Echoshift, PSP

WHERE the wonderful Echochrome got playful with perspective, this sequel tinkers with time and ends up being the most inventive puzzler I've played in years.

The premise is straightforward; manoeuvre your mannequin past various obstacles to reach the exit. Each level has the usual array of disappearing platforms, switches to trigger and gaps to negotiate – but here's the twist: you only get 30 seconds of play and then time is rewound and you start again. Except now, as you once more make your way towards the goal, a ghost performs the actions of your former self.

Suddenly, you can be in two places at once – or three, or nine – opening up a myriad of combinations, as an echo of yourself stands on a pressure pad at just the right moment to allow a future incarnation to slip past the now open gateway.

It's a brilliant construct that stretches your thinking in strange ways. I found myself reflecting on the errors of my past acted out by shadows, wondering how my actions in the present might be similarly viewed with hindsight.

Seldom has the profound been so playable. I look forward to seeing how developers Artoon will perplex us next.

★★★★★

MAG, PS3

SET in the predicto-future of a world short of oil, MAG is an online-only shooter that pits three rival Private Military Companies against each other, each with its own distinct aesthetic and weapon load-outs.

You choose your faction and stay loyal, earning skill points and leadership responsibilities through teamwork and victories, which are used RPG-style to upgrade weapons and equipment.

Up to 256 players can battle, either attacking or defending military installations. Split into squads of eight players (with four squads in a platoon and four platoons in a company), each squad, platoon and company has a leader, who can issue commands, set waypoints and request the likes of mortar fire. It's this top-down structure that keeps everything in check, preventing the war from dissolving into a mess and cleverly guiding through player-set objectives and rewards.

There's much to pick holes in with weak visuals, twitchy gunplay and a steep learning curve, yet, despite this, the chaos of the battlefield is held together through good communication. MAG is proof that a 256-player game doesn't necessarily mean crippling network issues or, ironically, mindless war.

★★★