PS4 PS+ so far in my opinion:
Now that the PS4 is well into its life I thought it was time to look at the PS+ service and see exactly how things are tracking. People seem relatively happy with what they are getting, but there has been criticism that it is “Indies only” and that people want more AAA games.
Do the figures back this up? Are the games of a high enough quality or is it a dumping ground for indie crap? Lets have a look.
NB: Please note this is based on the US PS+ service only, considering that other PSN services such as the Australian one are a complete and utter joke considering pricing
Summary:
Overall Games: 30
Great: (13%)
Love/Hate: (23.3%)
Ok: (30%)
Throw Away: (30%)
We can see that at roughly 2/3rds of games put up on PS+ are at least “Ok” and worth a play.
Breaking it down further:
Indie Games: 27 (90%)
Great: 4
Love/Hate: 7
Ok: 9
Throw Away: 7
AAA Games: 2 (6.6%)
Great:0
Love/Hate:0
Ok:0
Throw Away: 2
AA Games: 1 (3.3%)
Great:0
Love/Hate:0
Ok:1
Throw Away:0
Indeed the vast majority of games are Indie, with only two AAA offerings, both of which are kind of terrible (but more on that later).
For the individual titles:
Indie 2D Action Platformers
Great:
Spelunky – Massive amount of replay value and perfectly pitched challenge.
The Swapper – Very atmospheric, slow paced puzzle game of a high quality.
Love/Hate
Rogue Legacy – A potential time sync, but some people will not appreciate the grind/skill ratio
Apotheon – It seemed awful, but lots of people praise it so I don’t know.
Dust – Gets repetitive and the art-style is questionable. But a quality game.
Fez – Not sure if it is great or bad, but incredibly interesting to play through.
Ok
Steamworld Dig – Pretty boring and repetitive, but ok for a few hours.
Towerfall Ascension – Really needs somebody else to play with and kind of limited. But at least it is a multiplayer option.
Trine 2 – Incredibly pretty but incredibly boring game. The multiplayer option gives it a rough pass.
Mercenary Kings – Should be a lot more fun than it is, but at least there is lots of content, even if it is mediocre.
Throw away
Escape Plan – Just too slow and ponderous to be fun.
Stick it to the man – Might be a decent game in here somewhere, I found everything about it off-putting.
Contrast – Seems kind of broken and the bits that work are not fun anyway.
Indie Misc
Great
Don’t Starve – Really high class crafting game with a heap of replay value.
Love/Hate
Transistor – I love that it isn’t Bastion, and it has a lot going for it in terms of style and interesting mechanics.
Binding of Issac – People rave about it, so I’ll put it in love/hate even though I think it is a pretty bad game. At least it can last you a long time.
Ok
Outlast – I think the DLC is much better all around, but it is still a very solid horror game.
Pix the Cat – Really needs to explain itself better, but if you can wrap your head around it the game is well put together.
Throw away
Sportsfriends – People rave about things like Bari Bari ball. But does anybody actually play it? Nope.
Road not taken – Might be a little unfair on this one, but it doesn’t get a free pass just for being puzzle based. You have to want to play it too.
Doki Doki – I don’t even know what this is supposed to be.
Indie Shooter
Great
Resogun – Speaks for itself really. A bit limited, but does what it does to a high quality.
Love/Hate
Velocity 2x – Either an amazing skill based game that you will spend the time to master, or a dull, mediocre game where you do the same couple of boring tasks over and over. Worth finding out for yourself.
Ok
Pixeljunk Shooter – I always thought this was the worst of the pixeljunk games, the very definition of just “ok”.
Titan Attacks – It is only space invaders really, but it can be surprisingly fun.
Dead Nation – Just gets a pass for multiplayer options, otherwise only ok.
Throw Away
Secret Ponchos – Looked great until people realised what it was and found nobody else playing it.
AAA
Throw Away
Infamous: First light – On the plus side, it stops people buying more Infamous out of curiosity. A soulless open world game with few redeeming features.
Injustice – Know how people always say “I don’t play MK just for the violence?” Well this shows you exactly how much fun that would be… and nobody plays it.
AA
Ok
Strider – Doesn’t reach any great heights but it gets the job done and is worth playing at least for a few hours. I also wouldn’t all it Indie, it is sort of awkwardly in the middle somewhere.
Conclusion
PS+ is currently dominated by indie games on the PS4 which should come as no real surprise for people who have kept up with the service. What is more interesting is that in just over a year around a third of those games are potential ones you will love, which is a reasonable success rate coming close to one game every month.
The sample size for AAA games is really too small to draw any conclusions other than Injustice sucks and First Light is incredibly overrated. Of course this is just my opinion (On First Light, Injustice really does suck), but it does highlight the gulf between people who enjoy the Infamous open world style and those who can get 100 hours out of Spelunky. Should better graphics give them a free pass to “ok” or better. In my opinion no, a game is good not be the hundreds of artists who churned content out, but by the quality of often a single designer.
You can’t please both crowds, but ultimately I would conclude Sony are on the right path. Even if it does inevitably lead to AAA lovers abandoning the service for another platform, the chance that some of those games will try one of the deeper games and realise that Indie is not a genre and they have been missing out on straight up good games? Well that is more than worth it.
The Toddhunter Report 