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30 Best Sony Playstation Network Games (Via PCWORLD.com)

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30 Best Sony Playstation Network Games (Via PCWORLD.com)

2763638994_683ce550db.jpg We take a look at 30 of the best downloadable PlayStation 3 games available on Sony’s PlayStation Network. In this guide to the best of PSN, we discuss everything from immensely successful exclusives like Flower and the PixelJunk games to classic PlayStation releases like Twisted Metal 2.

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 84
Electronic Arts definitely has a strong pedigree as far as the Battlefield games are concerned. No matter what year the warfare takes place in, there’s usually a ton of addictive multiplayer action guaranteed to steal away your free time. For $15, Battlefield 1943 is a quick lunch for gamers without the budget for a full feast, but it’s more filling than you’d expect.

Spread out across three islands in the World War II-era Pacific Ocean, Battlefield 1943 lets players enlist with the U.S. Marines or the Japanese Navy as they take to land, sea, and sky in all-out war. There’s an impressive amount of ways to join the fight in this budget package, as you can do anything from piloting fighter planes to sniping stray enemies to calling in bombing runs. Although it’s light on modes, Battlefield 1943’s single "capture the bases" element is a blast with a full crew of 16 players, and the team based tactics quickly become second nature.

In fact, Battlefield 1943 was so popular at launch, EA had to install extra servers to host the matches because too many players were playing it at once.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
Retro remakes can sometimes add either too much or too little new content, but Bionic Commando: Rearmed is pitch perfect in its execution. If you’ve played the original NES title, you’ll feel right at home with arguably one of the best PSN games Capcom’s offered up yet. Graphically, BCE is incredibly faithful to its roots despite the fresh coat of modern paint.

Playing once again as Federation hero Nathan "Rad" Spencer, Bionic Commando: Rearmed pits the lone warrior against waves of Imperial soldiers. Using the bionic arm as your main weapon, you can grapple between buildings, use enemies as human shields, and toss huge chunks of debris at your would-be assassins. Rearmed does an even better job than the original title of making the grappling gameplay the star mechanic, as the brand-new boss battles require a cunning balance of bionic agility and ballistic brute force.

For the $10 price tag, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a serious bargain. Aside from the main game, there’s co-op multiplayer, challenge levels, and even a free-for-all brawl mode available.

  • Braid
  • Also available on XBLA, PC

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 93
While lots of conjecture has been made about the story behind Braid, it all boils down to a common plot often told in video games: you’re a man against the world, trying to rescue a princess in a far away land.

However, Braid’s special twist comes in the form of time manipulation. As you guide leading man "Tim" through world after world, you’ll need to "rewind" time to solve puzzles embedded in every level. Sometimes, you’ll need to correct an ill-timed jump off an enemy’s head, and other times you’ll die by falling into a trap. Luckily, even Tim’s death can be fixed by simply turning back the clock a few crucial seconds, and the game quickly becomes more puzzle than platformer.

However, as you play through this wonderfully crafted game — in several cases, literally turning back time to advance past various obstacles — it eventually comes clear that the simple story isn’t what it seems to be. Is Tim really the hero? What exactly is his relationship with the princess? And why can’t Tim remember why he has to rescue her?

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 83
Ever get tired of tower defense games that, well, make you do nothing but defend attackers? If you’re looking for a more aggressive take on the genre, Comet Crashputs an interesting gameplay mechanic to use: along with building towers and turrets, you can also build up your own armies to harass the computer AI’s own base. It’s an interesting tug-of-war premise, where planning out a good offense is just as important as shoring up your own base’s obstacles.

Comet Crash already has plenty of free DLC content in addition to the main game, including a harder difficulty, new maps, and a time attack mode that dramatically increases the number of troops on both sides of a battle. For $10, that’s not too shabby for a game just released last year.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 78
Imagine Halo, repackaged into a side-scrolling platformer and mixed with Contra-style gore: that’s Crash Commando in a nutshell. All the game wants you to know is that if you’re not killing every commando that isn’t on your team, you’re not playing it right. Regardless of which in-game faction you side with — the Grunts or the Jarheads — you’ll have access to a staggering amount of weapons: machine guns, C4, armored vehicles, and just about anything else that can cause some loud and fiery deaths. Paired with purposefully over-the-top blood and violence, Crash Commando is nonsensical fun, and that’s pretty much all it needs to be.

Cost: $6.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
Critter Crunch may be adorable, but it’s also gross. Much like other saccharine-sweet puzzlers (Puyo Pop, Bubble Bobble) Critter Crunch‘s gameplay consists of helping the game’s mascot eat his way through a variety of Tetris-like puzzles. By doing this, you must devour tiny creatures that pop up in a level’s food chain and projectile vomit them into the mouths of larger creatures. Yeah, you read that right.

Once the food chain is satisfied, creatures in a row or group will explode, letting your mascot gobble up sweet rainbow-colored fruit as prizes. Hopefully, some video game historian will confirm that Critter Crunch is the only video game where regurgitation is the main mechanic. That being said, this independent title from Capybara Games is as challenging as it is cute/disgusting, and at $7, you’ll definitely get a kick out of this unique gem.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 81
If you’ve ever been confused by an M. C. Escher painting, Echochrome is a game that will really screw with your head. Echochrome presents very basic-looking puzzles with one goal: manipulate the angles of various three-dimensional platforms so that the in-game avatars can safely walk to a predetermined finish line. Seems simple enough, but then the rules start to get a little weird. If there’s a gap on a particular walkway, you have to tilt the level so that gap "appears" to vanish. If two paths aren’t connected, you can simulate the connection by simply angling the camera so that one path overlaps another. Really, it sounds complicated, but once you get into it the game becomes immensely addicting.

Over 56 levels are packed into Echochrome, each with an increasingly difficult tree of paths to navigate. But if you’re some kind of genius, the game also gives you a canvas for creating your own levels. Want to try out the "disappearing gap" trick for yourself? Build a level, test it out on a friend and see if your take on perspectives can produce a brilliant puzzle.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 83
Even if you’re not a huge fan of shoot ’em up games, Everyday Shooter is probably one of the best PSN games around based on music alone. What differentiates it from shooters like Geometry Wars and Super Stardust HD are the levels, which look very much like the rainbow colored equalizers you can find in most MP3 player programs. As you progress though each "track," the music changes to introduce a new swarm of enemies and a new style of gameplay.

For example, in one track, you’ll be listening to an angry metallic beat as enemies explode in bright reds and oranges, setting off large chains of points. In the next minute, the game’s music can just as quickly shift gears, offering a slower paced level accompanied by a subtle, yet catchy guitar solo. Each track has a unique feel to it, but the fundamental gameplay is the same throughout. Come for the shooting, but stay for the music and graphics.

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 79
Capture-the-flag has been done to death, and that’s likely why Titan Studios developed such an original take on the game with Fat Princess. Just like the game’s title indicates, this PSN exclusive revolves around obese royalty — in a series of cartoonish medieval maps, each team of knights and wizards must rescue their princess from the other team’s castle. However, if your enemies are smart, they’ll make your job difficult by fattening up your royal highness with copious amounts of cake: the fatter the princess, the harder she is to carry off and rescue.

Aside from the hilarious tone, the 16-on-16-player mayhem is both colorful and bloody. Unique abilities can be upgraded with little effort, and the action rarely slows down. Moreover, the game gives you a real incentive to work together, if you don’t want to end up as a bloody smear on the battlefield.

 

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 92
While a Final Fantasy VII remake on the PlayStation 3 may happen at some point in the future, Final Fantasy fans can at least relive the adventure that they love most at the fraction of what it would cost for a new copy of FFVII.

For the people who didn’t get a chance to play the original, Final Fantasy VII is about nature-versus-evil-corporations, as the planet Gaia is slowly dying, no thanks to the shadowy Shinra Company, an evil government that’s draining the world of all its energy. Cloud, a soldier formerly in the employ of Shinra, goes on a vast and memorable adventure to save the planet, spanning hours of classic RPG combat and tons of unforgettable characters. Along the way, Cloud meets up with various people who all have a stake in the planet’s survival, and things come to a head when a fellow ex-Shinra elite named Sephiroth becomes invested in the destruction of the world.

For many gamers, Final Fantasy VII is a crash course in RPG 101, and if you haven’t played it, the PSN download is like a treasure chest begging to be opened.

  • Flow
  • PSN Exclusive

Cost: $7.99
Metacritic Rating: 71
Flow can be considered the inspiration for PSN’s Flower, and that’s no surprise, as both games are the brainchild of "thatgamecompany," which is headed by famed designer Jenova Chen. Without life bars, points, or any kind of heads-up display, Flow’s entire experience consists of you controlling an aquatic microorganism through various levels of the game. As you ingest small organisms, your own avatar will grow and evolve based on the type of creatures you eat and when you eat them.

As a game, Flow is very low-key on sensory overload, and comes across as a relaxing way to let the hours melt by after a busy afternoon. There are quite a few different creatures that can be unlocked throughout the game, and with such a simple mode of play — you move your own organism by steering with the Sixaxis’s motion control in a way that anyone can play without so much as a tutorial. Flow may look like the world’s most graphically impressive screen saver, but it’s one of the most original titles PSN has to offer.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
As one of the most unique titles a gamer can find, Flower is something that defies classification. It’s more of an experience than a clear-cut video game, and you "feel" it more than actually "play" it. In Flower, you control nature itself, while your motions with the Sixaxis conduct the ebb and flow of the wind. Through this action, you guide a single flower petal around a lifeless, grayscale world, bringing color and light to everything you touch. As you take that single petal and send it throughout a level, a path of bright, colorful greenery will sprout wherever you go, adding more petals to your strong, but small, wisp of wind.

More than anything else, Flower feels surprisingly natural. There isn’t any tutorial or explanation needed, and you can pretty much just pick up the controller and explore levels at your leisure.

Flower should be recognized for breaking a lot of video games boundaries; in fact, it might seem odd that there isn’t any way to "lose" or "die" in this game. Even if you happen to get stuck trying to find a path between sterile buildings and lonely stretches of abandoned scenery, a few shakes and turns of the controller is all it takes to renew motion and find new directions to grow. Everything from the graphics to the musical score is extremely well crafted, and despite being more artwork than a traditional video game, Flower more than warrants the distinction as one of the best PSN games available on the PlayStation 3.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 77
If video games have taught us anything, it’s that mankind’s chances for survival in a monster-apocalypse are slim to none. Hilariously, The Last Guy lives and breathes on this idea, as you play the titular character, whose sole responsibility is to guide hundreds of survivors safety across large urban cities. As you collect more survivors, your group will invariably be harder to guide, and therein lies half the fun of the game.

None of this is a serious as it sounds, though. The Last Guy gives you the ultimate version of a "top-down" view, as the game looks like you’re directing ants through Google Map versions of famous cities. This is how you’ll eventually start to manage survival groups numbering in the hundreds, represented by a frantic, screaming mob that steadfastly follows your "Last Guy" in line formation. It’s quirky, a great mix of "Snake" and "Lemmings," and even when you lose, it’s downright hilarious to see your helpless mob of dependents get eaten by roaming 5-mile-long centipedes.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 80
Lumines has always been one of the best musical experiences on the PSP, so it was good to see the series make its way to the PS3. Just like the original Lumines games, Supernova features a huge collection of musical "skins" that shift from level to level as you eliminate colored blocks from the play field. And there’s dozens to work through, so arranging your favorite mixes is a nice perk.

Although there’s sadly no online multiplayer, Lumines Supernova compensates nicely with the $10 tag (a drop from the original $15 launch price) and the new DigDown mode, a feature exclusive to PSN. If you didn’t bite at first, Q Entertainment’s sweetened the deal enough that you should check it out.

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 85
It’s a testament to how good Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is that the PSN version is largely unchanged from past ports, at least from a gameplay perspective. Drafting dozens of combatants from both camps, it’s still the only fighting game that lets you pit the likes of Iron Man and Dr. Doom against Captain Commando and Strider Hiryu. What’s even better about the PSN and XBLA ports is that — for the first time — every fighter in the lineup is unlocked at the start, so there’s no need to grind through the game’s arcade mode hundreds of times for enough points to access your favorite character.

Also, the PSN and XBLA revivals added the desperately longed-for online multiplayer feature, which is just as speedy as playing next to a buddy in the arcade. It’s a small addition that Capcom fans had been wanting for almost a decade, making this version of MVC2 the one for both hardcore and new players. With HD settings and online play, it’s a fighting game revival that’s undoubtedly one of the best downloadable PSN games.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 94
Metal Gear Solid is one of most critically acclaimed games ever, and for good reason. Back in the original PlayStation era, Solid Snake’s first mission on Sony’s console was considered the entertainment equivalent of a blockbuster Hollywood film. Ninjas, nuclear warheads, giant robots — Metal Gear Solid had everything.

Looking at the story, Solid Snake’s mission seems nigh impossible: infiltrate a nuclear weapons base deep in the Alaskan wilderness, which has been taken over by a terrorist group whose leaders possess a laundry list of crazy superpowers. It’s Snake, all alone, against a literal army — so he must use every stealthy maneuver in his arsenal to avoid detection and silently take out the opposition. Sure, you could just go "Rambo" and try shooting your way though the game, but you’d be outgunned and shot down like a dog.

In fact, just about every modern stealth game owes something to Metal Gear Solid. Everything from decoy distractions to hiding unconscious bodies comes into play here, and it’s as ingrained into the genre as bullets are to first-person shooters. Even though the Metal Gear series continues to break new ground with each installment, it’s good to be able to go back to where it all started for about the cost of a movie ticket.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 80

It seems that PixelJunk games all follow a simple trinity: memorable artwork, entrancing music, and simple gameplay. PixelJunk Eden is a case study of this development strategy, as it excels in every aspect.

PixelJunk Eden is all about growth and gravity. Each level in this game is a literal garden, with stalks, leaves, and stems sprouting from odd angles all over the screen. All you control in these gardens is the "Grimp," a little avatar that can use a single line of webbing to swing, grip, and jump through each level. While you may be tempted to just mess with the physics, there is a task at hand. Within a time limit, you must collect a "Spectra" by influencing the growth of the garden, which can be done by gathering and releasing clumps of pollen into the air. Do this enough and plenty of seeds will sprout into plants that will allow your Grimp to reach its targets.

PixelJunk Eden’s surprisingly challenging, and offers a lot for $10. You’ll want to go back though gardens, trying to beat your best score and compete with the best of the leaderboards. Like its other PixelJunk brethren, there’s also an "Encore" package of Eden available if you manage to blast through this masterpiece in record time.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 83
PixelJunk Monsters – another quirky offering from developer Q-Games – is tower defense at its best. As the title indicates, the main goal involves protecting your home base from every type of monster the game can throw at you: bats, giants, spiders and whatnot. Thankfully, every level in the game is a fortress in the making, as you can turn the natural scenery itself into a weapon. Provided you have the resources, it’s a simple matter of turning an ordinary tree into a cannon ball-launching defense tower with the press of a button

Most of the meat in PixelJunk Monsters is found around the different types of defenses you can unlock, and there are quite a lot of them — arrow turrets, fire-spewing towers, and even Tesla coil-style armaments. Customizing your ideal defensive formation is a satisfying experience to say the least, and it’s got that trademark PixelJunk atmosphere to tie everything together. It may borrow from several other games just like it, but this one’s got enough charm to stand above the best PSN games around.

And even if you’ve already played the original PixelJunk Monsters to death, there’s the Encore expansion, which adds another 15 levels, as well as the "Deluxe" PSP version, which includes every single feature from the previous game, plus a little extra content exclusive to the handheld system.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
A lot of shooters are content to just throw wave after wave of enemies at you until you die, so it’s no surprise that the genre is overloaded with too many titles that look and play alike. It’s an understatement to say that PixelJunk Shooter is not one of those games. In fact, it’s so wildly inventive, it’s more puzzle game than shooter.

Set in the far future where mankind has taken to the stars to collect living resources, PixelJunk Shooter kicks off with one heck of a crisis. On planet Apoxus Prime, a crew of scientists face imminent death from a combination of dangerous environments and pissed off natives. Luckily, the crew of the Ers Piñita Colada and their tiny scout ships are here to save the day. It’s not just about shooting holes through the planet and rescuing the hapless scientists, either — the real star of PixelJunk Shooter is the level design. Numerous areas can be uncovered with the right mix of elements: lava can melt a path through ice, water rushes everywhere to fill empty gaps, and black ooze can be magnetized out of harm’s way.

Aside from deducing the best ways to save the scientists and protect your ship, PixelJunk Shooter also achieves the right mix of catchy music, animation, and addictive gameplay — and the overall package is worth the price of admission.

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 76
If you’ve been following the Ratchet & Clank series, Quest for Booty is one part of the adventure you shouldn’t pass up just because it’s not a disc-release. Taking place after Tools of Destruction and before a Crack in Time, this game fills the gap between the two games as Ratchet goes on a solo adventure with a distinct "Pirates of the Space Caribbean" flair. Lots of weapons are carried over from the previous R&C title, and there are a good number of puzzles packed into this bite-sized package. At three to four hours of game time, it’s a decidedly lighter installment, but the price makes it perfect for the PlayStation Network.

Cost: $5.99
Metacritic Rating: 89
Out of all the characters in the Resident Evil series, it’s easiest to sympathize with rookie cop Leon Kennedy. Not more than a few hours into his first day on the job, Raccoon City’s inexplicably infested with zombies, and the only way to figure out what’s going on is by infiltrating the nearby laboratory that created the whole mess. No wonder Leon’s so well adjusted by the time Resident Evil 4 rolls around.

Although it’s hard to imagine being frightened by this game today, Resident Evil 2’s claustrophobic level design and grim ambiance was more than enough to kick-start anyone’s itchy trigger finger. Making it through the entire game is a careful balance of juggling scarce ammo and even rarer healing items, along with being outnumbered by undead everywhere you turn. It’s classic survival horror at its best, and for $6, it’s probably the best retro Resident Evil experience PS3 owners can buy.

Cost: $7.99
Metacritic Rating: 86

When you first see Shatter in action, you might instantly think, "Hey, that looks just like Breakout." And while the loose association isn’t entirely wrong, it’s still not an accurate representation of all Shatter has to offer.

Although there’s a subtle similarity to older "brick breaking" titles, Shatter takes a simple concept and integrates enough new elements to make it play like a fresh experience. Instead of just being able to hit a ball back and forth with the paddle, Shatter also gives you the power to manipulate gravity within the game — loose blocks can be pulled and pushed around the vacuum of empty space. There are even a handful of inventive boss battles crammed into this $8 game, which add a fresh dose of challenge as you try to combat living golems of blocks and bricks.

Shatter also features a lot of graphical flair with heavy techno tones reminiscent of Rez. Most PSN games don’t pull off a retro evolution as well as Shatter does. It’s colorful, easy to dive into, and it somehow manages to retain basic gameplay that many gamers will know on muscle memory alone.

Cost: $29.99
Metacritic Rating: 78
Taking place in an abandoned Japanese village with a history of ritual human sacrifices, Siren: Blood Curse weaves a story around an American TV crew that’s descended upon the place to shoot a documentary. Predictably, everything goes awry as living corpses start running amok through the village. The game has over 12 episodes packed with enough pulse-pounding gameplay to give Resident Evil a run for its money. But the real attraction here is the story, which is interwoven among a huge cast of characters, with each person’s actions directly affecting someone else’s chances of survival.

Siren: Blood Curse also has content available on a PlayStation Home Game Space for the diehard Japanese horror gamer, with unlockable rewards for players who compete in the available mini-game. At first look, $30 for a downloadable game might seem steep, but Siren: Blood Curse is a deep horror game that does its damnedest to scare you to death every step of the way.

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 85
Super Stardust HD is often summed up as "part Asteroids and part Geometry Wars," but neither game by itself even begins to explain the sheer insanity at hand here. Where Asteroids had the constant-but-manageable onslaught of space debris, Super Stardust HD multiplies the rubble tenfold and throws over-the-top explosions into the mix. Sure, Geometry Wars had frantic shooter mechanics within combined spaces, but SSHD throws even more enemies at you, while thoughtfully allowing players to run for dear life across spherical planet-like maps.

Armed with only a single spaceship, Super Stardust HD supplies you with three types of ammunition and proceeds to send wave after wave of sparkly, explosive death descending upon your vessel. Success depends on how well you can make use of bombs, speed boosts, and power-ups, although the resulting chaos looks so good that’s easy to get distracted. With leaderboard stats showing scores in the hundreds of millions, there’s definitely a method to this madness, but the average gamer can still have a blast with these multicolored fireworks.

Cost: $14.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
Capcom sure loves to revamp their classic games, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo would have been easy as a quick port with few thrills. But, as the "HD Remix" tagline indicates, there’s a lot that’s been overhauled.

Truly, this Street Fighter II remake is one that’s gotten a total makeover. Art design by the famous Udon Studios breathes new life into the World Warriors, and everything from Ryu’s Hadouken to Zangief’s bone-crushing piledrivers has been reworked for additional balance. It’s literally not the same game, and with the addition of online multiplayer, there’s a reason for even the most untouchable players to get back to practice. At $15, you get a graphical facelift, new endings, as well as a whole new soundtrack in a budget package, and most importantly, a new Street Fighter game that won’t steal your quarters.

Cost: $5.99
Metacritic Rating: 72
By now, you’d think that the Tetris formula has been improved on so many times that developers would stop trying to modify it. Luckily, that’s not the case with Trash Panic — a weird little game from Sony’s Japanese branch that takes an everyday house chore and turns it into an addictive puzzler.

We’ve all had the same problem before: sometimes when taking out the trash, there’s an oblong object taking up too much space at a weird angle. When that happens, we have to do an irritating amount of shuffling to find enough space for all the garbage at once. Strangely enough, Trash Panic took this idea and actually built a game around the concept.

Starting with an empty garbage tank, you sort trash into it from a conveyor belt, dropping in one piece at a time. Where Tetris has you lining blocks to clear space, Trash Panic tasks you with crushing certain breakable items with other objects — like smashing an old guitar with a microwave. While it sounds simple, Trash Panic’s gameplay throws enough curves at you that you’ll feel the pressure to keep your garbage from overflowing. But unlike trash duties in real life, it’s actually fun to go digging through these waste bins (especially when you start dropping matches onto the special, flammable items).

  • Trine
  • Also available on PC

Cost: $19.99
Metacritic Rating: 83
Fantasy games filled with medieval warriors and magical monsters may often be relegated to JRPGs, but Trine is a throwback to a time when Lord of the Rings-style characters were front and center in numerous genres. For now, Braid may be the king of puzzle platformers, but Trine is a worthy challenger nonetheless.

In a kingdom that’s fallen on harsh times after losing its ruler and being overrun by undead armies, Trine tells the tale of a thief, a wizard, and a knight — three heroes who are forced to work together to save the kingdom from imminent ruin. Much like the retro classic Lost Vikings games, each character in Trine has a specific skill that can help fend off evil minions and solve puzzles: the thief packs a bow, arrows, and a grappling hook; the wizard has the ability to both conjure levitating platforms and use telekinesis to move and throw objects; the portly knight comes equipped with a much-needed shield, sword, and sledgehammer.

Due to a magical snafu, the three heroes actually inhabit the same body, meaning that the player must switch characters on the fly in order to use the right ability for the task at hand. Each level in Trine puts your planning skills to the test, but another welcome treat is the richly detailed world around this game. Trine plays as good as it looks, and artistically, it’s one of the best PSN games you can get — even at the $20 asking price.

Cost: $5.99
Metacritic Rating: N/A
If games like Super Mario Kart and F-Zero are too tame for your tastes, Twisted Metal 2 adds enough destruction and mayhem that your bloodlust will be appeased almost certainly. In fact, it does away with actual racing entirely. Instead of a finish line, your only concern is the utter and total obliteration of every other vehicle in the game. Twisted Metal 2 is a blast with multiplayer in the mix, and it’s just plain fun ramming full speed into someone’s tank with your machine gun-laden hot rod.

Few titles revel in their delightfully over-blown violence quite like Twisted Metal 2. Honestly, name another one that lets you blow up the Eiffel Tower just for the Hell of it.

Cost: $19.99
Metacritic Rating: 87
For all intents and purposes, it seems that the Wipeout series has supplanted F-Zero as the high speed, futuristic combat racer of choice. That’s bad news if you’re a Nintendo fan, but good news if you happen to be a PlayStation owner. Needless to say, Wipeout HD is easily the slickest looking game in the series yet, thanks to amazing 1080p resolution with 60 frames per second visuals. But aside from looks, Wipeout HD has a ton of offerings for a downloadable title.

Single player races, tournaments, online multiplayer, and time trials are all part of the deal here, and with over 30 trophies to win through multiple courses, Wipeout HD should be any racing fanatic’s high-definition dream come true. It’s both the most visually impressive and explosive racer fans can find outside of Dirt 2 and Burnout.

  • Zen Pinball
  • PSN Exclusive

Cost: $9.99
Metacritic Rating: 80
Pinball might not pack the groundbreaking experience you’ll find in games like PixelJunk Eden or Braid, but Zen Pinball, however, is one of the best video game iterations of the classic game that’s worth $10 for the downloadable content alone. For starters, you’re unlikely to ever see a pinball machine modeled after Street Fighter II or Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and Zen Studios has the only title around that puts some effort into creating that feeling of lifelike pinball physics and borderline unrealistic special effects.

For more computer gaming news, visit GamePro. Story copyright © 2010 IDG Entertainment. All rights reserved.

 

SOURCE: PCWORLD.COM

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