Earthbound and Dune 17.06.15

Wasn't blown away by the PS+ releases this month, but a couple of games stood out (apart from the amazing Ground Zeroes which I'd purchased a while back) Futuridium EP Deluxe isn't the mast catchy title, but its a simple, addictive arcady shooter. Your spaceship flies forward whilst constantly draining power and you have to clear a simple stage of targets before your power runs out (and each target you hit will knock your power back up) there is a leniency given by being able to reverse your direction in a click of a button, which is handy but also a creates a few seconds of confusion as you realign yourself with the world. Hit anything and your ship blows up and is respawned a distance from the level, so it ramps up in difficulty pretty quickly. Only a few levels in, its a fun game, certainly wouldn't want to play it for any more than half hour chunks but it also looks nice and has a dated but catchy soundtrack.

Super Exploding Zoo has a much catchier name, but with the more simple premise comes a more complex game, the aim being to protect an egg from alien invaders with a range of different exploding animals, penguins are basic, monkeys can climb stuff, crocodiles act as a bridge etc. The aliens are nicely designed but I found the look of the animals I've encountered so far to be a little generic, and the game became tricky pretty quickly as you have to seek out a range of different animals to complete your task. It may well be that this game is more suited to a touch screen device, or certainly a handheld. Both the titles i've played this month from PS+ are available for the Vita as well, and that may be the better place to experience them.

I found a copy of Shadow Warrior (PS4) cheap this week and played quite a bit of it. An old fashioned FPS (and a reboot of an old PC game apparently), Doom like with the attitude of Duke Nukem 3D mixed with a little bit of No More Heroes. So far i've found it a pretty unique first person shooter in that shooting is the least effective way to clear a room, instead it seems a better option to go with the sword chopping up waves of enemies (which is immensely satisfying). Each section you complete gives you a rating out of 5 for how you did which helps it feel arcady and unlike a lot of modern shooters. Enemies don't range that much in terms of appearance, something the game makes reference too in the dialogue, but it does mix up humans and demons to make you think a bit more during combat. Everything in the world seems overly explosive (especially when hit with a sword) which led to a couple of comical deaths in an arcade, but checkpoints are spaced evenly so you're quickly back to where you were even when dying in a stupid way. It looks nice, especially the temple opening with tunnels of Tori gates showing you where to go, these act as a better path than later in the opening level where you have to navigate mazes of bamboo, which can be easy to get trapped in, with no direction from the game, this is the only issue I had with the game on the whole, it seems easy to loose track of your objective and how to get there, I wasted time trying to jump through thick bamboo or onto a toppled lamppost only to find there was a simpler path the game wanted me to take, this isn't the games fault, more that objective markers and pointers have become so common in this genre given the freedom to roam I act like an idiot! Further into the game it gets much harder, even on the normal setting, I'm keen to see this game through to the end so will keep plugging away at it.