It's often been said that it's hard to be truly creative in the games industry now. If you want to turn a profit by releasing a game on a disc, your game practically already has to be a guaranteed success before it gets greenlit by a publisher. Luckily, though, the downloadable stores offer a place for creativity to run free. The 360's Xbox Live Arcade has made itself home to many games that would have struggled to find a market on the shelves, whether they're platformers, puzzle games, or point and clicks - and with their recent announcement, Sony have opened the doors to smaller, more experimental games too.
At the recent Games Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony hosted a Playstation Indie Arcade event, where they lifted the lid on more than 20 titles that'll be making their way to the PS4, PS3, PS Vita and Playstation Mobile. Among the biggest titles to be announced was Primal Carnage: Genesis, the first in a series of downloadable episodic games making their way to the PS4. Channelling the spirit of Jurassic Park, Primal Carnage is a story-driven first person game that'll pit man against beast in a survival of the fittest. Thanks to its downloadable nature, the developers also promise that they'll be able to tweak future instalments based on fan feedback, letting the series evolve as you play. It's certainly looking quite impressive, as you can see from the trailers below - although nothing has been revealed about how it'll actually play out:
But while Primal Carnage may be bringing the fancy graphics, the rest of the line-up brings the weird, wonderful and kooky. From the cave digging adventure of Spelunky, to the co-op platforming puzzles of Ibb & Obb, a game where gravity changes when you walk through a gate, and from Rain, a mysterious game that stars an invisible boy, who can only be seen during a downpour, to Metrico, which is a game about, er, bar graphs, there's certainly plenty of variety here.
One of our personal highlights is Guacamelee, a co-op platformer that puts you into the spandex mask of Juan, a luchadore, who sets out on a quest across Mexico to rescue El Presidente's daughter. Mixing suplexing enemies with puzzle solving (you can switch between dimensions at the touch of a button, with each dimension having different obstacles/platforms), Guacamelee looks like on to watch, as it approaches its release on the 10th of April.
You can find the full list of games below - and remember, PS Mobile games can be played on both the PS Vita, and Android devices.
- Blacklight: Retribution - PlayStation 4
- Primal Carnage: Genesis - PlayStation 4
- Ibb & Obb - PlayStation 3
- Rain - PlayStation 3
- Sportsfriends (including Johann Sebastian Joust, BaraBariBall, Hokra and Super Pole Riders) - PlayStation 3
- Divekick - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Dragon Fantasy Book II - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Guacamelee! - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Hotline Miami - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Luftrausers - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Spelunky - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Thomas Was Alone - PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita
- Friend Network App - PlayStation Vita
- Limbo - PlayStation Vita
- Metrico - PlayStation Vita
- Velocity Ultra - PlayStation Vita
- A Virus Named Tom - PlayStation Mobile
- Treachery in Beatdown City - PlayStation Mobile
- Crumble - PlayStation Mobile
- Crystallon - PlayStation Mobile
- Don't Wake the Bear - PlayStation Mobile
- Hermit Crab in Space! - PlayStation Mobile
- Oh, Deer! - PlayStation Mobile
- Rymndkapsel - PlayStation Mobile
- Ten By Eight - PlayStation Mobile
