PlayStation Network is home to a massive variety of titles which makes it ideal for festive season gifts. Avoid the hustle and bustle of the high street and shop from the comfort of your own home thanks to PSN.
PlayStation Network is a fantastic fit for the festive season if you're looking for some videogames fun. PSN titles download straight on to your PLAYSTATION 3 and bring you immediate entertainment that's a blast for the whole family, brilliant value for money and ideal gifts - you don't even have to spend time wrapping them up, either. Here is just a small selection to light up the eyes of any games player.
A great introduction to the diverse fun that can be had with PSN is through the Q-Games PixelJunk series, consisting of Racers, Monsters, and Eden. PixelJunk Racers revs up your reflexes with a fast paced series of over 30 racing challenges with an overhead viewpoint. Dodge and weave in single player mode and against offline friends, or fight for top spot in the online leaderboards.
You can slow down the PixelJunk pace with Monsters, a tactical defence game which has you protecting your forest brood from hostile monsters looking for a snack. Build artillery towers ranging from cannons and crossbolts to ice and laser weapons to save the day - and team up with a friend to tackle the monster hoards in two player mode.
For something a little more psychedelic from the PixelJunk stable, Eden brings with it a refreshingly different looking platform style of game, where you control a tiny creature called a Grimp, who collects garden treasures. Many are out of reach, however, so it's up to you to smash through the roaming enemies, collect the pollen they drop and make the lush alien plants evolve and grow so you can swing and climb further up the garden. Like the other PixelJunk titles, Eden is as addictive as it is wonderfully original.
Also brilliantly unique are the delights of Pain, a comedy jam which will have you busting a gut with laughter as your poor on-screen crash dummy busts a gut in a whacky cartoon style. Simply load your hapless hero or heroine into a human-sized slingshot and fire them into a variety of settings with the aim of causing as much chaos as possible and wracking up the points. With a ton of new locations and characters available, such as famous actor David Hasselhoff, and many more to come, Pain is one experience that will never end - ideal for bringing a smile to anyone's face during the festivities.
Fancy blasting away the winter blues? Riff: Everyday Shooter is just the thing for you. An arcade shoot 'em up at heart, Riff blends mature gameplay with guitar driven musical melodies where each level plays out a harmony which is altered, chopped and changed depending on your actions. Blast away a number of objects and enemies, collect power-ups and score multipliers, and listen to the enchanting effect each has on the soundscape.
Want to pick up the pace? WipEout HD is among PSN's fastest and fanciest looking titles, sure to impress anyone, regardless if you're looking for blistering futuristic racing action... or just like looking. Shining like a freshly wrapped gift, WipEout HD is all about High Definition visuals, anti-gravity racing and a whole lot of speed. With a contemporary soundtrack playing in Dolby 5.1 surround sound, a vast variety of modes and the ability to race online, it's up to you to keep up the pace - and you'll enjoy every breathless second of it.
If your reflexes are still twitching for a challenge, The Trials of Topoq will nicely satisfy that impulse. Using the PLAYSTATION Eye camera, you can take a picture of your face and map it into the game so it shows on the surfaces of Topoq's soaring towers. You then have to manoeuvre rolling balls across the towers by moving your hands in front of the camera to create slopes, avoid gargoyles and hit mystical cages of energy to succeed. Thirty courses await - can you overcome the Trials?
Those wanting to be a hero during the festive period will do well to download The Last Guy, which straps a cape on your back and asks you to rescue the citizens of 14 world cities (including Los Angeles and London) flooded with zombies and monsters. Leading the survivors to a designated Escape Zone, you're the last one on the planet to save humanity from its fate in an aerial view action romp. You'll find everyone has an opinion on the best route to navigate through the well known cities, so The Last Guy is a perfect way to get the whole family involved after a heavy festive feed.
There's also the chance to be an antihero, as The Age of Booty pitches you on the seas as a pirate looking to build an empire by seizing towns and sinking ships. A real time action strategy title, The Age of Booty has a boatload of single player challenges and multiplayer maps for up to eight pirate friends (or fiends) to play with. You can even create your own maps and share them. A pirate's life for you?
Taking a more cerebral slant, Linger in Shadows offers a dreamlike trip across several movie style narratives and challenges you to solve them all through a mixture of experimentation and ingenuity. Fast forward and rewind the sequences, pause and alter them, use motion control and more, all to find the hidden sigils and discover the whole mysterious journey that is Linger in Shadows - after all, the only way to find out is to experience it yourself...
