows), the seemingly irrelevant PSN Minis selection returned with a whole bunch of free titles to lure people into getting a PS Plus subscription.

On the evidence of the likes of the gorgeous Dr Maybee and the Adventures of Scarygirl and the unexpectedly enjoyable Me Monstar Hear Me Roar, it's worth every penny. Without wanting to pimp Sony's service too hard, the amount of free content and price reductions it offers every month is pretty generous - and something that definitely provides a serious incentive to pay for if you're into the downloadable scene.

Fotonica

• PC/Mac - Pay What You Want

Abstract Pay What You Want art fun seems to be all the rage in PC land this month. Given the absence of a summer to call our own, we should probably take sunshine in whatever form it manifests in.

No such problems for Milan-based artniks Santa Ragione. More likely, they hid from the sun for months at a time to remain cool enough to elegantly splice the genes of Rez and Canabalt for our amusement.

Using a first-person camera, the goal is to run and jump to the end of an obstacle course while trying to gather up pink blobs for extra points. Needless to say, it's never quite as straightforward as it looks, as you power down narrow planks like Usain Bolt trapped in a feverish Tron daydream.

With no need to steer your runner, your focus is entirely based on building up speed and timing your jumps with metronomic precision. Sprint fast enough, and you'll enter the strangely unsettling gold zone, where claustrophobic underwater breathing noises drown out the thumping electronica and the sharp vectors dissolve into an ugly smear.

Although it feels a bit of a one-trick pony to begin with, the existence of online leaderboards and personal pride ensures that chasing the perfect score run takes over common sense. And even when you've had enough sprint-jump score-chasing over the five courses, the endless run ensures that there's always something left to shoot for.

All of which suggests that not paying for Fotonica would not only be alarmingly mean-spirited, but the gaming equivalent of self-harm.

8/10