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| What's missing from this image? I'll tell you what's missing. No games, bro! |
Only not.
I'm not sure how many times I've heard people exclaim these same woeful sob stories over a lack of games for the PS4 and how many times I've crushed your tiny little face with my thoughts. Seriously, it's touching, boys, but if you're going to put half a grand into a new gaming console while not wanting to actually play games, then maybe you should be donating your cash to, like, puppies instead or something? Your PS4 is collecting dust while a puppy is dying of Sarah McLachlan overdoses and a lack of your 15 cents a day.
It doesn't have to be this way!
The palette of games available on the PS4 is boiling over with variety, granted you have taste for something other than first-person-shooters. The PS4 is the console for games first and foremost. Did you forget that? So, boot up that PS4, and let those puppies continue to suffer, because these are the games you have no good reason to not be playing.
Resogun
If you're a PS+ member and didn't get this game dia uno, then you have an aversion to things that rock
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| This is what fun is shaped like! |
Strider
Do you like Metroid? Do you like Castlevania? If you don't, then I expect an online petition drawn up mandating your deportation to Guantanamo Bay because you have no idea what good things are and you are a terrorist... of entertainment! Haiyo!
Strider, like Resogun, is an homage to days of yore where gameplay was solid, and straightforward, but so finely tuned that the simple dynamic of jumping and attacking had to be rewarding in itself. Strider, though simple in execution, is extraordinarily satisfying in a way few AAA titles are. You get a huge sword that you can swing unrealistically fast, you run at an exact 45 degree angle, you spin flip over robots, then literally bat their laser bullets back into their stupid faces. You're essentially an anthropomorphic flechette of Japanese ancestry that marauds through a cyberpunk Soviet Russia collecting Mega Man powerups.
Play it on Hard, though. Normal is for sissies and people who like games that last as long as elementary school romances.
You're probably like most people who abandoned this bad ass game after one hour, never beat the first boss, never built a new weapon or upgraded a Warframe, and ultimately decided playing level after level was all Warframe offered. Even people paid to review games ignored the other 50% of the content available, yet managed to reduce a game--still in Beta, mind you--to a score that summed up its entirety. It's like watching half of a movie and saying, "Ya know, it was OK, but it didn't really feel complete." Nice work on that objective reporting!
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| Ninja kicking a cyborg with a grenade launcher.......FOR FREE!!!! |
Admittedly, the user interface is
cold and ambiguous. Unless you have a friend that can show you the ropes or you
like reading wikis, then you'll continue wondering why people can't stop
playing this game. It can be summed up as such: you are a cyborg ninja with
future magic and super guns that you can fine tune down to granular details
such as how well does a bullet punch through an enemy and exactly how strong of
an impact does it have? How far does your pair of fire-imbued axes reach? How
efficiently do you consume energy when crushing enemies into a black hole? How
fast can you run, attack, or reload? There are few games out there that allow you
to personalize your character as finely as Warframe.
If you didn't like the game when you first picked it up, you probably just
didn't realize you can make it play exactly how you want it to.
Oh, and it's free.
Towerfall Ascension
The mega retro miniature version of Smash Bros. and Bubble Bobble meets... uh... Joust?! Yes, Super Bubble Joust! Sopping wet with retro 16-bit graphics and twitchy, ultra-smooth gameplay, Towerfall is stacked with tactical challenges and that just-one-more-game feeling. Towerfall is deceptively simple. Yeah, all you do is jump and shoot arrows at things. That's it! But, what makes it so darn satisfying is the sense of needing to get better at it. Practicing the timing of a head jump as you shoot through the bottom of the level and fire out from the top as you let arrows fly into eyeballs with batwings is endlessly fun.
And playing with friends makes it at least... three times better than this!
Only I don't have any friends who have this game, because you're all busy playing your mainstream garbage to see the beauty available on PSN. Anyway, you can play with three other players on the same screen as you try to snag powerups and more kills than your adversaries. It would make for a rowdy good time with beer and chips, but I wouldn't know anything about fun or friends.
Mercenary Kings
Yeah, yeah I gotcha. No need to yell. I know this technically hasn't been released yet, but it's from the makers of that supremely awesome Scott Pilgrim game that no one played and is like a Metal Slug and Borderlands... uh... Border... Slug? Plus, its release date is right around the corner! On April 1st, you will be able to saw a dude in half with electricity bullets.
If you're from the old school of gaming, but still want a hefty heaping of contemporary polish and depth, you're probably not one of those bums who live on the couch, awaiting the next generic military shooter to keep your attention for a week. Mercenary Kings is what you've been craving. You'll have the ability to fully customize and craft your very own weapons as you collect resources from each level. Using heavier materials might give you awesome firepower, but will also make you run slower. You can even tweak bullet spread and elemental properties, build new armor, knives, grenades, and character buffs.
Add three more players to the screen and you have eye-melting chaotic joy at your fingertips.
You just spent more than $500 getting everything you need to start enjoying the next-generation, so, why aren't you? This isn't an all-encompassing list of great games you're missing out on. Far from it. Hey, if traditional FPS is your thing and that's really all your thing is, why haven't you tried Blacklight: Retribution? It's free! You can go on PSN right now, download it and play it--drum roll--for free! It's like a semi-futuristic Border of Counterstrike... Duty...
You shouldn't be allowed to say there is a drought of games. This console has the very best launch window of games I've ever seen in my life! Unless you just don't like video games as much as you think you do, I can't possibly fathom that there isn't a handful of great games to keep you busy until the next wave of AAA launch dates arrives. Right now, I'm bouncing between all of the games above, including Rayman Legends, Injustice, and Outlast just to name a few of the games I own. I plainly do not and most likely will not ever have the time to play all the launch window games I want to. You're telling me, out of the 48 games released since launch, you can't find anything worth playing? 48 games, man! How can you possibly be bored already?!
If you don't have a PS+ account, you're doing it wrong. Many of these games you should have gotten absolutely free by now or at a discount. I know you're all not made of money like we are here on our cushy Movie Sleuth salaries, but that's why we make lists like this so you can put your money where it counts.
Fourty-freakin-EIGHT, dude! Get on that!
- J.G. Barnes
Oh, and it's free.
Towerfall Ascension
The mega retro miniature version of Smash Bros. and Bubble Bobble meets... uh... Joust?! Yes, Super Bubble Joust! Sopping wet with retro 16-bit graphics and twitchy, ultra-smooth gameplay, Towerfall is stacked with tactical challenges and that just-one-more-game feeling. Towerfall is deceptively simple. Yeah, all you do is jump and shoot arrows at things. That's it! But, what makes it so darn satisfying is the sense of needing to get better at it. Practicing the timing of a head jump as you shoot through the bottom of the level and fire out from the top as you let arrows fly into eyeballs with batwings is endlessly fun.
And playing with friends makes it at least... three times better than this!
Only I don't have any friends who have this game, because you're all busy playing your mainstream garbage to see the beauty available on PSN. Anyway, you can play with three other players on the same screen as you try to snag powerups and more kills than your adversaries. It would make for a rowdy good time with beer and chips, but I wouldn't know anything about fun or friends.
Mercenary Kings
Yeah, yeah I gotcha. No need to yell. I know this technically hasn't been released yet, but it's from the makers of that supremely awesome Scott Pilgrim game that no one played and is like a Metal Slug and Borderlands... uh... Border... Slug? Plus, its release date is right around the corner! On April 1st, you will be able to saw a dude in half with electricity bullets.
 |
| I can't make this image any better with words! |
If you're from the old school of gaming, but still want a hefty heaping of contemporary polish and depth, you're probably not one of those bums who live on the couch, awaiting the next generic military shooter to keep your attention for a week. Mercenary Kings is what you've been craving. You'll have the ability to fully customize and craft your very own weapons as you collect resources from each level. Using heavier materials might give you awesome firepower, but will also make you run slower. You can even tweak bullet spread and elemental properties, build new armor, knives, grenades, and character buffs.
Add three more players to the screen and you have eye-melting chaotic joy at your fingertips.
You just spent more than $500 getting everything you need to start enjoying the next-generation, so, why aren't you? This isn't an all-encompassing list of great games you're missing out on. Far from it. Hey, if traditional FPS is your thing and that's really all your thing is, why haven't you tried Blacklight: Retribution? It's free! You can go on PSN right now, download it and play it--drum roll--for free! It's like a semi-futuristic Border of Counterstrike... Duty...
You shouldn't be allowed to say there is a drought of games. This console has the very best launch window of games I've ever seen in my life! Unless you just don't like video games as much as you think you do, I can't possibly fathom that there isn't a handful of great games to keep you busy until the next wave of AAA launch dates arrives. Right now, I'm bouncing between all of the games above, including Rayman Legends, Injustice, and Outlast just to name a few of the games I own. I plainly do not and most likely will not ever have the time to play all the launch window games I want to. You're telling me, out of the 48 games released since launch, you can't find anything worth playing? 48 games, man! How can you possibly be bored already?!
If you don't have a PS+ account, you're doing it wrong. Many of these games you should have gotten absolutely free by now or at a discount. I know you're all not made of money like we are here on our cushy Movie Sleuth salaries, but that's why we make lists like this so you can put your money where it counts.
Fourty-freakin-EIGHT, dude! Get on that!
- J.G. Barnes