Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (PS5): COMPLETED!

A PS5 game? How rare! But yes, this game was on my Switch wishlist for a while waiting for a decent sale, but then it recently appeared on PS++++++ as a free rental so I played it there instead. It felt wrong, somehow, even though it’s on the same TV the Switch version would have been played on. Went through the game with my daughter. I was Mikey, she was Don, and it was great. It’s a proper sequel to …

Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5): COMPLETED!

I talked about this a lot more on the ugvm Podcast, but for those who don’t listen (who even are you?), here’s a written account instead. Firstly, I want to point how how bad I thought the Little Big Planet games are. As toyboxes, as creation tools – they’re great. Clunky, but great. As actual platformers? Awful. Some really great ideas, totally ruined by stupid controls and physics and wonkiness. For this reason, I never even looked at Sackboy: A …

Biomutant (PS5): COMPLETED!

I do wonder sometimes what it is that makes me decide to play certain games. I’d cast a rough eye over reviews of Biomutant around the time it came out and it seemed to be an average open world adventure/explorey game, so ignored it. It’s now on PS+ (or possibly PS++ or PS+++: It’s hard to tell these days) and I downloaded it for reasons unknown, then started to play it. After picking the fur colours for my… rat? Meerkat? …

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers (PS5): COMPLETED!

I’m a fan of the EDF games, with their Massive Ants and Massive Wasps and Massive Robots and Massive Space Ships. I was intrigued by this, Minecraft-y looking entry into the series, but the problem with EDF games is they cost money and don’t often drop to Super Cheap, so I never got round to buying it. And I still haven’t, because it appeared on PS+! I thought the only real difference between this and the others in the series …

Toem (PS5): COMPLETED!

This looked like a lovely wee game when I saw it appear on the Switch eShop, so because I’m morally against paying full price for anything these days I put it on my wish list in the hope of a sale. And then, it appeared on PS+, saving me even more money! It’s a unique looking, black and white 2D characters in a 3D world game with a hand-drawn style, which is why it originally stood out to me. For …

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

I’ve been eyeing this up for ages but it never really went cheap enough. Sure, I’m a fan of the series (although THPS3 is the best one), but I couldn’t bring myself to pay more than £20 for it. Then PS+ gave it away as a free rental, finally, so here we are. It’s a remake of the first two THPS games, mostly as I remember them, only in much higher resolution and with some of the music missing because …

Pile Up! Box by Box (PS5): COMPLETED!

No, I have no idea why I downloaded this, but then I discovered it was multiplayer co-op so played through it with my family. It’s a cute, relatively simple, platform puzzle game. Most of the puzzles relate to the height or distance you can jump, and manoeuvring or stacking objects (or your co-op partners) to reach buttons and switches and so on. There are springy things and floaty things, fans, fences you can burn, other characters you need to help, …

Moving Out (PS5): COMPLETED!

This is one of those intentionally obstructive co-op arcade games like Overcooked, and it has a similar art style and sense of humour to that game too. But, it’s a lot easier and I (well, we – daughter was on controller 2) had more fun with it. The aim is to clear a house of (mostly) furniture, by carrying it to the waiting lorry and packing it all in so it fits. Smaller items, like toasters and boxes, can be …

Stray (PS5): COMPLETED!

The first game to be “free” with the new higher tiers of PlayStation Plus on the day of release, Stray was a lovely surprise. I knew it existed, so I don’t mean like that, and it was announced to be coming to the service a while back. No, what I’m referring to is the gameplay, the setting, and just how good it is. Until downloading it, my interested was “ooh, a cat game? That might be fun”. But it’s so …

Minit (PS5): COMPLETED!

Another PS+ free rental, but a game I’ve nearly bought more than once elsewhere and actually own on PC (but I don’t have my Steam Deck yet to play it on!). Minit’s “thing” is that it’s a Zelda-ish game only you die every sixty seconds. Or sooner. And then you start again. However, some things are persistent and you do reach respawn points and open shortcuts so dying isn’t really an inconvenience. There’s a plot about having to go into …

I Am Dead (PS5): COMPLETED!

With PS+ Premium comes a huge number of games you can “borrow”. A few of those are titles I was eyeing up to buy on the Switch, so I suppose I’ve saved a bit of money now I’ve got them on my PlayStation “for free”. I Am Dead is one of those. It’s a hidden object game with a story and some quirks. Firstly, you’re dead (but then you surely guessed that from the title), and with the help of …

Little Big Planet 3 (PS4): COMPLETED!

I don’t know where I got this. PS+, perhaps? I certainly would never have bought it what with not really liking the first game. Oh sure, it was clever and it looked pretty and you could make your own levels, but they forgot to make it controllable and fun and the physics are all over the place and the moving in and out of the screen is hit and miss. But they’ll have fixed that two sequels later, right? Right? …

Overcooked 2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

Although I enjoyed the original Overcooked, it was much too hard. Sure, I could get one star on each level, but that wasn’t enough to progress. With the “All You Can Eat” pack a free rental on PS+, my daughter and I gave the sequel a go and it’s much, much easier. To the point where we got 3 stars on most levels first time. The main change seems to be that you have much more time to complete dishes. …

Maneater (PS5): COMPLETED!

At first, Maneater is a great fish-chomping game with slightly annoying combat (with crocodiles and barracuda) and a funny faux Deadliest Catch style narration, but it soon starts to become tedious and repetitive. And then, even though the game doesn’t change, it becomes fun again. I’m not sure why. You’re a baby shark, who eats to get bigger and evolve, ultimately to take down Scaly Pete, the fisherman who killed your mother. The waters you swim in are broken down …

Maquette (PS5): COMPLETED!

Maquette is a very clever idea married with a nice story but neither has much to do with the other. It’s basic premise is that you’re in a world and in that world is a miniature representation of the same world, and at the same time the world you’re in is a small version of a larger world. It’s turtles all the way down. But they’re not just models – items that exist in one sized world also exist in …