It’s the holiday season, and Sony is giving its PlayStation Now subscribers an early Christmas bonus. This month, 50 new PlayStation 4 games will hit the service either as streaming titles or for download (but only for the PS4 and PS2 titles). PlayStation Now currently offers a host of games for $20 a month, $45 for three months, or $100 for a year. While the full list does seem to be one of quantity over quality, there are quite a few worth checking out. Here are some of the highlights organized for whatever mood you happen to be in.
PlayStation Now in December: Heavy Hitters
The biggest game by a large margin is Ubisoft’s For Honor. The third-person multiplayer brawler is on the upswing since the release of its Marching Fire expansion. It’s not the starter version either, but the full base game (sans premium DLC).
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter is the latest in Frogwares’ long-running series based on the great detective. A true game of deduction and investigation, Devil’s Daughter gives you free rein over several London city blocks as you try to solve the mystery. Before Frogwares releases The Sinking City in 2019, it’s well worth revisiting their latest high budget adventure.
A rare gaming release from the House of Mouse, Tron Run/r is a simple concept with high production values. The runner genre is a perfect fit for the pioneering sci-fi franchise and its famous lightcycles. While the inclusion of microtransactions may bother some players, the style and soundtrack found here is well worth a brief visit.
Limbo, if you somehow have not played it by now, is also on the PlayStation Now service. You play as a young boy in a vague story that lets you take away what you please. It’s also a platformer that rewards quick thinking and learning patterns. While that may sound punishing, it’s still one of the best in the genre even over eight years later.
PlayStation Now in December: Procedural Party
Neon Chrome is a top-down roguelike twin stick shooter from the fine folks at 10tons. You might know them as the developers of Crimsonland or the recently released Tesla vs. Lovecraft. As you’d expect from the title, there’s a big ’80s aesthetic throughout, along with a fair bit of cyberpunk. You play as a series of clones trying to climb the literal corporate ladder and take out a megalomaniacal Overseer. If you love The Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon, this might be right up your alley.
What if you want to play a procedural twin stick shooter, but you’re also hosting a party? Be like the robots in Neurovoider. They’ve been jamming out in an endless party since they eradicated all of humanity. You and your friends can break up the party and blast through over 8,000 unique mechanical foes. Also, there’s a nuclear rocket launcher. That’s pretty rad.
While lots of folks know about the PixelJunk games, less know about Nom Nom Galaxy. A strategy games with roots in Terraria, Nom Nom Galaxy is all about gathering ingredients to make the best soup in the galaxy. You must build an assembly line and then keep it stocked with rare ingredients. Send enough rockets of liquid gold blasting off the planet, and you move on to another home base. It’s a strange loop, but bouncing around underground on a jet-powered pogo stick to find a patch of onions is certainly a unique experience.
PlayStation Now in December: Hidden Indie Gems
If you’re a fan of Super Meat Boy, than Slime-san: Superslime Edition is the game for you. An exacting splatformer that eases up on the difficulty just a bit, Slime-san also boasts a unique art style and three separate campaigns.
The Spectrum Retreat walks in the footsteps of games like Portal and The Talos Principle. You play as a mysterious guest of an empty hotel run by robots. You quickly begin to see the holes in your surroundings, and nothing is quite as it seems. While the puzzle elements do seem a bit separated from the story, it’s still a fine entry in the genre.
The Metronomicon: Slay the Dance Floor is a rhythm title with some depth published by Kasedo Games. It features a full RPG-lite campaign full of colorful characters and a mix of electronica and synthwave on the soundtrack. Rock on.
PlayStation Now in December: Retro Revolution
Carmageddon: Max Damage is the latest entry in the proudly violent destruction derby/arcade racing series. Since THQ Nordic recently purchased the IP rights, we could be in for a franchise revival. So, now’s the perfect time to check in on this uneven but still enjoyable revival.
Do you want retro games? It doesn’t get much more retro than Super Star Wars. Originally released on the Super Nintendo in 1992, Super Star Wars made its PlayStation debut as a bonus in a Star Wars-themed PS4 console bundle. This a classic side-scrolling action game where you blast scorpions and mynocks on Tatooine before working your way up to the famous trench battle. Since it’s a licensed SNES game, you can expect the difficulty to be punishing and unforgiving.
Originally released on Wii way back in 2009, A Boy and his Blob is Wayforward’s new take on a classic NES release. Featuring both a boy and that boy’s blob, you must solve puzzles using the amorphous powers of that blob. This game is more forgiving than its retro forebearer, but it still features plenty of the two characters hugging. It’s still very cute.
