On the Download: August 12-18

The new game releases keep on rolling.  There were some big retail releases this week in Darksiders II and Sleeping Dogs and some big downloadable releases in Papo & Yo and Dust: An Elysian Tail, which I will be highlighting today in On the Download.  As I have nothing more to say, let us get on with the show.

Sony's Play promotion continues to roll on with a unique downloadable adventure game from Minority Media, Papo & Yo.  In Papo & Yo, you play as a young boy named Quico, who is accompanied by his best friend Monster.  Monster is a huge beast that has a problematic addiction to poisonous frogs.  Whenever Monster sees a frog, he immediately gobbles it up thus sending the beast into an intoxicated rage where no one including Quico is save.  Due to the bond between the two, it is up to Quico to help his best friend kick this dangerous habit.  In order to solve the puzzles in the game and further the adventure for a cure, Quico must work together with Monster and learn to use the beast's emotions, both good and bad, to their advantage.  Papo & Yo is a deep gaming experience that is directly influenced by creative director Vander Caballero's troubled relationship with his alcoholic father.  It is a really inspiring story for a game and an unique adventure that those interested in taking should make an effort to download Papo & Yo.  You can Papo & Yo from the PlayStation Store for 15 dollars.

Another year, another Summer of Arcade has come and gone.  It has been a very diverse month of games released exclusively for XBLA.  The final game in this year's Summer of Arcade is Dust:  An Elysian Tail.  Made entirely by one person, Dust is a 2D action RPG where you play as an mysterious adventurer on a quest to liberate an oppressed village and in turn find his true identity.  This mysterious adventurer goes by the name Dust and is aided by the ancient Blade of Ahrah and his sidekick, Fidget.  The world of Falana is a massive open world that encourages gamers to explore, take on many side-quests, discover the many secrets of Falana and master the real-time combat system that rewards skilled players and discourages button-mashing.  All the content packed into Dust: An Elysian Tail is suppose to take 20+ hours to complete.  So if you are a gamer looking for a long action RPG to dive into this summer, you can pick up Dust: An Elysian Tail for 1200 Microsoft Points.

On the Download: August 5-11

While this edition of On the Download is not as big as I originally thought it would be, but it is a packed edition nonetheless.  Got some big games to talk about this week on XBLA, PSN and Steam.  So without further ado, let us jump right in.

After some initial server problems, the newest release in Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion is up  on the marketplace.  This game happens to be Hybrid, 5th Cell's (creators of Scribblenauts and Run Roo Run) first foray into developing console games.  Hybrid is an online only multi-player third person shooter.  Hybrid takes place in 2032 where a Supercollider implosion causes a rift between our world and an alternate reality.  From this rift, a new species known as the Variant emerges.  The emergence of this new species causes a world war to break out between the Variants and a group of rebel humans known as Paladins.  Playing as either the Variants or the Paladins, players compete in 3-on-3 matches that will affect this massive online war.  Included in Hybrid are 10 maps and modes for players to compete on and tons of weapons and abilities to customize their character.  For those interested in joining this world war, Hybrid is available exclusively on XBLA for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Ever since the full reveal of the PlayStation Vita at E3 2011, there has been one game that has been everybody's mind.  That game is Sound Shapes, the latest project from Canadian-based Queasy Games that brought acclaimed PSN shooter Everyday Shooter.  Sound Shapes has finally released on PSN and good news, you can play it on both the PS3 and the PS Vita for one price of 15 dollars.  Sound Shapes is a unique blend of side-scrolling platformer with a rhythm game.  Every action in Sound Shapes from playing, composing and sharing levels all make the music in the game.  For those looking for some single-player action, Sound Shapes offers a comprehensive campaign that fuses music and artwork into a classic 2D platformer.  Many great artists from Pixeljam to Superbrothers and musicians from Beck to Deadmau5 contributed to artwork and music used in Sound Shapes' campaign.  As much as Sound Shapes is a game, it is also equal parts a musical instrument that musicians or just regular games can pick up and create their own musical levels.  All the levels you create in Sound Shapes can be shared online with friends and the entire Sound Shapes community.

Sound Shapes was not the only music game released for download this week.  Brought to you by Empty Clip Studios, Symphony is a vertical shooter in which you play through levels composed of your own library of music.  In Symphony, your music is under attack and it is up to you to liberate it.  A mysterious entity is corrupting your music as you play it.  It is up to you to play through your collection of songs in order to discover items, battle bosses, find pages of the Symphony of Souls and reclaim your music.  By completing a song in Symphony, you unlock a new item to customize your ship with in order to tackle higher difficulty levels and score targets.  Symphony also includes 6 difficulty levels and online leaderboards to keep players engaged for a long time.  If you are interested in this unique musical shooter, you can download Symphony off of Steam for 10 dollars.

On the Download: July 29-August 4

It is sad to see things to slow down this much on the downloadable front.  I can expect it from the retail side of things, but there has been a relentless slew of new quality downloadable games all competing for our hard earned cash as of late.  It is rather sad to see things slow down this much.  There was not even any new games released for the 3DS Virtual Console as part of their 8-Bit Summer initiative or a Game of Weekend deal on the eShop as well.  I am still hoping either Pushmo and/or Dillion's Rolling Western to get discounted a few dollars one of these weekends.  Even with the lack of noteworthy downloadable games being released at this very moment, there are a couple noteworthy ones that people should consider pre-purchasing.  You can pre-purchase Symphony, a very interesting musical shooter that I have actually picked up, on Steam for 8 dollars (20% off the regular price) or Sound Shapes, a platformer where the actions make the music, on PSN for 15 dollars (12 dollars if you have PlayStation Plus) both of which come out next week.  Also the first piece of Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard has been released for PC for those PC Elder Scrolls fanatics that have been waiting what to them must seems like ages for this big add-on.  This week there might not be a lot of games releasing on the downloadable side of things, but next week looks to shaping up to be one big week for downloadable games.  Might be big enough to warrant another two part edition of On the Download.  We will have to wait and see.  Before we can get to next week, we still got to take a look at the lone downloadable offering from this week, Deadlight.

Microsoft's Summer of Arcade continues with the release of Deadlight.  Deadlight is a puzzle platformer much like Limbo and Shadow Complex, which both debuted in one of Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotions from years past.  Set in 1986, the world has been ravaged by a zombie plague.  Deadlight casts you as Randall Wayne, a survivor of this perilous plague.  After his wife and daughter go missing during the beginning of the outbreak, Randall sets out for Seattle to possibly find refuge and hopefully, if they are still alive, find his family.  Each enemy encounter in the game plays out like a puzzle.  You have to expertly use the environment to your advantage in order to get by zombies and other obstacles.  While you are given access to weapons such as an axe and guns to combat the zombie horde, the best solution is to avoid combat unless it is absolutely necessary.  It seems like every other game that releases nowadays has zombies in them in some shape or form and it is getting very tiresome.  While Deadlight is yet another game set in a zombie apocalypse, it looks to be an unique enough experience to make it standout among the horde of zombie games.  If you are interested in Deadlight, you can download from XBLA for 1200 Microsoft Points.

On the Download: Quantum Conumdrum

For the last few weeks there has been a little drought of noteworthy downloadable games to justify doing a new edition of On the Download.  With retail releases slowing down for the summer, gamers look to downloadable initiatives like the Summer of Arcade for XBLA and the just announced 8-Bit Summer for the Nintendo eShop to keep them entertained during the summer gaming drought.  To officially start the summer is Airtight Games' Quantum Conundrum just released yesterday for download on Steam.

From the mind of Kim Swift, the lead designer of popular puzzle game Portal, and her team at Airtight Games, Quantum Conundrum is a first-person physics-based puzzle game in the vein of Portal.  Instead of thinking with portals, you manipulate objects and the environment by switching dimensions on the fly in order to solve puzzles.  In Quantum Conundrum, you play as the 12 year old nephew of eccentric scientist and inventor Profesor Quadwrangle.  You are dropped off at Professor Quadwragle's mansion to spend some time with your uncle.  Shortly after arriving at the mansion, an explosion occurs, which causes the Professor to go missing.  Trying to figure out what is going on, you stumble upon a glove that turns out to be the Interdimensional Shift Device (ISD for short), which must be used to navigate Professor Quadwrangle's mansion in order to find your missing uncle.  Throughout Quantum Conundrum, you use the Interdimensional Shift Device (ISD) to shift between four dimensions (fluffy, heavy, anti-gravity and slow-mo) each with their own attributes to solve puzzles in each room of Professor Quadwrangle's mansion.

There is no doubt.  Quantum Conundrum is very similar to Portal, but they were designed by the same person.  You can see why there are big similarities between the two.  While I do not think Qunatum Conundrum will reach the popularity or universal acclaim of Portal, it is a unique downloadable puzzle game that looks to test your brain in new and creative ways.  From what I saw at E3, I was very impressed with Quantum Conundrum and it is a game that looking to download in the near future.  At the moment, Quantum Conundrum is only available on Steam for 15 dollars.  For console owners, do not fret as Qunatum Conundrum is coming to XBLA and PSN on July 11th.