Sony Interactive Entertainment Game Reviews
Review Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4)
Bolly good
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is like a Greatest Hits album: short on surprises but a blast from start to finish. Naughty Dog’s greatest challenge with this standalone story was proving that its adventuring universe can survive without its wise-cracking protagonist – and it’s passed the test with flying colours. For as much joy as...
Zero-G Suit Samus
In a weird kind of way, Matterfall is what Mighty No. 9 was supposed to be. Artistically, the Housemarque developed side-scroller couldn’t be different to Keiji Inafune’s cartoon Kickstarter, but the gameplay – which is designed around a dash mechanic, just like Mega Man’s ill-fated spiritual successor – has many...
Review Patapon Remastered (PS4)
Pata-pata-pata-pun
Patapon Remastered shares some of its DNA with two other re-released, obscure Japanese games from Sony. Like PaRappa the Rapper, its gameplay boils down to following the beat of the catchy music, and its cutesy vector art style is similar to LocoRoco. It does plenty to set itself apart, however, with a rhythm/strategy combination...
Oh you
One of the more surprising parts of Sony’s E3 2017 pre-show this year was the unveiling of That’s You via a gameplay trailer featuring everybody’s favourite President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida. It seemed like a fun game, albeit a niche, gimmicky party title that couldn’t contend with the likes of...
Review Tokyo Jungle (PlayStation 3)
Primal rage
Republished on Wednesday, 28th June 2017: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of July 2017's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. In an industry which is seemingly obsessed with burly soldiers packing massive machine guns and other associated heavy ordinance, it’s...
Mourning woods
Republished on Wednesday, 28th June 2017: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of July 2017's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Until Dawn is much better than you may be expecting. The teen horror title – which was originally intended as a PlayStation Move...
Review LocoRoco Remastered (PS4)
Roll up, roll up
Whether we really needed a remaster of an 11-year-old Japanese PSP game is debatable, but we’re elated Sony decided to update one of the platform’s greatest hits nonetheless. LocoRoco Remastered brings the joyful 2D side-scroller (or side-roller, if you will) to a whole new audience, and the best news is that its still as fun...
Draw some
Drawn to Death plays like Twisted Metal, Quake, and Street Fighter all had a big violent orgy in Screech from Saved by the Bell's ring-bound high school jotter. This raucous online-only third-person shooter is bulging with so much personality that many won't be able to see beyond the d*ck jokes and crude art direction, but what lies behind...
Review PaRappa the Rapper Remastered (PS4)
Don't stop believin'
It's been two decades since PaRappa the Rapper first appeared on the original PlayStation in 1997. As one of the first rhythm games to make a dent in the public consciousness, the poetic puppy was instrumental in paving the way for the music-based games that would follow in his wake: Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Hatsune...
Review Journey (PlayStation 3)
The road less travelled
Update (14th March, 2017): To celebrate the five year anniversary of Journey's release, we're bringing our original review back from the archives for one day only. A seminal moment in PlayStation history. Enjoy! Originally published (1st March, 2017): Journey is a seminal release; the kind of title that comes once in a...
Fur the players
The corest of core PlayStation fans caterwauled for more of Kat and crew, and Japan Studio has delivered in abundance: Gravity Rush 2 is a much, much bigger iteration of Keiichirō Toyama's physics defying favourite – and while it's still far from purr-fect, it's hard to deny that its heart is in the right place. This stylish...
Review The Last Guardian (PS4)
Animal magic
The Last Guardian doesn't much care for convention. Fumito Ueda's fantasy adventure may have taken the best part of a decade to deploy, but Team ICO's creative vision was never to blame. This bewilderingly brilliant yarn about a boy and a bird sticks so rigidly to a singular ideal that it's almost detrimental at times. And yet, it's...
Bot's your lot
The Playroom VR is a collection of asymmetrical multiplayer minigames that show off the PlayStation VR headset's capabilities in many different ways. It's free and comes with a total of five mini-games to enjoy with your pals: Cat and Mouse, Monster Escape, Wanted, Ghost House, and Robots Rescue. Let's break them all down...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
Review The Tomorrow Children (PS4)
Russian around
The Tomorrow Children is something of a departure from Q-Games' vibrant, punchy, arcadey PixelJunk titles. This is a game far grander in scope, darker in tone, and more varied in gameplay than anything from the Japanese studio's previous gen efforts. It also explores new territory, treading the lines between genres and feeling...
Every opinion procedural
We can't believe our luck. For all the planets and moons in this system, most of them scorched and practically lifeless, the last one we visit is a bonafide world of paradise. Lush bright blue grass stretches out to the horizon where it meets a scarlet sky, the space station hanging just close enough to make out its shape...
Review Shadow of the Beast (PS4)
Adios, Amiga
Of the numerous reboots, remakes, and remasters this generation has brought us, this one may just be the most drastic. Originally released in 1989 on the Commodore Amiga, Shadow of the Beast was well received and lauded for its mind-blowing visual fidelity. Heavy Spectrum's modern take on the hard-as-nails classic has been a long time...
"I like to keep this handy, for close encounters"
Housemarque is renowned for a couple of things: its consistently brilliant arcade titles with incredibly moreish gameplay, and its gloriously colourful visual effects. The Finnish developer's body of work is a kaleidoscopic tour-de-force, the games as vibrant as they are deceptively deep. It should...
Review Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4)
Katnip
It's a good thing that ex-PlayStation Vita exclusive Gravity Rush is getting a sequel, because playing PlayStation 4 port Gravity Rush Remastered highlights the untapped potential that this fledgling franchise harbours. Four years removed from its Japanese debut, the upside-down action platformer feels a little lacking in the mission variety...
Sweet goof
Hardware: Rivals shares few similarities with Rocket League, but somewhere in the build-up to its uneventful release, someone deemed it unlawful to mention Sony's unneeded car combat reboot without tacking a reference to Psyonix's soccer smash on the bumper. That opening sentence is Exhibit A. The resemblances that it does share are...
Review Fat Princess Adventures (PS4)
Care for a slice of the action?
While Fat Princess Adventures maintains the cartoony, colourful aesthetic of the previous instalments, it veers off the beaten path and enters a different genre altogether. Gone is the frantic, calorie-packed multiplayer the series is known for, this is a Diablo-like hack-'n'-slash RPG, with a story to follow,...
A blastonbury
BigFest is Theme Park with more Wellington boots and Bulmers – and it's worth buying for that fact alone. On the Metal's musical management sim was announced for the PlayStation Vita an eternity ago, but tickets are finally on sale from the PlayStation Store, and thankfully we reckon that it's more Oasis than Beady Eye. But what is...
Review Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenshmirtz (PS Vita)
When are they going back to school?
There's a hundred and four days of… You know the drill. Two cheeky lads try and make the best out of their seemingly eternal summer vacation by producing eccentric contraptions and inventions from thin air, only for a crazed scientist – the titular Dr. Doofenshmirtz – to get involved. Oh, and their pet...
Review Bloodborne: The Old Hunters (PS4)
Byrgenwerth it
And so another yarn has arrived from Yharnam just in time to remind us why Bloodborne is one of the best games of the year. The Old Hunters is a full-blooded expansion, boasting nightmarish new environments and a bevy of brutal beasts to slaughter, but it's the vast array of original equipment that will have moon slaves practically...
Honda way up
DriveClub has become a kind of PlayStation 4 comfort food for this reviewer. With the troubles of its launch firmly planted in its rear view mirror, Evolution Studios deserves credit for maintaining the relevancy of its arcade racer over a year removed from its original release. This new motorcycle expansion – available as both an...
Review Tearaway Unfolded (PS4)
Card to beat
Leave it to Media Molecule to find a purpose for all of those gadgets that Sony stuffed into the DualShock 4 controller. Tearaway Unfolded, a remixed edition of the Guildford-based developer's underappreciated PlayStation Vita exclusive, may feature a papery protagonist named either Iota or Atoi, but it's the PlayStation 4's input...
