Download Games Roundup

A Space Shooter For Two Bucks

• PlayStation Minis - £1.74

Presumably "A Space Shooter For One Pound Seventy-Four Pence" wasn't considered quite as snappy a title for Frima's latest attempt to demonstrate that it is, in fact, possible to make decent-quality Minis.

ASSFTB (as we like to call it) immediately scores bonus hugs for intimate self-awareness of how stupid this all is. It knows it's a dumb-arsed, roaring 2D blaster, so has no problem peppering the campaign with dunderheaded characters with idiotic lines.

Frima also seems to have a good handle on what makes for an exciting retro shooter, and pulls all the tricks out of the bag, with challenging-but-fair waves, engaging boss encounters and all the power-ups in the book. It's also one of the slickest, most visually polished titles we've seen on Minis for a while.

It even bothers to give the game structure and a sense of purpose. Rather than simply providing a long sequence of levels for you to attempt in one show of improbable twitch-shooting skill, it divides them all up into bite-sized chunks that make it perfect for on-the-go consumption. But while you can sample most levels in any order, you find that it's a much better idea to bolt on ship upgrades earned in the easier levels and wait to tackle the more brutal ones when you're an armed-to-the-teeth war bitch.

For a game that's entirely happy to plunder the past and repackage it all with a nod and a wink, this cheery portion of nostalgic blasting is well worth dusting off your neglected PSP for.

8/10

Spin Six

• DSiWare - 500 DSiWare points (£4.50)

I love matching things, me. I pair socks with unlikely zeal, and the daily washing-up blitz is made all the more enjoyable by the combos gained through putting the plates and cutlery next to all their buddies. Sadly, while the world continues to haggle over an official scoring system for this noble domestic chore, such achievements go tragically unnoticed.

Not so with Zener Works' loveable twisty-turny number-matching puzzle offering. As the title helpfully points out, this is all about spinning six different numbers and trying to line them up so that they all go to that great number heaven in the sky. If you line up three 3s in a row, for example, they're removed from the grid.

In the game's 'One-Turn' Puzzle mode, you have one chance to make all the numbers line up, and doing so involves moving a 4x4 grid over the numbers you want to rotate. Once you're set, you can either spin them 90 degrees clockwise or anti-clockwise.

As you might expect, removing numbers from the grid has a knock-on effect, with chain reactions causing other numbers to fall into place and, in turn, line up with the remaining digits. In the 'Chain' puzzle mode, you're also given a limited number of spins to create a chain reaction, and, if you're quick, you can move your cursor to a different part of the grid, twist other numbers and take advantage of the ongoing chain reaction.

Puzzle games often sound complicated when you try to explain them to people in text, but Spin Six quickly becomes one of the ones that gets under your skin. And with 99 of the One Turn and Chain puzzles to wade through, there's plenty to keep you going when the Jubilee Line screws up yet again.

On top of that, you've also got the inevitable Time Attack, Score Attack and Chain Challenge modes to battle against, where your mastery of nimble number chain creation is the kind of workout that even Davina McCall would probably pass up on. Who said thumb exercise couldn't be beneficial?

7/10