PS+ June 2015

[benoit489]

Here are the games for this month:

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4)
Description: A visually stunning chapter in a long-running, deeply complex series. This nail-biting mission onto a Cuban military base follows Snake as he attempts to rescue Paz from enemy imprisonment.

OVERALL - 75

Gamespot - 80
After the credits roll on the main mission and a handful of side activities unlock, the best part of Ground Zeroes is just getting started. With a dearth of secrets to find, and new challenges to master, chasing the endgame will keep you entertained for hours on end.

Game Informer - 70
Even for longtime fans of the Metal Gear franchise, Ground Zeroes may not be worth playing. It spreads its strengths thin over too little space, relying on the repetition of a handful of unremarkable missions in the same area. That's the bad news. The good news is that the core stealth is fun, and the innovations on the gameplay front are promising.

The Escapist - 50
Audacious is the word that best describes Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It contains quality material, but it's little more than a preview of something better, and as such, simply should not be presenting itself - deceptively - as a game in its own right.

Skulls of the Shogun: Bone-A-Fide Edition (PS4)
Description: This turn-based strategy game turned a lot of undead heads with its story of a Samurai Afterlife. Build an army of the undead, battle your opponents, and regain your honor.

No critic reviews

Super Exploding Zoo (PS Vita | PS4)
Description: Players must defend all the precious animal eggs in the zoo from evil aliens who want to eat said eggs. How do you defend these tasty treats? With a herd of explosive animals, obviously.

No critic reviews

Futuridium EP Deluxe (PS Vita | PS4)
Description: A psychedelic, retro-inspired shooter with crazy action, puzzle elements, and a bumping electronic soundtrack. May or may not induce random dance parties.

OVERALL - 73 PS4 / 65 Vita

Playstation Universe - 80
Futuridium is a game that will reward persistent gamers with creative levels and bosses. It can be challenging and suspenseful, but most of all, it’s fun to play.

Digitally Downloaded - 40
Futuridium is a game for those who can invest in the grind of simply 'getting the job done'. Taken on those terms, Futuridium becomes a challenge to be completed, retro looking enough to be in vogue, yet with mechanics that inhibit a broader mainstream appeal.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (PS3)
Description: This first-person shooter celebrates the wild west in a big, bloody way. Take down anyone unlucky enough to cross bounty hunter Silas Greaves.

OVERALL - 75

IGN - 75
Why it puts such emphasis on its broken dueling mechanic is confounding, and its ludicrous load times and occasional crashes are marks against it, but the good beats out the bad and the ugly.

Playstation Universe - 70
A solid arcade-style shooter with a rich Western theme, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger serves up fun gameplay with a well executed, albeit predictable, story.

Cloudberry Kingdom (PS3)
Description: The dev team behind this insane 2D platformer spent 2 years building an AI that could build a near-infinite number of levels for any difficulty. It looks totally bananacakes. Good luck with that!

OVERALL - 75

IGN - 74
While its technically impressive level generator ultimately doesn’t add a great deal, the intense, straight-ahead gameplay demands to be played and replayed for hours on end. It’s a shame the developers couldn’t find a unique and distinctive voice for Cloudberry.

Destructoid - 60
Cloudberry Kingdom is a strong effort, but the lack of overall polish is impossible to overlook.

 

[Brunn]

I'm really excited for this round! I've really been wanting several of these, especially Futuridium and Skulls of the Shogun. Call of Juarez looks cool too, though I also have it on Steam, and it being a FPS, may be better for me to play there... Super Exploding Zoo sounds like a cute one too.

 

[benoit489]

I find this month to be extremely weak. Lots of no-name indies with along with a demo released as a retail game. My subscription expires this month and I probably won't renew it until Super Meat Boy comes out.

 

[Aensland]

I find this month to be extremely weak. Lots of no-name indies with along with a demo released as a retail game. My subscription expires this month and I probably won't renew it until Super Meat Boy comes out.

That, I agree with. Sadly, that seems to be the running theme where the PS4 and Vita are concerned and this is one of the best months,

I tried the Skulls of the Shogun for like 5 minutes and quit before beating the first tutorial stage since I am not a fan of tactical games with ring-based AoE fields for movement that resemble Quest 64.

MGS:V:GZ was dreadfully short, but like the review said; a lot unlocked. I beat the game in like an hour and a half (would have been less but it never told me how to summon the helicopter and I had difficulty finding that info online. I eventually found a PREVIEW article that mentioned how flares were an alternate to the grenade from the start, so I just needed to figure out how to access them.) Ran around for like 15 minutes to a half hour before I figured that all out with the help of online.

Total completion ratio when I beat it? 7% - which just goes to show you how much unlocks after the tiny campaign ends.

Super Exploding Zoo is VERY easy and feels pointless. Not sure what multiplayer is like but it feels less inspiring than Marasaki Baby was.

Futuridium I made it to stage like 7 or 8 maybe before wanting to cry at how awful the gameplay is. The only times I crashed were intentionally to end the game. Seriously... it feels like someone made a beta for a StarFox SNES game to be ported to an 80's arcade machine and that was the outcome. You fly forward and shoot squares whilst dodging walls and lazers in a slow-moving ship that resembles Fox McCloud's and then hit the square-button to pull a 180 and fly back the other way. Wash, rinse, repeat until all squares are gone and then another 'core' square appears. Shoot it to end the level. I'd also like to ass that the game's 'tutorial' does not tell you ANY of this, so I flew straight over the map for like 5 minutes into a black galaxy of nothingness then hit square and flew back the other way for what seemed like forever before simply hitting "restart" from the pause menu, flying over the map, hitting square and seeing it pulls a 180 (since I couldn't see what it did the first time due to the infinite nothingness around me) and then I was like "OH! Wait, that's the entire map!?"

I love how they make it look semi-difficult and fast-moving.

Vitamin Z is actually pretty addictive to me, which is surprising since I usually hate single-screen survival shooter games and this one you can't even move your character.

not even bothering with my PS3 anymore but I can say the CoJ series seems to get better with each installment, and I loved them all on the 360, including that one.

Cloudberry seems like it would make me break a controller, so I'm not even going to attempt it. I'll stick with Sound Shapes lol