Alright! I assume we all know the format now (but here it is again anyway). In my eternal quest to clear up my backlog of games from the PlayStation Plus service, I dedicate tiny portions of my day to trying out new games. What comes next (naturally) is that I make sweeping generalizations and provide do or die opinions based on a small fraction of the game’s entirety. First impressions: your move video games!

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After a brief hiatus from games reviews, I’m back!  To thunderous applause I presume.  Anyway…this one is dedicated to all the Plus and Free to Play games that were available at the launch of the PS4.  Get your snack on, it’s bound to be a long one.  

Free Game +1

Res0Gun (PS+)

A shoot em up (being called “schmups” these days I guess) featuring a small spaceship trying to avoid getting hit and blasting things.  You can choose from three ships, each with variants of the very basic stats in the game.  There’s humans to try to save while you avoid the storm of incoming projectiles too.

 

• What’s Schmuptacular: The graphics are as excellent as advertised.  The game, as far as I can tell, seems to be bug free (which is tremendous for a launch title that’s not a port).  Controls are responsive. The enemies are pretty well varied and the one boss I fought was pretty cool.  The wraparound levels are an interesting twist.  You basically fly around a cylinder.  There’s lot of things to asplode.  This is the only game that I’ve played that uses the speaker in the controller.  The default volume is “shrieking” so watch that, but it was genuinely fun hearing instructions come out of the controller.  It adds to the illusion that you’re the one the game is talking to.

 

• What’s Schmupible: It’s a pretty standard game so while it’s a great example of the genre, it’s a game you’ve played a variation of probably a hundred times.  The graphics are great but I doubt they’re pushing the hardware in the least.  In other words, if someone asks “what makes the PS4 so ‘next-gen’?” I wouldn’t try to wow them with this one.

 

How far did I get: The first boss killed me.  I’m gonna blame the fact that this was the first game I tried on the PS4 after I got it at launch and it was pushing toward 2:00am.

Who is this for: Schmup fans will love it.  I would say it’s on par with Sine Mora fun/quality levels but more toward the arcade style than the involved story of that game.

Free Game +2

Contrast (PS+)

This quirky puzzler sees you take on the role of an (imaginary?) friend of a little girl struggling with the complex relationships between her parents and the messes that the adults make.  You are gifted with the ability to dash (yawn) and turn into a shadow, provided there’s a good light source (intriguing).  The story is heavily narrative focused  with a definite artsy vibe.

 

• What stands out: The art style is gorgeous.  Let’s get one thing out of the way though.  Nothing graphically will wow anyone in the least (I’ll talk more about that in a minute) but the use of shadows for almost the entire narrative is genius and expertly done.  The voice acting is a gamble as it needs to steal the show (almost everyone is just a shadow after all).  Thankfully, while often stylistically incorporated, the voices are superb and convincing.  Puzzles interchange between the “real world” and the “shadow world.”  Often puzzles require both worlds to be manipulated to succeed.  I didn’t face any significant challenges with difficulty but I can report that the game was always interesting and fun.  Like many games these days, there’s secret items similar to a scavenger hunt to be collected.  Often these are tedious in games (looking at you Grand Theft Auto and inFamous).  Here though, the collectibles provide subtle clues to the narrative and are meaningful objects.  For example, the letter to Child Protective Services, handwritten by the little girl’s mother provides a nice window into the world of Contrast.

 

• What blends into the background: The game feels like it was rushed for launch.  Remember I said the graphics weren’t anything special?  Well some are.  Some aren’t.  Sadly, the least important graphics impress the most.  Character models and textures aren’t impressive.  The same goes for most of the game world.  However, lighting is generally good to great.  In at least one level, the lighting is sublime.  Also in this level (Pirate Ship ride for anyone wondering) there’s wood planks that can be seen up close and personal briefly.  The texturing on the wood grain is AMAZING.  For a ten second spot in the game though, it feels like the team was just working on textures before they had to say “ok, let’s get it to market.”  I’d love to see what the game could have looked like.  It’s a short game.  I got 100% on it in six days.  I don’t play for long periods at a time and I didn’t play every night.  Last but most important, levels could have used more bug testing.  I found myself getting literally stuck in scenery on a regular basis.  The dash move was sufficient to get me out in all but one case but it was annoying.  I was able to jump to many areas that should have been off limits and potentially get stuck more.  There were a lot of areas where I was able to shift into a shadow where I shouldn’t have been.  This skill requires an illuminated surface and often I could shift onto a dark wall.  It was fun being invisible but it didn’t enhance gameplay in the least.

 

 

How far did I get: I already told you that

Who is this for: Everyone on Plus should get this.  It’s worth a shot just for the story/art/creativity of it.  Any puzzler fan should be all over this.  Despite bugs it’s a wonderful game with lots to love.

Free to Good Home (console)

DC Universe Online (free to play)

What force is so terrifying it could make all the world’s heroes and villains come together? Seriously, I’m asking.  I wasn’t paying close attention to that part.  Anyway, Lex Luthor of the future came back to make an alliance with all the heroes and stole some superpowers thing-a-majiggers and let ’em loose all over the world.  Net result: tons of new superbeings! Why, one of them could even be YOU!

 

• What’s Heroic: Character creation is very deep.  I actually spent more time making my hero than playing the game.  Choosing your superpowers, fighting style and movement type all made it feel like it was truly my hero.  I was also surprised that a free to play game had sch an abundance of costume options.  In the end, I was actually perfectly happy with the result, with no feeling of, “I can’t wait to unlock that.”  Once I got into the game I was further impressed in that I felt superpowered.  Taking flight was not something I assumed would be right out of the gate, despite choosing that as my method of alternate movement.

 

• What’s Villainous: Despite creating what felt like a truly unique and “me” hero, the tutorial level makes you feel the opposite.  Going through level all of the instructions were so generic (yet so damn applicable) that I got the feeling that no matter how unique your character was, your experience was going to be very similar to everyone else’s.  Combat felt a little plain (maybe it gets more awesome later).  Flying was VERY hard to get the hang of.  To be fair though, I was using the Vita and Remote Play so maybe the Dual Shock 4 would be more natural .

 

How far did I get: I didn’t finish the tutorial level because I had limited time and used most of it creating my character.

Who is this for: DC fans should get a kick out it. Free to play fans will love the amount of options that aren’t behind a pay wall.  I’ll probably pick it up again after I get tired of my current love (detailed below).

Free Kiddings

Blacklight: Retribution (free to play) 

A free to play squad shooter. It has guns and grenades and enemies.

 

• What demands retribution: The controls are solid.  There’s an interesting mechanic in which you can temporarily use some cool goggles or something to see where everyone is on the map.  It differentiates between friend and foe and was instrumental in me avoiding a few ambushes.

 

• What deserves retribution: I can’t honestly come up with any glaring flaws.  What I can say, and this is a dealbreaker for me, is that it just seemed so damn generic.  Menus were a little confusing to navigate and just generally wasn’t pretty to look at.  The game plays fine but I couldn’t find a single thing to make it stand out.

 

How far did I get: I dunno.  I fiddled around with it for a half hour maybe and said “meh.”

Who is this for: If you’re in need of a new shooter and don’t have any free cash this should work well.  Or you could wait five seconds and get a recommendation on a much better free to play shooter.

Best for last

Warframe (free to play)

Another free squad shooter except with a twist.  You’re in space.  You’re a ninja.  It still has lots of guns.  Enemies come from several factions and there are different classes of enemies in each faction.  Battle modes are surprisingly varied.  Am I rescuing a hostage?  Assassinating (they don’t mince words in Warframe) a key target?  Surviving a swarm of enemies as a distraction so another ninja can accomplish their goal?  Spying?  Sabotage? Defense?

 

• What’s framed well: Just about everything.  As you may have read, I recently tried a ton of shooters.  Warframe is my current favorite.  Controls are exceptional in my opinion, with lots of specialized ninjabulous moves you don’t see in many shooters (like running on the wall, or up and finishing with a back flip to get to a higher vantage point).  Aiming is accurate which is nice for a shooter.  Your ninja can have three weapons (primary firearm, a secondary and a melee weapon).  All of which can be useful or even the best option.  I quickly abandoned my automatic rifle for instance because I like the accuracy and punch of my pistol better.  It’s fantastic against the more militaristic Grineer.  It’s not fast enough to deal with the swarms of infested that rush you all at once, regardless of firepower.  Their numbers are their strength.  It’s at these times my sword comes out the fastest.  The depth of customization is wild.  A good assortment of Warframes (the armor you wear) and weapons start things off.  You can color these to your liking (sorta, see below). You have the option of a Sentinel “pet” which follows you around and does stuff.  Mine shoots things.  I call him “Scrappy the Dethcube.”  Everything levels up the more you use it.  Trying a new weapon?  Starting from scratch I’m afraid.  Everything can be customized with mods.  Mods can be fused to become stronger.  Difficulty is sufficient to promote group assaults.  Taking on most missions solo (which you can try) is usually suicide. Add three more guns and you generally have a fighting chance.  The developers took some time to optimize the Vita controls for remote play as well.  The right shoulder button becomes the trigger as opposed to R2 for instance, as Remote Play’s default R2 is the rear touchpad.  While certainly doable, it’s more challenging to get the responsiveness needed for a trigger out of it.

 

• What’s askew: The paywall, unlike DC Universe Online, is a BIG barrier here.  Coloring your gear to your liking is very limited unless you want to use precious platinum to buy new color palettes.  To put it in perspective, you are given 50 platinum to start a game.  I received 50 more for preordering on the PS4 and 100 more for being a PS+ member.  Grand total 200 platinum.  The only other way to get it is very real human money.  A color palette is 75 platinum got example (about $5 real money).  As 200 wasn’t enough platinum to get the only Warframe I want (Frost, I love me some ice powers but he costs over 300) I purchased my Sentinel Dethcube, a color palette and two harder to find resources for later use.  I also had about 70,000 in game credits to spend in the market.  I was able to buy a few blueprints (but not the resources to build the items, those cost platinum only) and one new weapon.  Credits are mostly useless.  You either find what you need playing (no small feat) or buy platinum.  How hard is it to build new gear?  I’ve played this a ton since launch and I’ve built two consumable items and one sword.  That’s it.  Maybe once I have the map unlocked it will be easier but resources are a huge barrier unless you have money to burn (I don’t).  Apart from the paywall, my only other complaint is that floor textures often look far more 2d than they should.  Everything else is pretty great graphically.  Just the floors can kinda suck.  Although it might explain why you can slide the distance of a football field with ease.

This gets it’s own paragraph since it’s not a fault of the game but there’s so many stupid players in shooters I just had to mention it.  Hey squad mates, there’s a reason I’m usually the one with the least amount of damage taken.  It’s a little thing called “ducking” I like to do during the heavy firefights.  Something about bullets in the face I just don’t cotton to.

How far did I get: I’ve beaten most of the missions (with help from strangers) on Mercury, Venus and Earth.  I’ve sunk a lot of time into my Excalibur Warframe and despite the lack of new gear, it’s been a fun ride.

Who is this for: Anyone who likes video games.  The price is right and it’s a great shooter with many unique elements.  Honestly, I love the game.  Anyone with OCPD or who needs to hoard everything in video games should stay away though. You’ll either go broke (there’s a platinum pack for $150…yes you read that right…and that won’t buy everything in the game) or crazy trying to build everything.  If you don’t mind spending a little money on a great game you can give yourself some good gear quickly without breaking the bank just go into the store with a strategy.  Have a goal in mind on what you want to buy and ONLY get the platinum pack needed to get ONLY what you set off to buy.  There’s also sales as a login reward on PC.  Haven’t seen it on PS4 yet (because it looks like it might be PC only) but a 75% discount on platinum brings many packs into the “I didn’t just waste my money” range. Getting back to value…the platinum to buy my Frost would cost $20. Yeah. Twenty bones for what amounts to ONE new character. I don’t mind supporting a good developer but I’ll stick to farming at that price.

Quickie (review)

Flower (not free at all)

Ok, so Flower is a paid game, that’s not included with Plus.  However, the PS4 version is free for anyone who purchased any other version.  I bought this on PS3 when it first came out as I also owned Flow and loved that game.  The trio of Flow, Flower and Journey are pretty much the trifecta of weird yet amazing games that teach us the valuable lesson that we should throw our cash in the general direction of Thatgamecompany.  Rather than review the game itself (go buy it), I’ll compare the versions.

The PS3 is beautiful and the controls are responsive and easy to adapt to.  Motion sensors take care of almost everything while pretty much any button will make you go faster when held.  You’re the wind.  You can speed up.  “X” works well.  This is the “baseline” version of the game.

The Vita version suffers a little bit on the controls department sadly.  While the motion sensors are just as responsive on the Vita, the necessity of your screen moving along with the controls are a little harder to adapt to.  It feels like they tweaked the controls a little to account for this and it’s not a perfect result. However, the Vita version looks nicer.  I don’t know if the Vita version is a port of the PS4 HD remix or if the condensed screen hides the flaws from the PS3 version.  It’s also a possibility that the heavy saturation of colors on the OLED screen is just a perfect fit for a game about colors and flowers.

The PS4 is, in my opinion, the version to have (although buying one version gets you all three).  While it’s not light years ahead of the PS3 version, it does look nicer.  Additionally, the controls are even more responsive and comfortable on the Dual Shock 4.

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