PS4 Game Reviews
Review Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (PS4)
Existential crisis
Dying has been a part of playing video games since the early days of the arcade, but few games in that time have killed you off right at the beginning of the story. By the time the opening credits for Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky finish rolling, our avatar – a teenage boy named Kanata – has been caught in a...
Funjack
One of the games that drew a lot of attention at the launch of PlayStation VR was EVE: Valkyrie. A space dog-fighting virtual reality game is an idea to excite just about anyone. But what you may not have known is that Crowd Control Productions – usually referred to as CCP – has actually releasing a second VR game at launch. This is...
Review Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs (PS4)
Hits some good notes
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is billed as an enhanced version of the original Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, which was released to Western audiences only last year on the PlayStation 3 and Vita. The story, played out as a visual novel, is developed through chapters, and is a fairly formulaic affair. New...
Review Skylanders: Imaginators (PS4)
Crash bash
Ever since it was kickstarted by Mattel's U.B. Funkeys titles a decade ago, the 'toys to life' genre has become a juggernaut, raking in billions and becoming the bane of parents' wallets worldwide. Skylanders is its flagship, a colourful platforming series with a now gigantic selection of stylised action figures to import into the game...
Norse to see you
Viking Squad is a sidescrolling arcade brawler for up to three players, both offline and online, and it proves to be good old fashioned beat-'em-up fun with friends sat beside you. Filled with colour, cartoon characters, and daft humour, it's got a lot in common with a game like Castle Crashers - except here, you're plopped into the...
Review Harmonix Music VR (PS4)
Off-beat?
As part of the launch lineup for Sony's PlayStation VR headset, there are a wealth of games, alongside some less interactive experiences. In between each of these is Harmonix Music VR, which fits neither bracket. The package boasts several different types of experience for you to mess around with. All of them involve playing music and...
Review Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PS4)
Here we go again
Duke Nukem has had a somewhat turbulent past. Even in the 90s, it was a constant uphill struggle for our chauvinistic protagonist, having to compete with shooter behemoths like Quake and DOOM. In more recent times, he's attained notoriety as being overwhelmingly naff thanks to the awful experience that is Duke Nukem Forever. World...
It's a virtual EVE-olution
Cold. Disorientated. You awake in a clone tank. No, it's not the aftermath of a Push Square office party, this is the future and you're already dead. EVE: Valkyrie is a strong space dogfighting sim that got quite a lot of love when it launched on the Oculus Rift, and now it deserves to get more love as it hits PlayStation...
Review Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (PS4)
Boom, boom, shake the room
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes places you in the shoes of someone you'd never want to be in reality: a bomb disposal expert. As the PlayStation VR player, you're faced with a bomb that must be disarmed within a time limit. The catch, however, is the manual is in the hands of your fellow friends and family. What could...
Review Mantis Burn Racing (PS4)
Burned out?
Well, this is quite the departure for VooFoo Studios, the developer responsible for the likes of Pure Pool, Hustle Kings, and Pure Hold'em. Mantis Burn Racing is, as the title suggests, a racing game, but it's a rare example of a top-down arcade racer. This sub-genre has obviously seen better days, and with the prestigious Micro Machines...
Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube152k Watch on YouTube This 100ft bogey’s all over me
Golf, eh? A gentleman's game, leisurely paced and frightfully mannered. Not the sort of real world sport you might immediately think to add giant mech suits and mass destruction to – but 100ft Robot Golf brings heavy metal mech mayhem to the PlayStation 4's first real-time PlayStation VR compatible golf game. The...
Additional assembly required
We knew going in that the promise of Sony's cheaper PlayStation VR headset meant that the graphical output was going to be inferior to that of its competition. Even with this knowledge, some of the titles have been shockingly unimpressive. It's easier to work around the headset's lower specs when using abstract art...
Thumpin'
Virtual reality is a new addition to Sony's gaming repertoire, and with it has arrived a glut of new experiences and games. In fact, PlayStation VR has secured an impressively robust launch lineup with upwards of 20 titles on day one. Sure, not all of them can be winners – but luckily, Thumper is. A rhythm game described by the two-man...
Back of the net
Every professional footballer goes through a bad run of form, but it's particularly problematic when you're a striker and the goals dry up. Headmaster takes this very idea and spins it out into an entertaining virtual reality game, as you assume the role of a down-on-his-luck superstar who's been sent back to heading school. Your...
Review Super Stardust Ultra VR (PS4)
Super Starbust
Super Stardust is becoming a bit of a new PlayStation hardware tradition. Ever since the venerable Super Stardust HD, the Housemarque developed arcade shooter has appeared on every Sony system released – including the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and now PlayStation VR. But is the concept strong enough to...
Review NOW That's What I Call Sing 2 (PS4)
Come and get it if you really want it
NOW That's What I Call Sing 2 is really only a game for people who like modern pop music. Only one or two of the 30 songs on the soundtrack were made before 2016, and even then they're five years old at their oldest; the fact that one of these songs is 'Sexy and I Know It' by LMFAO is enough to mark this game...
An existential acid trip
Rez may have started life on the Dreamcast all the way back in 2001, but veteran Tetsuya Mizuguchi's synaesthesia shooter has finally found its true home on PlayStation VR. Despite being released on dozens of platforms over the past decade-and-a-half – including, of course, the PlayStation 2 – it feels like those...
Eyes on the road
One day, the veterans of Evolution Studios will tell their great grandchildren the tale of DriveClub, and it'll make for entertaining listening. The first-party, selected as one of the teams to help launch the PlayStation 4, missed its deadline by a country mile – and then delivered a product that ultimately didn't work. But the...
A Shu-in
Recent years have seen the resurgence of a genre largely swept under the carpet: the 2D platformer. Perhaps encouraged by the triumphant return of Rayman in Origins and Legends, indie developers have been working hard to bring back the simple thrills of running, jumping, and then running some more. With even Sega bringing us Sonic Mania...
Handle with care
Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you had to do everything manually? Blinking, breathing, walking: what if your body just decided it wouldn't do them automatically anymore. Well, in Manual Samuel you are tasked with keeping Samuel alive for a whole 24 hours by completing automatic bodily functions manually. You...
Review Dragon Quest Builders (PS4)
New kid on the block
As far as world-building block-'em-ups go, Dragon Quest Builders has to be the most charming example of the genre that we've played. Perhaps that's to be expected of the long running property – which, throughout its many incarnations, has always been a delight to experience – but the Dragon Quest skin lends itself...
All work and no pay
As short-lived girl group The Saturdays once warbled, put your boots on baby and get to work. Some reviewers like to start their reviews by recycling the words of Charles Dickens; here at Push Square we prefer to borrow from the surprisingly short range of Ms. Mollie King. It's the kind of irreverence that we like to think Job...
Review Batman: Arkham VR (PS4)
Behind the mask
Rocksteady's never been shy depicting Batman as the mentally deranged individual that he so clearly is, and with the British studio back on development duties for this short virtual reality story, it's Bruce Wayne's busted psyche that once again takes centre stage. Batman: Arkham VR may only take you about an hour to see through, but...
Topple the blocks
Ah, humble Tumble – the underrated PlayStation Move title that really proved the power of Sony's motion wand. A little dull on paper perhaps, virtual reality revisit Tumble VR stands taller than the sum of its parts, using three dimensional motion tracking to turn tower building into world beating entertainment. You may just have...
Review PlayStation VR Worlds (PS4)
A worldie?
No new hardware launch is complete without a minigame collection; PlayStation VR Worlds, however, is not your average Wii Sports knock-off. Developed by Sony's own London Studio, this is a hodgepodge package collating the half-dozen or so tech demos that the studio has concocted over the years. As such, while the compilation includes some...
Review Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (PS4)
Ghost train
The camp thrills of Supermassive Games' interactive horror Until Dawn elevated it to a status that few expected; the deliciously dumb drama out-Quantic Dreamed the real Quantic Dream, and the silly scare-fest still very much sits among the very best experiences that the PlayStation 4 has to offer. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, a virtual...
Arigato, Aragami
Aragami is a sight for sore eyes if you're a fan of the stealth genre. While we have incredible games integrating its conventions with Dishonored, Assassin's Creed, and even Wolfenstein: The New Order, they treat stealth gameplay as an equal alternative to action rather than the only realistic option. Seasoned game series like Metal...
Review Hitman: Episode 5 - Colorado (PS4)
ColoRad
It's safe to say that Hitman has been excellent so far, but despite the variety of locations, every mission has been similar in that they've all been set in largely public places. The latest level – set in a militia-held apricot farm in rural Colorado – takes the game in a different direction, focusing more on stealth than previous...
The reich stuff?
For fear of repeating ourselves, one thing that the PlayStation 4 certainly isn't short of is creative, unique, and sometimes downright bizarre indie titles. Just when we think that we've seen it all, along comes developer Lichthund with its arcade javelin-em-up Lichtspeer to prove us wrong. Ported to Sony's system by Crunching...
Signing of the summer
Another year, another FIFA review, although this time around, there's actually a reasonable amount of new stuff to talk about without having dig deep into the finer - and frankly quite boring - technicalities of tweaked gameplay mechanics. Taken as a whole, FIFA 17 is the biggest step forward that the sports series has seen in...
