PS4 is Life

So, it's been a solid month since I purchased a PS4 and I'm pleasantly surprised. Like I said in my Bloodborne post, I only intended to buy the system at the time for that game alone but I've found plenty of other reasons to keep playing my PS4. I've been playing mainly PS4 the whole month of April. It's so bad that I haven't even touched FF Type-0 on XBO or finally enjoy Child of Light, which was free in April for Xbox Live members. The only real time I spent with my XBO this quarter has been with Murdered Soul Suspect surprisingly. I rented it from GameFly as I originally purchased it for the 360 but never finished it. It was a short game but the story was compelling and I couldn't put it down once it had its hooks in me. Besides that though, PS4 took over during the first month of the 2nd quarter. Here's why.

Bloodborne. I've already given my thoughts on the Gothic action RPG from developed From Software. It's fantastic, it's brutal, it's the best game I've played this year. I still haven't beaten it yet but it's an amazing title filled to the brim with content. I also have other exclusives on the console in Killzone, Infamous, The Order and I rented Knack from GameFly. None have been given the time of day when it comes to Bloodborne though. It's such an amazing experience that any PS4 owner has to try.

The best thing about PS4 as a whole though has been the PSN games. There are SO MANY great gems that I've already spent well over $100 on games from the store. Games like Axiom Verge, Titan Souls, Helldivers, Velocity 2X, Jamestown+, Trine 1 and 2, and Mercenary Kings have all put a hurting on my wallet. They've all been worth it.

Titan Souls has the honor of being the first PS4 game that I finished. It's a 3 hour game people! I beat it the first day I played it as I could NOT stop playing it. It mixed the awesome boss battles of Shadow of the Colossus with the brutal difficulty of Dark Souls, all in a 2D world. The hero you play as only has one weapon, one single arrow. All the bosses in the game die from one hit, as do you so it's a race to see who will win first. Most of the time, it will be them as you have to learn each boss's patterns to beat them. Some of the bosses are easy, some are downright infuriatingly difficult. That dang bomb blob! Titan Souls only downfall is its short length. Like I said, I finished it in about 3 hours with the true ending after defeating EVERY boss. There's actually a Trophy for beating the game in under 20 minutes so this is really a game that is meant for replaying over and over again. At $15, I think it's worth the price of admission if you like tough games that demand exploration and thinking outside of the box. IF that's not you, don't play Titan Souls. Also, if you have a bad temper, stay away as well.

Jamestown+ is a scrolling shooter that has been on Steam since 2011 but it just released on PS4 in March. I haven't played a shooter like this in a LONG time. I forgot how much I truly enjoy them. In Jamestown, you go through each stage on your ship and shoot enemies. There are a variety of different ships and difficulties that you can play on. If you're a fan of those bullet hell types of games, Jamestown's higher difficulties are for you. The game forces you to get better though as you can't complete it without turning the difficulty up a notch. The last stage will test you and prepare you for what's to come if you decide to do the other challenges and such. Jamestown has a gauntlet mode, which makes you go through all the stages on 3 credits and to get the last ship, you have to do all 7 stages in a row. IN A ROW. I've gotten to level 3 each time before dying. It's tough. This is another game not meant to be played to completion and then stopped. It will take most people 2-3 hours to get to the ending but experienced bullet hell players will definitely stick around to beat the game on the highest difficulty setting, JUDGMENT. No thank you! Jamestown+ is a great old school gem that definitely feels like it belongs in the SNES era of video games. The graphics and difficulty make it seem like an old game but it's a fun and challenging experience. And it's cheap too, only setting you back $11.99 without the $2 DLC ships. It's worth it.

Axiom Verge is a Sony Metroid. I don't say that to lessen how great the game is but the inspiration of the game is very clear as soon as you start playing. AV is a Metroidvania 2D platformer. If you have ever played Metroid or the newer Castlevania games, this is for you. It has everything that makes those games so appealing and awesome. Multiple weapons, areas that can't be accessed until you get a new ability, tough boss fights, the list goes on. Out of all the PS4 games that came out for the Spring Fever sale, sans Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge is the head of the class. Like Jamestown+, it's a game that feels like it belongs to a different era and in an era that's filled with rehashed first person shooters and annualized series, it's refreshing to remember a simpler time when these types of games were king. Axiom Verge is $20, which seems to be the trend nowadays for these next gen digital only games. It's worth every penny. I haven't finished the game yet, (BLOODBORNE) but I love this game. Between this and Ori and the Blind Forest, I don't know which game did the Metroidvania style better.

The Order: 1886. Oh boy. When they first started to show the game off, I wasn't 100% on board. Yeah, the game looked fantastic but I didn't think I would be a big fan of it. I picked it up from Gamestop as it was on sale and so far, I like the experience. A lot of people have complained that the game feels on rails a lot of the time, that it gives you an amazing world to look at but doesn't exactly let you explore said world. That's very true yes but it's high production values and QTEs have won me over. I love visual novel type games. I've already talked about my love for Phoenix Wright, the Zero Escape series and Danganronpa, but this game is more on par with games like Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. On par in terms of how much I enjoy the QTEs. In those games, they are basically all the game is. The Order, while also having basic cover based shooter mechanics, doesn't just rely on the QTEs. I did a sequence with one of the Lycans and the whole battle was a QTE. I quite enjoyed it because I'm so used to seeing action scenes in games played out like that. Heavy Rain is one of my favorite games from the past generation and all of the major moments in the game have you doing QTEs. Needless to say, I enjoy them so a game filled with more of them isn't a problem for me. The Order does have repetitive shooting, so much so that I find myself looking forward to the next QTE that's going to pop up because they are more exciting than the core gameplay. I think that's the problem most have with the game. For $30 though, I don't have too much to complain about. I have only played it for about 2 hours before being sucked back into Hunter's Dream but so far so good.

Buying a Playstation 4 has been the best decision I've made all year, gaming wise. Buying tickets to see NXT at the Tower Theater, which is about 5 minutes from my house was an even better decision. Anyway, the system doesn't have a lot of triple AAA exclusives but if you enjoy platformers, old school top down shooters, or games that are awesome, you owe yourself to get the system. I didn't even talk about the amazingness of Velocity 2X or Helldivers, mainly because I haven't played them but I digress. The first month of the 2nd quarter was dominated by PS4 gaming and it looks like that trend will continue. Once Life is Strange episode 3 releases, I'll go back to my Xbox but for now, PS4 is life. Also, Tales of Zestiria was listed on PS4 by a Dutch retailer!!! Is it a mistake or will I be able to play the newest Tales game on PS4 eventually?!? They announced it's coming out in the fall but you think they would announce it's coming to the PS4 by now. Maybe next month at E3? We'll see.

As E3 is next month, I'm hoping to hear about Persona 5 or more realistically, Xenoblade Chronicles X. It just released in Japan so hopefully, we should be getting it soon. Also, I'm looking for more details on the new Crackdown and whatever new IP Microsfot has planned. And Scalebound. Alright, that's it for me this time!