097REVIEW
LAST MONTH
ON PS PLUSLucky number 13! As a result of our
meddling with time and space, we
squeeze an extra issue into every
year just for you. All the same, the
fact you’re holding this issue in your
hands now means we went to print
too early to know what was in store
for January’s PS Plus lineup. So feast
your eyes on the very best of what we
enjoyed over the 12 months of 2018.It was a year in
which PS4 PS Plus
subscribers saw
Sony deliver a slew of
hot Triple-A releases, for free. January
saw Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. In
March we had Bloodborne, renewing
our resolve to finally finish off all of
those Chalice Dungeons, while April had
us dusting off Mad Max. This was just a
teaser, as Sony and Activision conspired
to offer Call Of Duty: Black Ops III
as a bonus game during E3, and then
in September the shock of Destiny 2
coming to the service – it only released
ten months earlier – sparked interest
in the new expansion. Was it a cynical
marketing ploy? Perhaps, but we got
Destiny 2, for free.
If indies were more your speed then
Laser League and Rime were musts.
Both were games that we’d loved on
release, so as part of PS Plus this pair
was unmissable.
Bookending the year in delicious dread,
transhumanist horror Soma surfaced
in December. The recent addition of a
mode that renders enemies non-lethal
means that those prone to squealing at
jump scares and chase sequences (me)
can enjoy this one at their own pace.
Those wanting
something a bit
more involved were
far from forgotten,
however. June offered strategy game
XCOM 2, and July had PS Vita’s Zero
Escape: Zero Time Dilemma.
It’s been a great year on PS Plus, and
the service will only get better. Here’s to
a similarly packed 2019.@KoeniginKatzePS VR REVIEW
GUNGRAVE VR
Whataloadofshoot
A
mazing; innovative;
beautiful; compelling.
These words and
many more are
entirely inappropriate when
describing this thing. Perhaps
you have fond memories of
the original PlayStation 2
games, and/or the anime that
followed. If so... stick with
those. Trust me. This is just
a shoddy shooting gallery
crowbarred into PS VR in an
unsuccessful attempt to hide
how terrible it is.Alarm bells start ringing before
the tutorial is even over, when
a bug appears to prevent i
working on V1 DualShocks
(helpfully, this is the all-
important ‘shoot’ button).
Fortunately – or, on reflection,
perhaps not – I have a V2 to
hand to plough on.
The idea of a PS VR shooter
that offers both third- and
first-person perspectives
is fine and dandy. It can be
helpful to change the way you
view a scene according to the
situation, after all. You don’t
get to choose in Gungrave
VR, though; sometimes you
see your character, sometimes
you don’t. Playing in third
person, you can move (with
all the speed and enthusiasm
of somebody who’s soiled
themselves), dodge, and reflect
projectiles. Playing in first
person, you’re inexplicably
rooted to the spot as though
struck with the suddenINFO FORMATPUB XSEED GAMES PS VR ETA OUT NOW DEV IGGYMOB@Jim_CrikeyVERDICTDEAD AND BURIED
realisation that you spent real
money on this garbage.GRAVE MISTAKE
There are only five levels to the
game, and they’re all rubbish.
Dumb, low-resolution enemies
appear in waves – occasionally
in numbers too large to
effectively defend against –
and shoot at you until they’re
dead, and are replaced by more
of the same. Rinse and repeat
until a dumb, low-resolution
boss or mini-boss appears.
The bosses are in fact the
one positive(ish) thing about
the experience. The designs
are great, and they really ought
to grace a much better game
than this. The actual fights,
sadly, are awful. The first-
person ones are by far the
worst; firing your guns pretty
much blinds you, making
it impossible to aim with
precision at many targets.
It’ll take you more than 45
minutes to whip through the
five tiny stages only because
they’re made to artificially
drag, especially the last two.
Gungrave VR even manages
to make piloting an armed
flying bike tedious, which is a
staggering achievement in all
the wrong ways.What you get for your money is
terrible, rendering the mid-level
price insulting. There’s no reality
in which this is worth buying,
virtual or otherwise. Luke Kemp