August PS+ Offerings Dominated By Spaceships, Blocks, and Robots

It’s hard not to feel nostalgic while looking at the roster of freebies available to PS+ subscribers for the month of August.  Familiarly-shaped blocks dropping on top of one another, ships zooming around  in the expanses of space, and energy blasts fired off at robots in a closed-off arena?  Sounds more like the cabinets in an arcade during the ’80s than a slate of new games released on the latest consoles. Save one heavy-hitter sequel in a semi open-world franchise, the offerings from PlayStation this time around are mostly small-scale, pick-up-and-play diversions.

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Double Damage Games

PS4

Rebel Galaxy

Rebel Galaxy welds together the thrills of classic space-warfare simulators, the choice-based flair of an RPG, and the general attitude of a space opera. Hot on the heels of No Man’s Sky, which also boasts lots of freedom in terms of planet-hopping combat and commerce, Double Damage Games strikes first with its fusion of ship-to-ship warfare, vessel customization, bartering and choice in where to travel throughout a randomly-generated environment. Some have taken issue with a few of the game’s drawbacks, namely the two-dimensional controls in combat and the grinding nature of its progression. That doesn’t seem to have slowed down the satisfaction that Rebel Galaxy offers folks longing for the return of this style of game, earning praise for its amusing writing, audiovisual delights, and capturing of the spirit of the space-pirate adventures from yesteryear.

Tricky Towers

Imagine trying to line up and fit together Tetris-style jigsaw pieces without walls on either side of the playing field to keep everything together. Then, flip the concept so that the objective is not to eliminate rows, but to pile up as many pieces together as possible while working against the push and pull of gravity and the pokiness of the pieces’ angles. Toss in competitive multiplayer, and that’s Tricky Towers. The brand-new puzzler from WeirdBeard games was released at the beginning of August for the PSN, so it still needs a bit of time to build a consensus on how the game stacks up to other tower-building or competitive puzzler games. While its influences are pretty plain to see, the vibrant style and fast pace of Tricky Towers have something going for it.

SEGA

PS3

Yakuza 5

After four successful entries, there’s little reason for SEGA to deviate from what’s previously worked so well in the Yakuza franchise. Instead of changing things up, Yakuza 5 merely expands its scope, incorporating five distinct fictionalized locations across Japan — all inspired by real cities — while allowing the player to control five different characters as it tells their stories.  Continuing the narrative from Yakuza 4 while focusing on a truce between clans that’s on the cusp of being broken, SEGA unites authentic open-world exploration with sharp hand-to-hand combat in its realistic take on gang warfare on the streets of Japan. Being that it was only released on the PS3 and considering its “competition” in The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4, Yakuza 5 understandably fell somewhat under the radar in North America.  Now’s the time to give it the attention both critics and fans feel it earned.

Retro/Grade

It’s not uncommon to hear somebody talk about getting in the groove of an action or shooter game, but that’s literally what has to happen in Retro/Grade to keep propelling forward. The game essentially takes place in reverse, where a fighter pilot named Rick Rocket must follow the sequence of his shots during a massive battle with rival spacecraft to prevent a tearing in the space-time continuum. This occurs by way of rhythmic controls that play like a fusion of Guitar Hero and Gradius, where the player navigates the ship into the pathway of the blasts and moves away from inbound hostiles. Colorful visuals, a nifty soundtrack from Skyler McGlothlin (aka Nautilis), and a uniquely engrossing mood created by the controls and audiovisual tempo make for a totally different kind of rhythm game.

Puppy Games

PS Vita

Ultratron

Humanity has been wiped out by evil robots, and all that remains is a humanoid battledroid with one thing on its mechanical mind: vengeance.  If that sounds like something straight out of the ’80s, then the sights, sounds, and controls of Ultratron will do nothing but reinforce that. Dual-stick shooter controls akin to Geometry Wars — and many, many others from the old-school arcade era — collide with profoundly retro aesthetics in this indie from Puppy Games, with 40-plus vibrant levels to keep the legacy goodness going for quite a while. Whether the nostalgia will hold one’s interest throughout those levels likely depends on the player, but those who relish racking up high scores and fighting out of tight spaces will likely get a charge out of this one.

Patapon 3

For a while in the middle of the PSP’s popularity, the original Patapon was one of those most-play games for the handheld console.  The rhythm franchise that put the player in control of a tribe of black silhouettes, who journeyed forth to recover their land and discover true contentment, enjoyed success in two sequels that more or less duplicated the strengths of the original entry.  Patapon 3 finds the tribe nearing the end of their voyage, to which they’ve encountered many obstacles on the way to nirvana, illustrated against handsome graphical backgrounds and marching to the beat of a catchy drummer. Unfortunately, the notable presence of multiplayer and a lack of innovation within the premise prove to be obstacles that the final installment couldn’t conquer, leading to a positive yet unenthusiastic reception from both critics and longstanding fans of the little tribe.

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