Download Games Roundup

When Sony finally took the wraps off the ludicrously powerful Next Generation Portable, it obviously wanted to show off its capacity to run full-blown console epics. By the looks of things, it should be able to do that extremely well.

But are full-fat home videogames the kind of things that sell portable games consoles, and are we willing to pay full-price to play them on a handheld device? Maybe - but with strings attached.

If only Sony could adopt a unified cross-platform approach to its games. I'm fairly certain many gamers would happily shell out for the hardware if they knew they could play the same title on both their PS3 and their NGP. It would give Sony the kind of convenient USP far beyond anything offered by its rivals.

Ring-fence gamers into buying full-price NGP-only software every time, though, and the 'proposition', as Sony's Andrew House would say, looks altogether less tempting.

Anyway, there's still a while to go till NGP launches, so here's a look at some games which could keep you occupied in the meantime.

Trine

• Mac - App Store - £11.99, Steam - £16.99
• PC - Steam - £16.99, Get Games - £7.49.
• PSN - £7.99

You might remember that we rather enjoyed Trine when it first came out on PC and PSN back in the summer of 2009. Now available on Mac, Frozenbyte's gorgeous side-scrolling platform puzzler throws a wizard, a thief and a knight together, and tasks you with utilising their unique abilities to traverse a series of challenging fantasy environments.

You'll find yourself battling off vicious skeletons with the burly knight one minute and switching to the thief to grapple across a pit of spikes the next, before hastily clambering up a box that's been conjured by the wizard. Think of it as the sane man's Ghosts 'n' Goblins crossed with The Lost Vikings.

If you've got a pad or two to spare, you can also take advantage of the strangely unheralded drop-in co-op mode and work out elaborate solutions together. Or be rubbish together, no one's looking.

Ok, so this will be old news for some of you, but those of you only just getting into this download lark, Trine is yet another recent platform offering to disprove the myth that they don't make them like they used to.

8/10