PS4 Game Reviews
Review Enter the Gungeon (PS4)
You're fired
Releasing an indie roguelike in 2016 is tough. There are already several almost perfect and incredibly popular entries in the genre floating around in the wild. Indeed, not only is the market flooded, it's flooded with liquid gold. Thankfully, Enter the Gungeon not only borrows good ideas from its peers, it also plays enough new tricks...
Having a ball
Pang always seemed like a strange name for the then-popular game about bursting deadly alien bubbles. The word not only sounds like the perfect title for a shameless rip-off of Pong, but it means "a sudden, strong feeling of physical or emotional pain". When the original game was released in the US back in 1989, it adopted the name...
A missed oppor-tuna-ty
With the introduction of consoles to China comes a new market of consumers and drastically increased marketing opportunities, but also a bigger development pool. KOI's claim to fame, then, is that it's the first Chinese-developed game to be published in the West for PlayStation 4. It perhaps fits that a country often...
Avengers ensemble
With the retail space seeing a resurgence in rhythm games – Guitar Hero and Rock Band most notably – it's good to see an indie developer trying to tackle the long-abandoned genre, too. Step forward LOUD on Planet X, a Plants vs. Zombies, Crypt of the Necrodancer hybrid created by one of the developers of Sound Shapes – an...
Review Stories: The Path of Destinies (PS4)
The path of self-destruction
Don't let Stories: The Path of Destinies' incredibly generic sounding name put you off – this is a charming and rather unique PlayStation 4 indie that is, more often than not, very enjoyable to play. It's an action role-playing game of sorts in which you take on the role of Reynardo, an anthropomorphic fox with a...
Er, unepic?
Unepic begins with a few friends playing a table top RPG over one or two beers. Our hero, Daniel, gets up to use the bathroom and, mid-toilet break, the lights suddenly go out. He's in the dark feeling around for a light switch when he discovers that he's not actually in the bathroom that he was in before. Daniel has been magically...
Ashes to ashes
Dark Souls II was a tremendous video game – so good in fact that we happily played through it twice thanks to a timely HD remaster – but for some Souls fans, something wasn't quite right. It lacked the focus of the sublime original it was argued, and when it came to finding a scapegoat, such critics didn't have to look far...
Knocked for six
How did this happen? No, really – how did this happen? Resident Evil 6, the most recent numbered entry in Capcom's iconic survival horror series, is an unmitigated mess – a real turd of a game that's so downright bad that it beggars belief. You'd think that with the series celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the publisher...
Review Stikbold! A Dodgeball Adventure (PS4)
Hvis du kan undvige en skruenøgle, kan undvige en bold
The offline multiplayer renaissance continues with the release of Danish indie studio Game Swing's Stikbold! A Dodgeball Adventure. Originating from a concept prototyped at the Nordic Game Jam in 2013, the title is a jovial, wacky take on dodgeball – a sport bewilderingly lacking in video...
Review R.B.I. Baseball 16 (PS4)
We'll let this slide
R.B.I. Baseball 16 is a game of pure baseball simulation, opposed to MLB: The Show's more gleaming, polished take on the sport. While its Sony-backed competitor is innovating, R.B.I. is content with treading water and refining its gameplay – which is by no means a bad thing, considering how easy it is to pick up and play this...
Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube152k Watch on YouTube Review Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 5: Order Up! (PS4)
Blockheaded
Telltale released the first four episodes of its Minecraft series fairly quickly – within three months, actually – but opted to wait several months before deploying the fifth episode. We've slung our fair share of criticisms at this series, but one of our biggest complaints was that Episode Four felt like the end of Season One; the...
We rally, rally like it
DiRT Rally is a beast – a beautiful, brilliant, and breath-taking beast that will humble you, drive you mad, and leave you grinning like an idiot once you master it's brutally tough driving challenges. Think Bloodborne but with cars and you'll understand the punishing pleasures awaiting those brave enough to strap in and...
Take back the night
Nights of Azure is a Japanese role-playing game set in a world where demons are taking over the night. As with any JRPG, there's a lot of lore to get your head around – so buckle in. The game is set after the defeat of the Ruler of the Night, who, once beaten, showered the world in his blue blood. Those who came into contact...
Review Assault Android Cactus (PS4)
Prickle power
Assault Android Cactus is an arcade twin-stick shooter set aboard a civilian spacecraft that is experiencing some difficulties with its labour bots as they've rebelled against the captain and taken control of the vessel. You play as an assault android pilot named Cactus who has both the guns and the courage to take back the ship and...
Review Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PS4)
Don't mansion it
It may come as no surprise to anyone that's played the original release, but Day of the Tentacle still holds up as a stellar example of its genre 23 years on. Point-and-click titles of its time are often regarded for their zany humour, inspired visuals, and inventive puzzle-solving – and this little gem is no different. Sporting a...
Not a Rousey success
As the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said: "Kick, punch, it's all in the mind." Or, in the case of EA Sports UFC 2, the sequel to EA's first major MMA outing: "Kick, punch, it's all in the controls." See, while this year's adaptation of the popular bloodsport is as brutal as ever, the core fighting gameplay seems to...
Society's last Hope
With a team comprising former Metal Gear Solid developers, it's perhaps no surprise that République is a stealth game. In fact, it's evident right from the outset that Metal Gear Solid was an influence on proceedings, although the narrative and characters of République stand alone, unique within the often homogeneous backdrop...
Crawl out through the fallout
Sheltered is a strategy game about ensuring that your family survives after a nuclear apocalypse. To be totally fair, it's about a lot more than that – resource management, adventuring, trading, etc – but you'll spend the majority of your time with this plucky indie not thinking about those things in the abstract,...
Review Catlateral Damage (PS4)
You’ve gotta be kitten me
That's right: the cat puns start early. Not even the title of this fur-st purr-son mess-making game was able to escape the witty claws of developer Chris Chung, and his creation is littered with word play (guess what the pause menu is called). Catlateral Damage has been available on the PC for about a year already, so it...
Review Fallout 4: Automatron (PS4)
Robots rock
Fallout 4: Automatron is a logical step for a game that puts so much emphasis on its expansive crafting system. Allowing you to build and customise your own robotic partners, Fallout 4's first add-on has the potential to breath some new life into a dusty old save file, but don't expect its main quest line to keep you occupied for more...
Review Tom Clancy's The Division (PS4)
Flu York, Flu York
In The Division it's amazing how quickly society goes to pieces. Admittedly, a genetically engineered super virus that manages to wipe out a large swathe of New York's population seems a reasonable catalyst, but you would have thought that it would have taken more than a few weeks for things to get as messed up as this. Anyhow, in...
The sweet release of death
101 Ways to Die is the newest release from Four Door Lemon, a British outfit with a long-lasting history to its name. This newest venture presents you with a physics-based puzzle experience where the goal is to lay and use a variety of traps to kill minions in a plethora of test chambers. By doing so, you're tasked with...
The evil within
Tales of horror are frightening enough to make us shiver in the moment or even lose sleep over several days, but they usually don't haunt us for that long. We're able to move on from reflecting on them because they're fake stories meant to play with our heads. But when it comes to real freak accidents or unexplainable phenomena that...
Review Just Cause 3: Sky Fortress (PS4)
Wingsuitably insane
One of the best things about Just Cause 3 was its traversal. Sure, there were cars to drive, planes to fly, and boats to... float (?), but when it came down to getting from A-to-B quickly, the ultra-responsive wingsuit was always the best answer. It felt perfectly weighted – tinkered with to the highest degree in order to make...
Review Senran Kagura Estival Versus (PS4)
There's always a butt
Senran Kagura Estival Versus is the first time that the series has bounced onto a home console, and in many ways, it's dressed itself up for the big occasion. Estival Versus exudes a level of polish – particularly in terms of presentation – that previous PlayStation title Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus simply didn't possess...
Review Salt and Sanctuary (PS4)
Salt in the wounds
You will learn to detest the word "obliterated". This dramatic yet depressingly apt term has been given the job of informing you that you've just died, and it precedes yet more words that you'll also come to hate. For example, the statement, "Alas, you have lost 7480 salt forever" will see that you clasp your head in your angry,...
These are not the McDroid's you're looking for
McDroid can be summed up as such: a real-time strategy tower defence crossover with the attitude and style of Borderlands, the charm of Star Wars, and frustrating difficulty spikes of Atlus' Devil Survivor. It takes a tired genre that has been well and truly done to death and mixes it all in with...
Review Samurai Warriors 4: Empires (PS4)
For clan and country
In recent years, Warriors games have been criticised for being a little too prolific. To those who don't care for musou titles, it must seem like there's a new Warriors release every other month, but fans have always stuck by Omega Force and its seemingly timeless hack and slash formula. However, even for the Omega Force...
Review Hitman: Intro Pack (PS4)
Making a killing
When Hitman's release schedule was revealed, a lot of people weren't happy about its episodic nature. Many fans feared that the game would be a massive disappointment akin to the likes of Hitman Absolution, but that is most definitely not the case. On the surface, the Intro Pack may seem a bit steep at its £11.99/$14.99 price –...
Super war-io maker
Developer Blowfish Studios clearly wears its inspirations on its bloodstained sleeves. It's modelled its create-'em-up first person shooter, Gunscape, to look and feel like the classic arena shooters of old, and it mostly succeeds. The low poly graphical style that so effectively evokes shooters such as Quake and DOOM isn't just a...
