Who would have thought that De La Soul could have got it so wrong? It seems that 3 is not the magic number at all. For me it is 60: the magic amount of Great British pennies which I am willing to spend when taking a punt on something new, throwing caution to the wind.

Luckily, there are two outlets for my oxymoronic thrifty abandon: XBox Live Indie Games (see Shoot 1-Up) and Apple’s App Store feature some super games at the bargain price point of 80MSP and 59p respectively. This week, my Star Bar fund was depleted by Rovio’s Angry Birds. [...]

It’s only 60p! I spent more than that on a Star Bar last week. To put Shoot 1-Up’s incredible value into perspective, consider the following comparison: 20 seconds of peanutty goodness, or 20 minutes of unadulterated shoot ‘em up bliss. It is technically possible to enjoy both at the same time, though caramel is known to have adverse effects on the XBox 360 thumbstick’s responsiveness.

It would be hard to turn your nose up to even a generic shoot-by-numbers title at 60 pennies, but at its heart Shoot 1UP has a genuinely unique play mechanic that makes it impossible to pass up. [...]