PS4 Game Reviews
Mini Review HyperParasite - A Roguelike with a Smart Twist
Mutant blobs attack
Tired of indie roguelikes releasing on the PlayStation 4? That was this author’s initial reaction when he recklessly volunteered to review Troglobytes’ love letter to The Thing. Fortunately, there’s more to HyperParasite than repetition and 80s references, as this is a rather creative twin-stick shooter-style take on a...
Mini Review Gun Crazy - Super Nintendo-Esque Shooter with a Short Shelf Life
Crazy in guns
Gun Crazy has modest ambitions, meaning you should calibrate your expectations appropriately before giving it a spin. This is a Super Nintendo-esque side-scrolling shooter, in which you commandeer a blue-haired bad ass through a breakneck 30 minute-ish campaign against a variety of tyrannical robots and green blobs. It features all of...
Review Streets of Rage 4 - Bygone Beat-'Em-Up Classic Returns in Flashy Revival
Flashy but familiar
Video games have largely abandoned the humble beat-'em-up, a sub-genre superseded many times by faster, more thrilling action titles. Getting Streets of Rage 4 at this point feels a bit like your estranged but fondly remembered uncle showing up on your doorstep 26 years later with a beard and a redder face. It's great to see you,...
Review Daymare: 1998 - A Budget Passion Project That Gets Just Enough Right
"That explains the horrible things I've seen"
Daymare: 1998 has had a long and fascinating road to release. Dating back a number of years, Invader Studios' project actually began life as a Resident Evil 2 remake. No, not that remake. It actually dates back to before Capcom’s announcement of its legendary return to Raccoon City. Once the publisher...
Review Cities: Skylines - A PS4 City Builder with Solid Foundations
Skyscraper
Republished on Wednesday 29th April 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of May's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. In terms of city-building games, the PlayStation 4 – hell, every console in general – is pretty light. Simulation games as a whole seem to be married to...
Review Deliver Us The Moon - The Fate of Humanity Is in Your Hands
Moonwalker
Deliver Us the Moon is set in the very near future, and things are not looking particularly rosy for the Earth. Natural resources have been depleted and environmental damage is so severe that large land masses are slowly being turned into desert. Humanity is a pretty versatile species, and with a strong hunger to survive we can sometimes...
Review Telling Lies - FMV Thriller on the Cusp of Greatness
Speech check
As the video game industry begins to accommodate more and more unique experiences, what we define as interactive entertainment expands. This is largely thanks to the boom in independent development over the past two generations, which as a result, has given rise to select genres once assumed dead. Full-motion video is just one example,...
Review SnowRunner - Glacial Haulage Sim Is Snow Joke
Deck the hauls
With the PlayStation 4’s catalogue so radically diverse these days, a haulage simulation set in challenging terrain doesn’t sound all that abnormal. SnowRunner is the latest instalment in the strangely popular Spintires series, which you may recall making its PlayStation 4 debut with MudRunner a few years ago. As its name...
Review Sakura Wars - An Entertaining But Flawed Summer Anime in Video Game Form
Pretty average in pink
Sakura Wars is a soft reboot of SEGA's long running series. Like its predecessors, it combines visual novel and dating sim elements with steampunk robots, as the threat of a demonic invasion looms over one of Earth's major cities. This one's all about alternate timeline Tokyo in 1940, as former navy captain Seijuro Kamiyama is...
Review MotoGP 20 - Another Exciting Ride, If You Can Handle It
A tricky balancing act
Milestone has made a name for itself as the de facto developer of motorbike racing games. If you trace it back, the Italian studio has been crafting this niche subset of racers for about 20 years. To say it has experience with two-wheeled motorsport would be a grave understatement. However, despite its expertise and dedication...
Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube152k Watch on YouTube Mini Review Moving Out - PS4 Couch Co-Op at Its Most Literal
To me, to you
Moving Out successfully gamifies the otherwise highly stressful process of relocating. As employees of a somewhat questionable removal company, you and up to three other local players are tasked with shifting all the marked goods out of each building and into your truck as fast as possible. It's daft, easygoing fun. Levels start...
Mini Review Help Will Come Tomorrow - Survival Sim Best Left to the Cold
Frozen
With the independent scene continuing to thrive on PlayStation 4, perhaps the worst thing a smaller title can do is fail to make itself stand out from the ever-growing pack. Help Will Come Tomorrow has fallen victim to that -- a somewhat competent resource management simulator that doesn't do anything you haven't seen before. It's not a bad...
Mini Review My Friend Pedro - Stylish Action Stumbles on Rigid Design
Flash in the pan
My Friend Pedro has finally brought its zany 2D shooting gallery to PlayStation 4, and it's a strange beast. Ignoring the fact you play a character devout to a sentient and bloodthirsty banana, the game feels at odds with itself on quite a fundamental level. It's aiming to make the player feel like a John Wick, gun-fu master at all...
Mini Review Random Heroes: Gold Edition - A Side-Scroller with a Massive Cast
Not-so random really
For a game being sold on its eclectic cast of characters, Random Heroes: Gold Edition really doesn’t do anywhere near enough with its heroes. This is a 16-bit style side-scrolling shooter where you take control of, well, pretty much anyone. There’s a cyborg, a clown, a truck driver, a man in a suit… You pretty much get the...
Mini Review Super Destronaut: Land Wars - All Style, No Substance
Space invaders
Super Destronaut: Land Wars is developed by a team named Petite Games, and anyone who understands French should take that as an indicator of what to expect. This is probably the most simplistic first-person shooter you’ll find on the PlayStation 4, as you sprint around neon environments shooting gigantic Space Invaders-inspired...
Mini Review Rush Rover - Simple Roguelike Shooter Is Fun Timewaster
A kind of rush
You’ve already played a game like Rush Rover, but that doesn’t mean this little timewaster should be ignored. A dualstick roguelike, the shooter borrows liberally from various recent releases, delivering a wholly unoriginal yet generally well-executed experience. Playing as a mining machine, your role is to clean up randomly...
Review One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 - Carried By Fantastically Fun Characters
Sailing the 7/10 seas
We're big fans of the One Piece: Pirate Warriors games. We reckon One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 is the best of the bunch, and we'd even go as far to say that it's one of the very best Warriors titles on PlayStation 4. Naturally then, we had high expectations for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, and while it doesn't quite do enough...
Mini Review Biped - Cute Co-Op Puzzle Platforming That's All Too Brief
Doing the robot
Biped gets its name from a duo of diminutive robots, sent to Earth in order to reactivate a series of beacons. You and another local player will guide these little guys through a series of stages, working together to overcome various obstacles as a pair. Co-op concepts don't get much more straightforward than this, but the game...
Mini Review Below - A Stunning But Disappointingly Empty Journey into the Depths
Finding beauty in negative spaces
While available on Xbox and PC for over a year, Capy’s latest title Below took its sweet time arriving on a Sony platform. Luckily, this extra time was taken to craft a whole new mode, and ultimately this ends up being the best version of the game you can play. The problem is, even in this form, the release leaves...
Review Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories - Incoherent Disaster Sim Fails on All Fronts
Disaster la vista, baby
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is an odd title, isn't it? Ostensibly, the game is about surviving a gargantuan earthquake, so that's the "Disaster Report" bit covered. But "Summer Memories"? It sounds more like the name of a sickly sweet K-Pop song than anything to do with cracked pavement or crumbling buildings. As it...
Mini Review Creature in the Well - A Unique, Stylish Spin on Arcade Action
Pinball hazard
Creature in the Well is a striking indie game in more ways than one. This action title makes a strong first impression with its dreamy music, beautiful art style, and smooth performance, but it holds your interest beyond that with an intriguing tale and some pretty interesting gameplay. A town is trapped in an everlasting sandstorm,...
Mini Review Operencia: The Stolen Sun - Old-School Dungeon Crawler with a Modern Feel
Praise the Sun
Zen Studios has crafted a delightful first-person dungeon crawler with Operencia: The Stolen Sun, giving strong nods to classic games such as Wizardry while also putting its own modern spin on things. This is a gorgeous looking game that places as much emphasis on its Central European folklore-inspired story as it does on exploring...
Review The Complex - Live Action Sci-Fi Story Should Have Stayed in Quarantine
Nano hell
Full-motion video, or FMV as it’s more commonly known, is enjoying a renaissance. Despite dying a premature death on early CD-based systems such as the SEGA CD and Panasonic 3DO, games like Erica and Late Shift have ushered a new era for live action, story-driven escapades. The Complex is the latest attempt from Wales Interactive, and...
Review Persona 5 Royal - The Best JRPG on PS4 Just Got Even Better
Style is permanent
Persona 5 stole our hearts back in 2017. It was crowned Push Square's Game of the Year, and it remains one of the greatest role-playing titles available on PlayStation 4. It's impressive, then, that Persona 5 Royal makes the original pretty much redundant. This enhanced re-release is hands down the best way to experience the tale...
Mini Review Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - A Wonderful Treasure from Star Wars' Glory Days
Jedi business
Coming hot off the heels of the acclaimed Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy is a surprisingly robust experience given its short development cycle. Stepping into the boots of Jaden Korr rather than the series’ usual protagonist Kyle Katarn makes for an interesting change of pace. You play as a student, learning...
Review MLB The Show 20 - The Biggest and Best Baseball Game on PS4
Ready for another chance?
The baseball season should be underway, but coronavirus is of course proving to be the biggest spoilsport of all time. Fortunately, you can always rely on Sony San Diego’s critically acclaimed MLB The Show series releasing like clockwork – but does this last ever PlayStation exclusive entry strike out or hit a home run?...
Review Resident Evil 3 - Competent Remake Feels Like a Misfire
Last escape
When Capcom claimed it would be making drastic, sweeping adjustments to its second remake in as many years, the Japanese developer most certainly wasn't kidding. Resident Evil 3 has used the PSone classic as inspiration rather than a rigid structure it largely needs to stick to, dramatically changing the narrative and even cutting some...
Mini Review Moons of Madness - A Lovecraftian Snooze Fest
Inter-smellar
Secret World Legends developer Funcom dives into the ready-made well of creativity of H.P Lovecraft in Moons of Madness, a single-player cosmic horror title using modern generic tropes. Unsurprisingly, it takes similar thematic and aesthetic cues to last year’s Conarium, though in its mission to become the cosmos’ answer to...
Mini Review Roundguard - Peggle and Dungeon Crawling Makes for Unusual But Potent Mix
Tough bouncers
Peggle is possibly one of gaming's biggest guilty pleasures; the simple joy of clearing dots and racking up points is an addictive and satisfying time-waster. This simple puzzle template has remained largely untouched, but Roundguard builds upon the fun with dungeon crawler and rogue-lite elements, and it's kind of genius. You select...
Review DiRT Rally 2.0 - The Lean Mean Rally Sim Makes a Triumphant Return
The long and winding road
Republished on Tuesday 24th March 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the leak of April's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Codemasters' DiRT franchise, which has roots in its historic Colin McRae series, has gone through a few changes. It's swerved between flashy,...
