1. Super Stardust HD

This game originated on the classic Amiga back in the day as Stardust, then was ported to the Amiga 1200 and CD32 as Super Stardust. Now it’s on the PS3 and it looks… a bit better.

It’s a classic twin-stick shooter inspired by Asteroids, but the reason it’s here is the amount of visual and aural bling. It starts off slow but after a few minutes the screen will be covered with enough particle effects to cause seizures in your pets. The gameplay is just as good – controls are very responsive and the levels scale nicely. There is also trophy support and local multiplayer.

The developers have announced another twin-stick shooter called Dead Nation, so you might also want to keep an eye out for that as well.

2. Pixeljunk Monsters

I’m a big fan of tower defence games and this is the most charming I’ve seen so far. The key difference between this one and the rest is that you place the towers with a little dude instead of a mouse pointer, and the dude can dance over a tower to increase the rate at which it upgrades.

I cannot overemphasise how polished and well-crafted this game is. It would be one of my desert island games. Stunningly good. Really sweet music as well.

3. The Last Guy

Okay, this one is a bit odd and probably hard to explain. You’re a dude. The world has been invaded by monsters. You need to run around a series of real-world maps against the clock and rescue the civilians from the roaming creatures. It’s kind of like the classic Snake game in that your ‘tail’ (the line of rescued people) gets longer as you run around, but if a monster touches the tail it will break and the civilians will hide in the map again. There are also a few V.I.Ps hidden in each level that will give you a bonus.

Very strange (Japanese) presentation, but very original and with strong replay value as the monsters all follow strict rules and you can keep attempting to beat your previous best effort.

4. Wipeout HD

If you’ve played Wipeout on the original Playstation you know what to expect here. No big surprises, just classic Wipeout gameplay with a silky-smooth 60 fps refresh rate. Missiles, quakes, airbrakes… no more need be said. Local and online multiplayer.

5. Flower

Probably the least ‘gamey’ of all the games here, but probably also the one you most need to see. You control a flower and need to touch all the other flowers in the level to progress. You use the tilt controls on the Six-Axis controller to fly around and any button to blow the flower around the level. There is no death, there are no enemies. It’s zen gaming, and it’s simply gorgeous to look at and listen to. This is a game to show to somebody who doesn’t enjoy games or who thinks that games can’t be an artform.

It’s very much a ‘love it or hate it’ game, but you can probably already tell if you’re going to hate it.

6. Trash Panic

Another game direct from Japan, and with minimal adaptation to help us Westerners. Trash Panic is the most ‘Japanesey’ of the games in this list – brutally difficult after a certain point and proud of it. It’s similar to Tetris in that you need to stack falling objects into a bin and can’t let them reach the top (or to be exact, spill trash outside the bin), but the game uses a proper physics engine. Every item has a weight and a crushability factor so you can squash (for example) a cardboard box underneath a television. Later levels add fire and liquids to the mix.

It’s uncompromising and frustrating, but also very unique.

7. Shatter

Oh, this is an easy one. It’s Breakout. Breakout with cool visuals, a nice ‘suck and blow’ mechanic to move the ball around the level and some cracking electro music that would be worth the purchase price alone.

8. Burnout Paradise

This is a bit of a cheat to include as the game isn’t a PS3 exclusive, but it’s so good and so convenient to have it as a digital download that I’m including it anyway. The PS3 was the lead development platform so the game runs better here than on the 360.

If you like arcade racing games, you need Burnout Paradise. It has an excellent variety of events to choose from (races, takedowns, stunts, etc) and some truly epic crash mechanics. Online multiplayer is a blast as well.

9. Pixeljunk Shooter

Another gem from the creators of Pixeljunk Monsters. Fly your ship around and save the little scientist dudes underground. What makes it unique is the water and lava in the environment, which you can skilfully exploit to help you proceed. Lava kills most enemies (and the scientists!), water and lava combine to make a solid rock that you can shoot through. Deceptively simple.

10. Joe Danger

Last but not least! You’re a washed-up stuntman trying to make a comeback. Played Excitebike? It’s similar (or so I hear). Great audio and visuals, funny crashes, local multiplayer, track creation and plenty of challenges.

All created by four people. It’s hard to imagine.

Did I leave your favourite out? Let me know in the comments. Oh, and if you want to add me as a PSN friend, my username is squozen.

I played it for a couple of minutes during my lunch break and was really disappointed because it was just Asteroids.

I tried it again a day or two later and realised… it’s Asteroids with a tech tree. And therefore it is awesome.

Oh, and it’s kinda amusing too. Worth the $2.50.

• Gran Turismo 5
• God of War III
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Assassin’s Creed 2
• Uncharted 2
• The Last Guardian

As you can see, originality is (nearly) dead in the console market. Pretty much everything is a sequel or a clone of another title.

This speaks for itself, really. The PS3 is starting to attract the game developers that have always drawn me to the PlayStation platform. Quirky, offbeat titles are far more my cup of tea than the typical shooting/fighting games, and Team Ico have never released anything less than stellar products. I am officially very excited for this one.

2. E3. I’m expecting to discover the release date of Gran Turismo 5, the game that tipped me over the edge to buy a PS3 over an Xbox 360.

3. WWDC. With luck, we’ll be told the release date of the new OS X operating system, Snow Leopard, and a new iPhone will be launched.

4. Ghostbusters on Blu-ray!

More reasons as they come to me.

Expect a call from my lawyers!

…okay, so I tripped over the Singstar mic lead by myself, but I wouldn’t have been playing it if YOU hadn’t suggested that you’d get more trophies than me!

If this series had continued, I suspect I would still be gaming on the PC.

Okay, now take that thought and improve the graphics, but give your players nothing to do whatsoever. Also, if there could be lots of loading in between areas, that would be awesome.

The people at Microsoft’s Xbox division must be crying with laughter when they think about Sony’s online ‘strategy’.

The second-highest in the list of reasons is the general consensus that the PS3 version of the game is somewhat broken in comparison to the Xbox 360 and PC versions. I don’t have a 360, and I really can’t see myself sitting in front of a computer for 100 hours of gaming, so I’ll wait for a patch.

I have a good reason to wait for that patch now. If I buy the game and start playing without trophy support, I’ll have to restart the game when they patch it in.