Your weekly guide in wading through the sea of downloadable games. Let Tom hold your hand and take you on a journey through the marketplace. Separating the shining successes from the repetitive filth, these are some DLC Do’s and Dont’s.

Do you remember those Pokémon things? There’s been a growing number of offshoot games in the Pokéverse, Mystery Dungeon, Ranger, and Pinball just to name a few. Back in the days of the N64, smack in the middle of the Pokémon rise to power, Pokémon Snap hit the scene. It hit the Wii’s Virtual Console a few weeks back, whether you’re a fan of the Pokéverse now, or ever have been, you owe it to yourself to check out this gem of a flashback.

Developed by HAL studios back in 1999, it was well reviewed in every category save playtime. It’s true, you can have this thing beat in a little under two hours, for sure. You’re only going through the same track on the same six levels, with very little diversity in that respect. However: there is depth here, if you look for it. Take pictures of the little guys you pass on your cart, and get graded on them based on the criteria of how centered the subject is in the shot, how close you get, and whether or not they’re doing an interesting action or pose. Fairly simple, and as you replay levels you figure out the best times to snap the little guys, and the optimal pattern for getting as many as possible.

Do this a few times, however, and then Professor Oak, the lovable guy, gives you the greatest gift of all: an endless supply of apples. Do you have any idea how much shit you can do with apples? You can feed them to Pokémon, you can adjust the landscape with them, and you can use them to attack the little guys! You can cause them harm! How long, deep down inside, have you wanted to smoke Pikachu right in the kisser with a shiny, red apple? Not only is it remarkably therapeutic, but you can beat on some of them to the point of making them faint, and guess what? Picture of a Pokémon you brought to the brink of death? BONUS POINTS! Oak’s twisted like that.

My point here is that as the game progresses, you gain a great deal of incentive to replay the stages to see the different ways this canned experience, this dance, plays out in front of your eager eyes. As for some specifics, the graphics are above average for the Nintendo 64, the sound is all true to the series and remarkably cheerful, and the gameplay experience is unique and charming. Up until now, every title I’ve picked up off the Virtual Console for nostalgic reasons has left me frustrated and quickly bored, but Snap is a game I can pick up for anytime and enjoy; whether I do a quick run-through to upgrade my score on a few shots, or dig deeper and look for new ways to manipulate the environment, I’m always smiling. This title, just under a decade old, completely withstands the test of time.

Don’t think that just because it got some serious clout from its PSP installment that the LocoRoco universe in infallible. What was once a charming, artistically exciting, outside-the-box masterpiece is now, on the PS3, little more than the most aggravating screen saver ever conceived in the form of LocoRoco Cocoreccho!

The original LocoRoco featured the player as a caring, omnipotent deity doing his darndest to guide the endangered LocoRocos out of harms way. The objective was to make it from point A to point B by separating the little guys out into miniature fleets to squeeze through tight tunnels and roll over pitfalls, singing a happy song all the way. The singing made it through to the sequel, but most of the gameplay was lost along the way, it seems. The little guys basically just march/hop through the level by themselves, never facing any serious danger. The fact that the game could potentially just play itself forever while you stare blankly, wondering where your $10 went is the main contributor to all the screen saver comparisons.

Where you come in, (should you choose to) is in manipulating the odd branch and platform via SixAxis controls. It’s plenty responsive and feels accurate enough, but you’d better really enjoy it, as it’s 90% of what you’ll be doing for the next hour. You have a main cursor on the screen in the manifestation of a glowing butterfly, and the press of a button makes any LocoRocos in the area do their best to hop in your direction for a short period. The main goal isn’t to make it through the level this time ’round. The focus is on waking all the sleeping LocoRocos scattered through the level by shaking or nudging them however you can. Once enough of them are up and about, they’ll eventually make their way to a weighing station, and trigger what seems like a boss fight.

I spent a good hour and a half on what I assume is the first level, and then proceeded to fight a posse of angry clouds, bent on devouring my helpless army. The battle consists of using a cannon to fire at the clouds, with the LocoRocos themselves as the ammunition. Only problem here is that half the time you would make a connecting hit to an enemy, they’d just catch the LocoRoco in their mouth, and I could just watch in stupefied horror as the poor yellow ball screamed before he was chewed and swallowed. This happened three times before I was met with a lovely “GAME OVER” screen, and popped back into the beginning of the first stage, back to one lonely Loco.

To summarize, the few controls present are frustrating, as the little buggers never pay proper attention to your butterfly, the levels are fairly unimaginative, and it never occurs to the game to reward you in any way for wasting all that time. The sheer futility and agonizing repetition are the key reasons I would encourage you to stay away, but the fact that you’ll be listening to the same happy song on an endless loop is a good incentive as well.