Another month of PS Plus titles have been revealed. Although you won’t find a AAA game in the mix, the headliners are both critically acclaimed and tick vastly different boxes.
PS4
Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PS4/Vita)
Fans of early PC Adventure games are currently basking in an era of remastered nostalgic goodness. Doublefine already brought back Grim Fandango, is currently working on Full Throttle, and has now dropped Day of the Tentacle Remastered as a PS Plus freebie.
Reviews and rankings place Tentacle among the very best Doublefine has to offer. It’s a sequel to Maniac Mansion, but with a refined formula that eliminates frustrating no-win scenarios and other archaic elements.
This War of Mine: The Little Ones
I really enjoyed This War of Mine‘s combination of The Sims and survival horror. There’s never enough resources to make everyone happy (or keep them alive) and tough choices need to be made. Sure you could easily rob the elderly couple but can you handle the guilt of leaving them with nothing?
The console version comes with The Little Ones DLC included, adding children into the mix. I’ve only played the base game but quite a few Steam reviews criticize the children mechanic. One user mentioned that the “special snowflake children” can only “talk, eat, sleep, and play”. Another noted that the “children can’t be killed (they magically just disappear if things get bad…)”
11-Bit Studios acknowledged that they were trying to show respect to real children caught in war and didn’t want to glorify violence against minors.
I’m not sure if you can toggle the DLC off, but I still heartily recommend it based on my experience with the original game. At this price: you can’t go wrong.
PS3
Blazerush
Well the first two game on the list sounded pretty good.
Destructoid tore it a new one, but Steam reviews are sitting at Very Positive (672 reviews).
I was a big fan of the arcade racing cabinet OFF ROAD and Blazerush appears to offer a form of that.
It’s free and offers 4-player local. Worth a shot.
The Swindle (PS4/PS3/Vita)
A procedurally generated rogue-like stealth platformer: Trendy.
The Guardian gave it 2/5 stars noting the good:
“The best thing about The Swindle, around which everything pivots, is the tension between greed and safety. Anything will kill you in one hit and so every day’s level is an exercise in seeing just how far you can push your luck – when you have enough cash to get your next upgrade, but are looking at a heavily-defended room with a cash-stuffed computer inside, it’s a real decision”
And the bad
“The Swindle is not about skill, but about how upgraded your character is. This is really driven home when you reset to day one for the first time, lose all upgrades, and it’s absolutely awful. Your new game’s character feels pathetically underpowered, because they are, and you’re faced with grinding through the first worlds again multiple times in order to sloooowly get your skills back. The idea of giving a roguelike a more long-term structure is a good one, but The Swindle’s execution doesn’t work for me at all.”
I like stealth, but a poor roguelike sounds like a pass.
Vita
Azkend 2
A Vita port of a mobile game. Very little info on this one but the reviews I’ve found are mostly positive. Appears to be aimed at the casual puzzle fan, but without the micro-transactions.
Titan Souls (PS4/Vita)
A simplified, pixel art version of Shadow of the Colossus?
Polygon and Gamespot gave it a 6.5 and 7 respectively, though once again Steam brings up the rear with a Very Positive (2,o98 reviews).
Some love it, others say it’s tedious after the first few rounds.
If you have PS Plus, it’s now up to you to decide.
My Thoughts
Personally, if I enjoy one PS Plus game a month, I consider it a success. Day of the Tentacle and This War of Mine are both quality games I’m happy to add to my library.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony was actually losing money securing these promotions every month and I think it shows with some of the questionable offerings rounding out January’s selections.
It’s easy to be critical and whine for a lack of AAA or even more recognizable offerings, but let’s be realistic here. Online will probably always cost the consumer money moving forward, and if you snag a few good games per year out of the deal, that’s pure bonus.
What do you think?
