This week's new games

Sound Shapes , PlayStation 3, Vita Part platform game, part strange musical instrument, Sound Shapes has you rolling and hopping a ball across screens whose collectibles add notes, percussion sounds and noises to its crescendoing musical score. Red things kill you, light-coloured surfaces let you stick to them and there's a record deck somewhere that marks each area's end point, but it's the ingenious and varied level design, taking in music from Beck and Deadmau5, that makes it a continual source of joy and wonder. Campaign mode is captivating if not exactly vast, and the level editor has the ability to make a mini maestro out of every PlayStation owner. It's a thing of beauty that ought to coax out player-created content that goes well beyond the usual manufacture of levels shaped like dicks. Sony, approx £9.99 PSN download Papo & Yo , PlayStation 3 Papo & Yo is about a boy called Quico and his alcoholic father, personified in a giant, blind-rage-prone monster who needs gentle nurturing to solve many of the puzzles you encounter. Wandering through sun-drenched favelas, Quico finds glowing chalk drawings that come alive when touched, opening mysterious new avenues of exploration. Its darkly allegorical subject matter and whimsically childlike presentation make for a dreamlike experience that's only occasionally hindered by technical problems. Papo & Yo remains an unusual experience that holds on to a sense of playfulness despite budgetary restrictions. Sony, approx £11.49 PSN download Dust: An Elysian Tail , Xbox 360 It looks like a blockbuster 16-bit-era side-scrolling adventure with bold colours, large, slightly bouncy-looking characters and pastoral locations staffed by doe-eyed cartoon animals. What you'll discover, though, playing Dust: An Elysian Tail is a lot of screen-filling sword fights bolted on to the role-playing game staples of experience points, incremental upgrade paths and multiple hidden treasures. The conversations have sparks of humour but also a tendency to drag on for just a bit too long, although all are voiced with considerable character, which helps to bulk up an indie game with atypical levels of gloss. Microsoft, approx £10.20 XBLA download Games news Sony, apparently stung by widespread commentary about Vita's low likelihood of success in a smartphone world, used its press conference at European games exhibition Gamescom to roll out the big guns, including Assassin's Creed , Call of Duty and Killzone . All three are being developed by worryingly second-tier studios, but along with the announcement of Tearaway , a brand new game from the makers of the wonderful LittleBigPlanet , it's news that should cause tentative buoyancy in the hearts of Vita owners. Also being touted at the show was the latest, even grittier Tomb Raider (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) reboot; the utterly gorgeous bounty hunter sim Star Wars 1313 (TBC) and Remember Me (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), Capcom's techno-amnesia actioner. Sadly conspicuous by their absence were the two most anticipated games in the world: Half-Life 3 and Grand Theft Auto V .