Crash Commando and Fat Princess Rock the PlayStation Network

I got a chance to sit down with some awesome new downloadable games on the PlayStation network earlier at the show. Here's a couple titles worth your time.

Crash Commando
Back when I was in high school and dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was an awesome game called Infantry. It was a multiplayer game based on the Subspace engine, and in it you squared off in huge, futuristic battles in a top-down perspective. You had the option of selecting from different classes and game types, and generally blew the hell out of other people for a few hours. It was sci-fi death matchery at its finest, and though it's still available now, the spot it occupied in my heart has been taken up by Crash Commando.

Developed by EPOS Game Studios, Crash Commando takes Infantry's hook and brings it to current-gen consoles. Rather than a top-down perspective, it offers a more traditional side-scrolling view. You control a single character and can choose his weapons at the beginning of every round. (I opted for the grenade launcher for obvious reasons.) From there, you zoom around on jetpacks and inflict carnage upon your enemies, using not only your starting weapons but special environmental ones (like a special missile silo) and vehicles.

It's an even lower-pressure Halo, and for $10 won't affect your bottom line a much as its fleshier counterparts. Crash Commando is available now on the PlayStation Network.

Fat Princess
Ever wonder what life would've been like if you were a minion inside an RTS? It's more fun than you'd think, at least if Fat Princess is any indication.

Its premise is as simple as they come: Your kingdom captured another kingdom's princess, and they've captured yours. The first team to rescue their princess wins. But challenges abound when the rival team feeds your kingdom's princess cake that spawns throughout the countryside, fattening her and making her harder to carry, which slows you down and makes you easier to kill. Of course, you can force feed their princess to slow them down, too.

You begin life as a castle denizen, without purpose or vocation. But you need only walk over to one of a few buildings to give your avatar's life meaning: Just walk to the door and pick up one of the hats it spits out, and in a few seconds you'll morph into a new unit.

You can go through life as a warrior, worker, healer, archer or wizard, and you're able to change classes on the fly, so if your castle wall is suddenly breached by the enemy, you can transform into a worker and rebuild it. And what's really cool about this is every player on your team - the game supports up to 32 players - can do the same thing. So without any coordination, the game can easily devolve into a cluster****. Imagine a game of StarCraft where each Zergling is player-controlled. It's a beautifully chaotic idea and a welcome innovation to a genre that's almost as sequel happy as sports games.

Fat Princess is due out later this year and will likely be priced similarly to other games on the PlayStation Network.

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