003THE 100 GAMES TO PLAY NOW
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
A slitheringhandheld highh
FORMAT PSP / YEAR 2010 / PUB KONAMI / DEV KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS / ISSUE OPM #46 / SCORE 9/10How Kojima and co managed to squeeze an adventure of such polish and scope onto PSP only 1,623
sacrificed goats and the La-li-lu-le-lo know. Taking MGS4’s enjoyably fluid controls and porting them into
snack-sized missions, this was a far leaner, more focused brand of stealth. The game’s indelible legacy is
Mother Base – an awesome quasi-RTS that allows you to manage Snake’s fabled fortress.100
Ape Escape
Nomonkeeyinggaround!Timme you
triedthisPlayyStationclasssic
FORMAT PS1 / YEAR 1999
PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO
ISSUEN/A/SCOREN/A97
We couldn’t omit this
iconic platformer in the
year it marks its 20th
anniversary. Created to
showcase the new DualShock
controller’s twin analogue sticks
back in 1999, the game remains a
cute and novel challenge. The
cheeky and somewhat evil ape,
Specter, has created an army of
intelligent monkeys and sent them
through time to rewrite history.
Armed with an arsenal of fun
gadgets and a large net, it’s your
job to catch ’em all and maintain
normality, albeit a status quo that
gives super-smart monkeys
access to time machines.Flower
Windsofchannge
FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2009/2013
PUB SONY / DEV THATGAMECOMPANY,
BLUEPOINT GAMES
ISSUEOPM #29/SCORE9/1098
We’re used to emotional,
non-challenging,
allegorical games, but ten
years ago when Flower
(the sequel to Flow, also available
on PS Now) put us in control of a
gust of wind making a flower petal
dance to bring colour and life to a
world, we were taken aback.
There’s no alien invasion to battle
or zombie hordes to fend off, it’s
just you and an emotional
connection to a fluttering flower
across six implied narrative arcs.
While the original released a
decade ago on PS3, on PS Now we
get the improved visuals of the
later PS4 remaster.Red Faction Guerilla
Re-MARS-tered
A smashingcult classicyoou
maynotttotallyrecall
FORMAT PS4 / YEAR 2011
PUB THQ NORDIC / DEV VOLITION
ISSUE OPM #33 / SCORE 8/10
(ORIGINAL VERSION)96
This series has had more
makeovers than
Madonna. Wedged
between the first- and
third-person shooter iterations is
this open world GTA-like adventure.
The series’ hallmark destruction- you can break, explode, or crush
nearly everything – is a perfect fit
for a sandbox adventure. While the
reason behind all that destruction
is superficial and gets lost in the
action, there’s fun in the ensuing
chaos. PS Now gets last year’s
pun-tastic remastered edition,
which had a 4K visual upgrade.
Tokyo Jungle
It’sanimaal cra ackers
FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2012
PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO
ISSUEOPM #76/SCORE7/10
99
What if humans suddenly
became extinct, leaving
nature to reclaim their
concrete cities? That’s
the idea behind Tokyo Jungle,
where you take your pick of animal
from herbivore to carnivore and
set out trying to survive from
generation to generation. As well
as a survival mode, there’s also a
story mode that follows each main
animal. It’s a truly strange game,
but exploring ruins and hunting for
food becomes incredibly more-ish
as you fight for your beast of
choice, from pomeranians to
hyenas, to emerge unscathed. This
is a cult classic you really should
play – and now you can.
Heavenly Sword
Thirdtime’s theharm
FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2007
PUB SONY / DEV NINJA THEORY
ISSUEOPM #10/SCORE7/1094
As a PS3 window launch
game Heavenly Sword
can suffer from the
same overuse of Sixaxis
tech that plagued Lair and
Uncharted. But motion-controlled
segments where you manually fly
arrows through tiny gaps, for
example, can’t hold back the core
flow of the game; its God Of
War-style combos, sense of
exploration, and neat puzzles force
you onwards. The Stance system
saves the melee hits from feeling
repetitive – Nariko’s Heavenly
Sword can change from twin to
chained to one massive over-sized
blade. Still fresh years later.Star Wars: The Force
Unleashed – Ultimate
Sith Edition
Provingeevenveryaveragge
characterdes signcanbefun
FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2009
PUB LUCASARTS / DEV LUCASARTS
ISSUEOPM #24/SCORE7/1093
You play Darth Vader’s
secret apprentice
Starkiller (a nod to Luke
Skywalker’s original
name) on a mission to hunt down
and kill Jedi. Mixing melee combat
and Force powers, this does a
good job of making you feel like a
Sith-Lord-in-waiting, even though
Starkiller is a little bland. On PS
Now we get the Ultimate Sith
Edition, which came out a year after
the game’s release, and features
all the DLC and new content. This is
the definitive version.LocoRoco
Remastered
If youcannwhistleit, we’llcarry
onplayingthisone
FORMAT PS4 / YEAR 2017
PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO
ISSUEOPM 138/SCORE8/1092
You need to experience
the bouncy, joyful
nonsense of LocoRoco at
least once in your life,
and on PS Now you can enjoy the
sharp, upscaled visuals of the PS4
remaster. The gameplay remains
identical to the PSP original, with
you guiding your Loco through
mazes of puzzles and dangers,
eating fruit to swell its size – its
new blobby weight activates some
platforms and gizmos – or
downsizing to squeeze into gaps.
Oh, and that music! Some of the
best earworms in games, ever.The Darkness II
Te ntacless,gunn-fu,andMik ke
Patton– what t’snottolike e?
FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2012
PUB 2K GAMES
DEV DIGITAL EXTREMES
ISSUEOPM #68/SCORE7/10
95
This first-person shooter
with light RPGing is the
sequel to the Starbreeze-
developed game, and pips
it, Godfather-2-style, to be our
preferred entry in the series. With
Warframe’s Digital Extremes at
the helm you get more action with
your weirdness. As well as picking
off enemies with the Darkness’
‘creeping tendrils’ you can
dual-wield guns. It’s one of
PlayStation’s stranger shooters,
made all the weirder by Faith No
More singer Mike Patton
whispering bloody demands in the
role of the Darkness.