Done with last-gen? Here are 5 games you probably missed
Next generation consoles are taking precedence in the gamerverse currently. Not ready for my PS3 to sleep the long sleep, I wanted to take a retrospective of some games players might have missed in the wake of other, more popular titles.
Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut
Credit: Horror-Movies
So bad, it’s good. Possibly one of the weirder, more wonderful and most broken games I have ever played. It peaks and troughs from mundanity to WTF. A survival horror that puts you in control of FBI Agent Francis York Morgan as he investigates a series unusual murders. But please, call him York. That’s what everyone calls him.
Most chapters open with York staring into a coffee whose milk swirl serves as a premonition. Throughout the game, York fights through bizarre hoards of undead on his journey to uncover clues. But for the most part, we don’t actually understand why this is happening. That’s sort of nice because it allows you form your own ideas, shaping the game differently for each individual. I have been operating on a friend’s theory that the undead are in fact living people that York is killing as part of some psychotic episode in his hunt. Which is why they say odd things like, “Don’t want to ddiiieee”. That’s not a spoiler by the way, because I am told it’s way off.
“Don’t want to diiieeee.” “Killl meeeee."Make up your mind zombie. Credit: Dread Central
One of my favourite quirks is that, at times, the game seems to alternate between only two different soundtracks. A happy theme transitioning into a more sinister track when trouble is afoot.
Overall, even though most cars have an infuriating max speed of 45 mph and the world is a largely animatronic ghost town, Deadly Premonition is uniquely unconventional with a rich storyline interesting characters.
Naughty Bear
Credit: Urgent Fury
When I say that you may have missed Naughty Bear, I mean you may have missed how awful this game was. Never have I been more betrayed by hype. It looked promising on the run-up to its release - a new and whacky idea being developed an independent game developer in Canada. Perhaps I expected too much?
Abusing the role of a demented teddy bear, psychopathically tearing apart the happy lives of everybody else in the village is fun at first. But this fluffy ultraviolence wears thin after a couple of plays. I’m a strong advocate of video games having more freedom than cinema in showcasing violence, but Naughty Bear is too flawed and repetitive to enjoy it as one might enjoy it in GTA rampage mode.
Technically, it can be near unplayable at times with the amount of frame rate lag. Made worse as it slowly drags you through unchanging levels severely lacking in content and simplistic gamely.
A nice idea, executed poorly.
Dirt 3
Credit: Gamekyo
Codemasters know how to make a racing game. (Cough) Until they made Grid 2 (cough). Okay, this may have been fairly popular anyway but it was pretty rare within my own circles. Nevertheless, with tonnes of cars, courses and new events to play, Dirt 3 is my favourite rally game on the PS3. By far.
Dirt 3 boasts a great racing experience. And this is, in part, due to talented developers translating first-hand rally driving experience onto the console. I will most likely never hurtle down a narrow dirt path at 150 mph in a signature Colin McRae R4. Then again, I’m not brave enough to. However, Dirt 3 delivers the ability to do this while I lie safely in bed and they do it well.
So stop ignoring it and give it a try.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Credit: SciFiNow
Why is this game so cheap on Amazon? A compressed RPG set in a transhumanist world where human augmentation has changed how we live. Executed near perfectly. An unsettling and not that unrealistic vision of the future. What’s not to love?
How you play Deus Ex is entirely up to you. You can stealthily assassinate each enemy with a faithful, laser-guided pistol; sneak through unseen keeping your hands clean or equip yourself to the teeth in a chaotic bloodbath. While a lot of games push players towards one style, such as stealth, Deus Ex caters strongly to the individual. Whatever you decide, the game’s combat mechanics are full of interesting takedowns and animations to maintain interest and curiosity.
Visually, the game is fantastic. A lot of environments use a mostly black and gold colour palette, such as the Hive nightclub, which makes for very attractive designs.
Human Revolution is special because it offers so much freedom in a world with over 20 hours of gameplay. An absorbing cyberpunk adventure.
Flower
Credit: Insomnia
The best value-for-money game on the PS Store. Novelty as it may have seemed at first, Flower is the smoothest and most natural feeling use of the sixaxis controller I have experienced on the PS3. Using the sixaxis gives a previously unfelt sense of realism to the game’s movement, which makes flying about the terrain a lot of fun.
Flower takes you on a journey - from a lowly petal in care-free landscape through pubescent troubles to its breakthrough in the big city. It’s wonderfully relaxing at first. Then, the lights go out and a sense of panic sets in as you find yourself empathising with a petal. Tears. If flowers wore shoes, they would be size 10 and I would have been in them.
The chiming sounds played each time a petal is recruited to your mighty flower is also a nice touch. Chain enough in good time and it will create a nice tune.
Flower’s genius is in its simplicity and there’s good news because is it is coming to PS4.
