Download Games Roundup

If your only exposure to the world of videogames was the annual gamescom event in Cologne, you probably wouldn't be aware that downloadable games even existed. Despite the presence of most of the leading lights of the industry, you'd be hard pressed to find a single one showing anything other than its big-budget boxed offerings.

Not surprising, perhaps, but it also displays a curiously short-sighted dismissal of the rise of the download. For now, it seems like many of the most creative games are effectively being ghettoised, while supposedly more profitable projects get all the exposure.

And away from the glitz of trade shows, it's even worse. Despite the apparent ease of distributing redeemable codes direct to the reviewer's inbox, most publishers dedicate zero resources to ensuring that the press can even access them. More often than not, requests for code are met with mute indifference, and coverage passes unnoticed. For now, it seems, there's a strange reluctance to move with the times.

Solipskier

• iPad/iPhone (unified binary) / £1.79

It's not often that philosophy finds its way into games journalism, and with good reason. But if Mikengreg is going to seamlessly combine Solipsism with skiing, what choice do we have?

Presumably the headphone-wearing star of the game went out one day, dropped a tab of acid and started wistfully imagining that his flighty descent down the Tottenham Court Road tube escalator represented something altogether more... meaningful. Touch anywhere and drag, man.

Everything became slippery. Momentum built. Heavy metal blasted out. Rainbows were pouring out of his backside. Double rainbows. What does this mean?

Everyone stood around him, iPads in hand, conducting his motion across their touch screens with gleeful abandon, drawing him vicious slopes to slide down and jump from, and hills to climb. Everyone was rocking out as he pirouetted through the air, holding up score cards like judges.

Faster, faster, the dizzying spins. The rainbow streaks. Man, the blue tunnels. Mind the gap.

Did anyone see the wall coming? A thud. The eery silent finality as you spin helplessly into the endless inky void. Was anyone ever really there?

8/10