September PS Plus Free Games Reach for the Sky

The six PS Plus freebies slated for September are announced via the Playstation Blog. It’s a strong collection of smaller titles seemingly designed to backseat the upcoming wave of AAA releases. The only hiccup to that theory – one of the games was voted into the list, a first for the free games promotion. That game is Grow Home.

Grow Home (PS4 only)

Ubisoft continues to subvert what have become industry-wide expectations by delivering the occasion faux-indie downloadable game. Following side-scrollers Valiant Hearts and Child of Light is Grow Home, which initially began hitting digital stores back in February. Your goal is simple – guide the adorable robot BUD up an ever-growing tree and into space. The polygonal visuals complement the basic premise nicely. Critics found the follow-through to be just as satisfying.

Super Time Force Ultra (PS4 and PS Vita)

Bend time in this 2D platformer/shoot-em-up. Do it with an alarmingly large cast of characters, which grew larger in the Ultra incarnation on PS4 with the addition of characters from Journey, The Order: 1886 and more. Whenever a character goes down, flip through the wheel of available fighters, rewind time, jump back into the game and try to save the guy that just died. You can rewind at anytime, making Super Time Force Ultra the fastest-paced game you’ll ever play that doesn’t make you want rip your hair out.

Xeodrifter (PS4 and PS Vita)

A charming but blatant Metroid knock-off. Xeodrifter does little to carve out its on spot on the ever-growing list of games apt to the initial description, but also does little to dissuade lovers of the gameplay style to turn away. What more can I say? What more can I do?

Twisted Metal (PS3 Only)

This is a strange one. When this reboot to the Twisted Metal franchise launched on PS3, expectations were high that a constant player-base would keep the (mostly) online-only multiplayer car-combat game alive. These days the servers can’t be all that active, but maybe that will change when it goes free for September. It’s perhaps a missed opportunity that Sony didn’t have the game ported to the PS4 or even the PS Vita just to pump up the numbers. As it stands, only PS3 owners can get in on the action. All that said, when it’s working, it works damn well. There’s nothing like it.

Teslagrad (PS4 and PS3)

Telslagrad is yet another 2D platformer game that never quite blew anybody way. The focus here is on puzzles, asking that the player, instead of wielding magic or might, utilize the power of science to control magnetism and electricity to overcome conveniently placed obstacles. For that wrinkle alone some might have a good time with the game.

La Mulana Ex (PS Vita only)

Remember how I mentioned that fast-paced platformers are prone to catalyzing the pulling of one’s hair out of one’s head? La Mulana Ex makes you want to do that, only it does so utilizing an opposite strategy. This riddle-addled mind-screw of a game hides the answers in its 2D environment so well, so far away from the expected mechanisms of a normal game, that any new player should by no means expect to beat it without the extensive use of online wikis. Have fun.

All six games go free on Tuesday, September 1. Sony hasn’t said if it plans on opening up voting for a free game every month, or if Grow Home in September is a one-shot deal. In any case, the two games that failed to win the vote – Armello and Zombie Vikings – will be discounted for PS Plus members by 30 percent from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15.

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