Photo: PlayStation Blog
It could be just me, but it seems the gaming industry is getting more friendly with the racing genre, from well-made titles like Forza Horizon 5, with its constant flood of updates, to other ones that will soon cross the threshold to the movie business like Gran Turismo 7 or Twisted Metal.
Gaming publishers and developers aren't taking things lightly anymore and are treating their products with a highly deserved degree of respect. Of course, they are exceptions, but if we focus on the good, there's plenty to choose from, especially when they come for free this month on PlayStation Plus.
It doesn't matter if you've been a loyal subscriber to PlayStation Plus for a decade or have never heard of it in your entire life. One thing remains true: the recently introduced tiers are poorly named and confusing for everyone.
Why Sony didn't stick with PlayStation's trademark Bronze, Silver, and Gold trophy names is beyond us, but that's not what we're here to discuss. However, before we proceed with our usual shenanigans, let's first make sure we're all on the same page.
Basically, PS Plus has three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. Essential is $10 a month or $60 for an entire year. Each month you get two or three free games, among other perks like cloud storage or the ability to play in online multiplayer. Every following tier has these base features and adds more bang for your buck.
PS Plus Extra is $15 a month or $100 a year. You get even more free monthly games, access to an impressive gaming catalog, and the Ubisoft+ Classics catalog that includes their best and brightest, like The Crew 2, Riders Republic, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege, and so on.
The last tier is Premium which adds some PS3 games through cloud streaming, costing $18 a month or $120 per year.
Which tier best suits you is entirely up to you to decide. For example, I subscribed to Premium for a month, but after seeing that I've played 90% of the games from there and that the PS3 cloud feature didn't perform as well as I expected, I reverted to the PS Plus Essential.
We needed to clear the air with the PS Plus thing, so in the future, you know precisely where those free games will be landing. Luckily, this month, GRID Legends, Descenders, and Chivalry II are arriving at all three "venues," so to speak.
GRID Legends is a good entry from Codemasters, but it's no industry legend (pun intended). It's an OK arcade-style title with more than decent graphics that feels good to control, but depending on your narrative tastes, the main storyline might not suit your Fast & Furious adrenaline needs.
It's full of "good guy vs. bad guy" tropes, and it was filmed in real life as opposed to the usual CG (computer-generated) cutscenes, so your eyes might need some adjustment time when you first see the telenovela unfold. This being said, maybe you'll love it; who knows?
As for Descenders, it's a downhill bicycle battle toward the finish line. You'll jump and zig-zag down mountains and tricky terrain in style while trying not to crash.
It's an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master game, so you could learn to enjoy it if you spend enough time with the DualSense in your hands. The levels or worlds are procedurally generated, and each time you restart, you should have a different experience than your last.
Finally, there's Chivarly II, a first-person medieval online-multiplayer battle simulator with up to 64 players at once, so if you want to see what it was like in the not-so-good-ol days, make sure to check that one out as well.
It takes a while to get familiar with its four classes and twelve subclasses, but you'll feel like William Wallace on that battlefield when you do.
May's PS Plus games are available until June 6, when they'll be reshuffled with another batch, so you have plenty of time to try these out.
It doesn't matter if you've been a loyal subscriber to PlayStation Plus for a decade or have never heard of it in your entire life. One thing remains true: the recently introduced tiers are poorly named and confusing for everyone.
Why Sony didn't stick with PlayStation's trademark Bronze, Silver, and Gold trophy names is beyond us, but that's not what we're here to discuss. However, before we proceed with our usual shenanigans, let's first make sure we're all on the same page.
Basically, PS Plus has three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. Essential is $10 a month or $60 for an entire year. Each month you get two or three free games, among other perks like cloud storage or the ability to play in online multiplayer. Every following tier has these base features and adds more bang for your buck.
PS Plus Extra is $15 a month or $100 a year. You get even more free monthly games, access to an impressive gaming catalog, and the Ubisoft+ Classics catalog that includes their best and brightest, like The Crew 2, Riders Republic, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege, and so on.
The last tier is Premium which adds some PS3 games through cloud streaming, costing $18 a month or $120 per year.
Which tier best suits you is entirely up to you to decide. For example, I subscribed to Premium for a month, but after seeing that I've played 90% of the games from there and that the PS3 cloud feature didn't perform as well as I expected, I reverted to the PS Plus Essential.
We needed to clear the air with the PS Plus thing, so in the future, you know precisely where those free games will be landing. Luckily, this month, GRID Legends, Descenders, and Chivalry II are arriving at all three "venues," so to speak.
GRID Legends is a good entry from Codemasters, but it's no industry legend (pun intended). It's an OK arcade-style title with more than decent graphics that feels good to control, but depending on your narrative tastes, the main storyline might not suit your Fast & Furious adrenaline needs.
It's full of "good guy vs. bad guy" tropes, and it was filmed in real life as opposed to the usual CG (computer-generated) cutscenes, so your eyes might need some adjustment time when you first see the telenovela unfold. This being said, maybe you'll love it; who knows?
As for Descenders, it's a downhill bicycle battle toward the finish line. You'll jump and zig-zag down mountains and tricky terrain in style while trying not to crash.
It's an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master game, so you could learn to enjoy it if you spend enough time with the DualSense in your hands. The levels or worlds are procedurally generated, and each time you restart, you should have a different experience than your last.
Finally, there's Chivarly II, a first-person medieval online-multiplayer battle simulator with up to 64 players at once, so if you want to see what it was like in the not-so-good-ol days, make sure to check that one out as well.
It takes a while to get familiar with its four classes and twelve subclasses, but you'll feel like William Wallace on that battlefield when you do.
May's PS Plus games are available until June 6, when they'll be reshuffled with another batch, so you have plenty of time to try these out.
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