Download Games Roundup

Pixelbit Helicopter Challenge

• Xbox Live Indie - 80 Microsoft Points (£0.68)

When people go all doe-eyed about the Dreamcast, you never hear anyone standing up for that lost launch title, Toy Commander. That's probably because it was a bit rubbish, but at least it had the decency to be interesting.

Pixelbit's Helicopter Challenge picks up the house-based flying bit, sprinkles a bit of Pilotwings over it and stands there demanding sixty-eight pence for about 30 levels of the stuff. Bargain.

Unlike a lot of the pointless crud cluttering up the indie racks, it doesn't look like it was knocked up by Buckie-quaffing chat roulette victims. With its long-lost cel-shaded style and precise, responsive twin-stick controls, it's an instant buy.

Under pressure to scoop the gold medals, you'll be soaring through hoops, collecting stars, shooting targets and collecting bonus letters to gain access to the other parts of the house. It's simple, obvious, unpretentious and all the more likeable for it.

People used to make games like this, slap them in boxes and expect large chunks of your pocket money for it. Yeah, it's a bit old fashioned, but then so are you. Roll with it.

7/10

Puzzle Rocks

• DSiWare - 500 Points (£4.50)
• Previously released on PC and iPhone (£0.59

It's almost preferable when a puzzle game stands there with its arms folded, refusing to explain the rules or even the point of it all. Perhaps that's the point.

Puzzle Rocks comes on like any half-arsed, block-dropping, match-three game you've encountered down the years, if one that requires the turn-based foresight of Connect Four.

But then you realise that Cinemax's latest also requires that you swap between screens and play it in the DS' rarely used book orientation.

Curiosity piqued, you fumble around sliding rows so that the containers match as many falling shapes as you can manage. If you succeed, a gem appears on the corresponding screen, which, if you're smart/lucky, you can reap for points when you feel like it.

And so it goes on, with the goal to eliminate all the jewels while trying to rack up as many points as possible. It's hardly the world's most exciting puzzle formula, but nor does it try to be.

Puzzle Rocks feels like a game comfortable in its own skin, confident enough to exist without fuss or fanfare for people who enjoy whittling away coloured gems at their own sweet pace.

6/10