PS5 Game Reviews
Mini Review Heavenly Bodies (PS5) - Zero Gravity Adventure Frustrates as Much as It Entertains
Manned mission to madness
We shouldn't need to tell you how scary the dangers of things going wrong in zero-g are; the movie Gravity eloquently made that point already. Heavenly Bodies takes itself less seriously, but the peril of floating off into nothingness still looms over an otherwise goofy, intentionally awkward game. Playing alone or with...
Mini Review Chorus (PS5) - Stunning Space Exploration with Slick Combat
Sing it with me
If there's one thing developer Fishlabs knows well, it's space combat and exploration. Despite little previous experience with PlayStation hardware, its PS5 debut Chorus shares many similarities with its long-running mobile series Galaxy on Fire. As a result, Chorus is a confident first stab at a high profile release for the team,...
Mini Review Beyond a Steel Sky (PS5) - Classic Adventure Game Sequel Is Held Back by 3D Design
Union City limits
Beyond a Steel Sky is the long, long awaited sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky — the critically acclaimed 1994 point-and-click adventure game. This return to Union City — a towering metropolis surrounded by wasteland in a distant future — manages to recapture the wit and charm of its predecessor, but its move to 3D environments...
Review Solar Ash (PS5) - Fast, Fluid Platforming Makes for an Entertaining Ride
Rei of hope
When developer Heart Machine decided to venture into 3D for its follow-up to Hyper Light Drifter, it didn't just change the perspective. While the two titles share the same universe, Solar Ash is a very different game in many ways. Essentially, this is a fast-paced platformer that puts the emphasis on movement rather than combat. The end...
Review Godfall (PS5) - Good Combat Means It's Not Godawful
Falling into mediocrity
Republished on Wednesday, 1st December, 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of December 2021's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Since earning the title of the first-ever game to be announced for PlayStation 5 last year, it feels like Godfall has been stuck...
Mini Review Evil Genius 2: World Domination (PS5) - A Compelling, Cat-Stroking Tycoon Title
Excellent
Evil Genius 2: World Domination pairs traditional tycoon gameplay with tactics to create one of the more unique strategy titles on the market. As one of four cat-stroking wrong’uns, your task is to build an evil underground empire in a spy-fi thriller that, when executed effectively, will see the world bow to your reprehensible plans...
Mini Review Death's Door (PS5) - Indie Darling Is a Tightly Designed Joy
Open up
Death's Door released to rampant critical acclaim on other platforms earlier in the year, and it's easy to see why. This is a lovingly crafted isometric action-adventure, stacked with engaging exploration, tense action, and a wonderful atmosphere. It draws obvious inspiration from The Legend of Zelda as you journey across an interconnected...
Review Farming Simulator 22 (PS5) - Agricultural Effort Is Franchise's Biggest and Best Yet
Grow up
Despite its niche subject matter, Farming Simulator is a breakout brand that’s been growing [Hur-hur – Ed] in popularity with each instalment. Farming Simulator 22 represents the biggest release yet for German developer Giants Software: it’s self-published, packing more licensed content than ever before, and features crossplay between...
Review Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition (PS5) - A Stain on Rockstar's Record
Aw, sh*t
Where do we even begin with the GTA Trilogy? Recreating Rockstar’s trio of seminal sandboxes for contemporary consoles should have been a slamdunk, but it’s ended up with more criticism than Tommy Vercetti’s Hawaiian-inspired shirts. This is a compilation that succeeds solely on the strength of its core content, with developer Grove...
Review Sherlock Holmes Chapter One (PS5) - Not One of Frogwares' Best
False start
Visiting the island of Cordona to pay respects to his late mother, it takes a young Sherlock Holmes no more than 30 minutes to discover a dead body and a case ripe for solving. It isn't much more than a tutorial, designed to introduce you to Frogwares' usual detective mechanics. However, it's also the first example of how Sherlock Holmes...
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Available as either a full release priced at £47.99 / $49.99 or as a discounted upgrade to 2016's Special Edition, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Anniversary Edition is quite simply the best version of Skyrim to ever grace a PlayStation console. Although, admittedly, that's not saying much. The original game on PS3 was and still is a...
Review Call of Duty: Vanguard (PS5) - More Safe But Solid FPS Action
There's no Stalin this train
If Activision could pick and choose when the Call of Duty series is hot or not, this would be the year where it goes all guns blazing. The publisher faces more competition than usual as Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite go toe to toe with its premier FPS, tussling for both mindshare and your time. Consumers are spoilt...
Review Jurassic World Evolution 2 (PS5) - Dinosaur Park Builder Sequel Delivers
Open the door. Get on the floor. Everybody walk the dinosaur
Avid Push Square readers will undoubtedly recall that we rather liked 2018's Jurassic World Evolution. Making an amusement park full of dinosaurs that occasionally escape their confinement and eviscerate the slack-jawed tourists is what we're all about. Now the sequel is here — the...
Mini Review Demon Turf (PS5) - Fresh 3D Platformer Blends Old and New with Style
Speed demon
In some ways, Demon Turf is quite old-school in design. This is a 3D platformer that wouldn't be out of place alongside your favourite PS1-era classics, with hub worlds containing numerous levels, collectibles to find, and bosses to beat. However, it evolves the formula with some interesting twists that modernise its gameplay, making it...
Review Riders Republic (PS5) - Try-Hard Extreme Sports Sandbox Is a Technical Feat
How do you do, fellow kids?
Ubisoft’s approach to open world game design has worn thinner than a snowboarder’s baggy pants, but the French publisher keeps returning to it because it works. Riders Republic does little to hide the fact that it’s effectively The Crew 2 in an extreme sports skin, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This...
Mini Review Pumpkin Jack: New-Gen Edition (PS5) - Halloween Platformer Is Four Hours of PS2 Era Fun
Jack's back
Pumpkin Jack is an action platformer that harkens back to simpler times. It released for PlayStation 4 last year, but we foolishly missed out on the fun. Thankfully, we've been able to catch up with Jack on PS5 thanks to the New-Gen Edition of the game, which runs at a silky smooth 60 frames-per-second, and features load times that last...
It’s about family, and that’s what so powerful about it
While innovation often leads to some truly creative endeavors, there's something to be said for taking an established formula and doing it really well. That’s what Röki sets out to do: take the traditional elements of a point-and-click adventure title, and elevate the experience in...
Mini Review Backbone (PS5) - Escalating Mystery Bites Off More Than It Can Chew
A dog eat dog world
Backbone makes a great first impression. This is a noir, narrative-driven game in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, all living their lives in a dystopian city. Playing as Howard Lotor, a private detective who's barely making ends meet, you take on what appears to be a simple job, but it soon leads you to a much...
Mini Review Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (PS5) - Remaster Is More of a Trick Than Treat
Camera shy
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water wasn't anything special back in 2015 on Nintendo Wii U, and it's no better six years later. A sub-standard remaster ports the horror title to PlayStation 5 to conveniently coincide with Halloween, but for as creepy as it can be, it's not a particularly enjoyable game to actually play. If we were offered...
Mini Review Gleylancer (PS5) - Solid 1992 Mega Drive Shmup Shines Again
Bust out the Busterhawk for two easy Platinums
From its July 1992 release, Masaya's Gleylancer didn't initially shine as a single player shoot-'em-up. It received a mixed reception, with Issue 2 of Mean Machines SEGA magazine describing it as unoriginal and tedious in a 48/100 scoring review. For years Gleylancer was more renowned for its reputation...
Review Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5) - Faithful Take on the Guardians Really Rocks
Groot work
You never quite know what you're going to get with superhero games nowadays. The likes of Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series and the more recent Marvel's Spider-Man are proof famous comic-book faces can set the standard for the industry, but then we all remember how Marvel's Avengers went. Unsurprisingly then, there's some apprehension...
Mini Review The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (PS5) - The Best Game in the Series So Far
Trapped between Iraq and a hard place
After the crummy Man of Medan and the better-but-not-quite-there Little Hope, The Dark Pictures Anthology has finally started hitting its stride with House of Ashes. Set in Iraq in 2003, the invading United States army is looking for weapons of mass destruction wink wink. Satellite imagery has alerted them to a...
Mini Review The Good Life (PS4) - SWERY's Latest Is Baffling, Broken, and Brilliant
Life is beautiful
In an industry that champions violence and gore, it's always refreshing to play something that favours nature and nurture instead. Sure, punching a goblin in the back of its weird head is great. Cathartic, even. But sometimes, just for a change, it'd be nice to have a lovely wander down a quiet English lane before enjoying a...
Review NHL 22 (PS5) - A New Shine Applied to a Familiar Experience
We've been here before
New console generations can prove rocky for sports franchises: performance issues, bugs, and a reduction in features are routinely guaranteed. Certainly, that's the fate that awaited EA's NHL series when it transitioned to the PlayStation 4 – after all, we still have nightmares about the abysmal NHL 15. Surprisingly, EA...
All aboard the Mugen Train
Given the immense popularity of Demon Slayer, particularly in Japan, it was only a matter of time until it got a video game adaptation. And who better to head the project than CyberConnect2, the talented Japanese studio that crafted the largely fantastic Naruto Ninja Storm series? The studio's flair for adapting anime is...
Mini Review Art of Rally (PS5) - Proof You Don't Need to Reinvent the Wheel
Not a burnout
Not every game needs to reinvent the genre. Sometimes, a game’s hook can be as simple as gently tweaking the preexisting formula. Instead of turning rally racing on its head, Art of Rally uses its great atmosphere to stand out from the crowd. Upon booting up the game, the game grabs the player with its incredible visual style...
Review Far Cry 6 (PS5) - The Best Game in the Series, Sort Of
Chorizo style
If you've played any one of Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4, Far Cry 5, or Far Cry: New Dawn, then you already know exactly what to expect from Far Cry 6. Ubisoft is back with yet another course of comfort food in its exotic open world FPS franchise, and this review feels almost inconsequential in its effort to explain what's what for a fifth...
Mini Review KeyWe (PS5) - Two Birdbrains Are Better Than One in Quirky Co-Op Title
Birds of a feather work together
KeyWe has about as left field a premise for a game as we've ever heard, but somehow, this co-op game about running a postal service as a pair of kiwi birds makes it work. Two players control Jeff and Debra, new recruits to the Bungalow Basin telepost station who also happen to be New Zealand's native flightless...
Mini Review Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania (PS5) - Sony Potassium 5
Ooh, chimpanzee that, Monkey Reviews
These monkeys have a problem. Well, a succession of problems, really, but the main one is that they've been trapped inside giant spheres for no reason. And they're beloved, these monkeys: since the GameCube days, Super Monkey Ball has been (perhaps bafflingly) popular, with increasingly diminishing returns across...
Mini Review AWAY: The Survival Series (PS5) - Life Finds a Way, Far Away
Sweet and sour
On paper, AWAY: The Survival Series sounds like a really interesting experience. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has died out and only pockets of life remain. You get to play as an adorable young sugar glider who is trying to survive in a dangerous and hostile environment with his family. It all sounds like...
