Playstation Plus Premium got a TON of free games this month, a SURPRISING amount to be honest. And a lot of them are REALLY damn good. As usual, I downloaded the vast majority of them to play test the ones I never played before to see if I'd like them and to see what's okay for my kids too.
Here's a list of everything that hit the various PS tiers this month.
PSN Essential:
Death Note: Killer Within
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged
PSN Extra:
Chivalry 2
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Digimon Survive
Dying Light 2
Grand Theft Auto 5
Hungry Shark World
Killer Frequency
Like a Dragon: Ishin
MotoGP 24
Overcooked: All You Can Eat
Stick Fight: The Game
The Sims 4: Island Living
PSN Premium:
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2
Resistance: Fall of Man
Resistance 2
Synapse (PSVR2)
Obviously, that's a hell of a lot and I tore through a lot of them just to get a taste. The only one I was worried about was Killer Frequency. As a former stab victim I get PTSD like CRAZY from knives in video games. It's like a vicious discomfort that's hard to shake sometimes when knives and gore are in games so I saved it for last.
I tried Ghostwire: Tokyo which, honestly, fascinated me until I could no longer deal with the absolutely terrible right stick controls that made me feel like I was a camera on ice. Some games like Hot Wheels 2, Sims 4, GTA 5, I didn't have to get because I've already played them. So I got the ones I thought MIGHT interest me from what was left and I got:
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Digimon Survive
Hungry Shark World
Killer Frequency
Like a Dragon: Ishin
Those were my five.
Ghostwire: Tokyo, like I said, is gorgeous and fascinating but it's infamously terrible right stick controls made me give up. I fought it for a good two hours but I never could get used to it.
Digimon Survive I decided to check out in case my kids would get into it. One of my kids like visual novels, one of my kids likes tactical RPGs, so I figured maybe this would be something they could share an interest in. Turns out it's like...the darkest damn Digimon game ever and, depending on your choices, it is more than likely you'll witness children die HORRIBLY.
Hungry Shark World always looked like a silly little mobile game but you can't really beat "free" so I downloaded it and tried it. It's got some fun mechanics but it's definitely a game for the type of kids that aren't allowed outside because they won't stop illing neighborhood strays. Why have a solid gameplay flow when you can just stop in the middle of a rapid swim to chew aggressively on a human until they finally die for like 5 full seconds.
Like a Dragon: Ishin I thought was going to be a no brainer. I always had a soft spot for the Yakuza games so I thought, despite it being the characters in a different time period, I'd still be good to go. Now I see why so many reviews of this game had the word "interesting" in it. It's not a good game, y'all. So many paths that would make the world seem open blocked merely by a single clay pot and a massive invisible wall. So many characters using the exact same character model. Awful animation. Terrible fight controls. Cliche storylines. Oh my god it hurt. It also doesn't help that they went over the top on violence to the point where it seemed like the animation team thought that blood was like pizza sauce and that bones don't exist.
It was finally time to face the one I was worried about. Killer Frequency. I was honestly worried because of the PTSD stuff like I said but a friend of mine told me that I'd be fine and I trust her so...I went ahead and...you guys, I love this game so much.
While Killer Frequency does not seem like the kind of thing I would play a second time, the main play-through is a fucking ROMP. All the horror elements take place over calls to a radio station where you, as the DJ, have to talk to the callers and help them escape the mysterious "Whistling Man" killer. No actual onscreen stabbing takes place, and while the ambience of having to go downstairs is a little spooky, it's honestly about as chill as a Strange Things episode, if not more chill.
So, ironically, the one game I was worried would be a stressful bloody time turned out to be one of the only ones that wasn't. Weird twist there.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the rest of my November PSN time staring at the box art for Legacy of Kain and laughing at how hard they tried on this face:
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