I've actually spent a fair bit of money on my PS3. Not so much on the console itself, though we all know that's a fistingly large amount. And not even accessories. I got a second controller with the console and other than that have only needed to buy the Remote/Surfboard accessory. And not on games. We get enough review titles to keep me entertained, and I really don't have much time it play lately anyway.

Or more accurately, not on big fancy boxed games. No, what I seem to be spending my money on is the nickel & dime costs for the downloadable games on the PlayStation Network.

The first thing I bought on it was LocoRoco CocoRoacho (I prefer my version). It's only $5, and I love me my rocorocos. While the "game" lacks the variety of music tracks that the PSP game had it still has the charm, and is frankly a bargain for $5. It's actually quite difficult to get the full collection of the little liquid bastards, but somehow you have to try. It's like Pokemon if no attention...

I've actually spent a fair bit of money on my PS3. Not so much on the console itself, though we all know that's a fistingly large amount. And not even accessories. I got a second controller with the console and other than that have only needed to buy the Remote/Surfboard accessory. And not on games. We get enough review titles to keep me entertained, and I really don't have much time it play lately anyway.

Or more accurately, not on big fancy boxed games. No, what I seem to be spending my money on is the nickel & dime costs for the downloadable games on the PlayStation Network.

The first thing I bought on it was LocoRoco CocoRoacho (I prefer my version). It's only $5, and I love me my rocorocos. While the "game" lacks the variety of music tracks that the PSP game had it still has the charm, and is frankly a bargain for $5. It's actually quite difficult to get the full collection of the little liquid bastards, but somehow you have to try. It's like Pokemon if no attention was put into character design and they all looked the same. So... it's like Pokemon.

The next thing I bought was Riff: Everyday Shooter. Riff is a really interesting game. Music features as a big part of it, and the sounds of shooting and death are factored into the music track. Yes, like Rez. Shut up. Music is also synched with the raising and lowering of the intensity of the gameplay in the various levels. Some of the music is really cool, and the simple play mechanic "left joystick moves, right joystick shoots that direction" makes for a very intuitive experience that you can get straight into. Unforunately it also becomes fiendishly hard, and the sheer process of attrition makes it very hard to get much past about the 4th level.

I also bought Super Rub-A-Dub. Back off. My son loves it.

Recently I bought Flow. I'd played it on the PC but it seemed... interesting. So I gave it a whole bunch of play time and had a whole new gaming experience. It is, in fact, possible to be completely addicted, and yet at the same time bored out of your skull. Flow is the game you have to own, even though there's little point actually playing it because it's so mindless and stupid. You know... like Halo for the Xbox. Or Halo 3 for the Xbox 360.

Naturally the fact that I bought Flow meant I needed to buy the recently released expansion, too. I was intrigued to discover it continued the existing formula of tedium and a poorly controlled character. It's a winning combination!

One interesting thing about the little casual games is that they actually use the full resolution of the consoles far better than "real" games. Flow (probably should actually be fl0w just to keep Phil happy) runs at 1080i quite happily, by comparison to most games, which run at 576i or something. The difference is visible, with the bright colours and crisp visuals of many casual games looking excellent.

Aside from these casual games Sony have also made available a carefully compiled list of the worst games to ever appear on the original Playstation! Awesome! Why yes I WOULD like to buy Medievil again, because it wasn't shit enough last time! The Playstation had some awesome games, and it's surprising not to see these. From Toshinden to Resident Evil 2, there were some classics. Final Fantasy VII with Remote Play support and all I'd need would be tissues and a tube of lube. Heh. That rhymes.

It's not just about the PlayStation Network, though. The Xbox 360 has its Live network, the definitive example of how to do online good.

Err... well. Yug made me play N+ the other day, a game I'd only previously known from the weird character in its title causing problems on Vurp. And it's frankly rockin'. It's simple, addictive, and a lot of fun. These casual games take us back to an earlier time, they're actually the old games as we remember them, rather than as they actually are. Most of the older games control like ass. They come from a time before analog, a time when 8 directions were enough. A game like N+ would never have been possible a in the early days, despite the simplicity of the graphics.

The casual games market is an interesting one. The basic model is that you get your game on their network, and they take a percentage of sales of the title through it. How big a percentage that should be is one open to discussion, and a discussion that recently caused controversy when rumours surfaced that Microsoft were looking at reducing the amount paid to developers.

It would be sad to see that. Casual console games are a hell of a lot of fun, and provide an avenue for developers to create innovative and interesting titles without the need for massive studios and budgets, without sourcing publishers and without paying massive costs for distribution. It's win-win-win for developers, the consoles themselves and we the gamer.

And there is benefit to the consoles. The downloads make a small but growing source of revenue to companies such as Microsoft and Sony, but aside from that it hurts them to have their competition having better stuff than they do.

That's probably the one thing that kind of sucks about these casual download games. They're almost always network specific. The cool stuff for PS3 isn't available for Xbox 360, and vice versa. This means I can't play N+ and Yug can't play Riff. There are a few games that come to mind. If there's one thing to be improved on the casual download games it's that fact. There are some exceptions. Bionic Commando Rearmed will be on both platforms, but it's hardly a sign of things to come.

Still some of the "things to come" are pretty impressive. WipeOut HD looks amazing, despite having the slightly flat bland look of a lot of PS2/PSP games that are ported, and for some strange reason I'm really interested in Elefunk. I don't know why. I'm just weird that way.

Nevertheless, the conclusion to this is a pretty simple one: if you haven't bothered to get any of these downloadable games, have another think about it. They're a lot of fun. In particular I'd recommend N+ to anyone with a couple of days they want to get rid of.