I don’t beat most of the games I play. It’s partly because I play so many games. I’m usually jumping to a new game before I’ve completed the last. I also have a short attention span and it takes a lot for a game to hold my interest until the very end. I’m telling you this because I actually beat three games just in the last week or so. What are they and why did I stick with them?
Well when I got the PS4 I decided I wanted to check out the remote play functionality on the Vita. I had given up on this system a long long time ago and actually stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. I was super impressed with the remote play though and once it was out and charged I decided to check out the store. I had just recently beat the Killzone Shadow Fall campaign on the PS4 and I loved it so I was in the mood for more. I picked up Killzone Mercenaries on the Vita and I could not believe what a great shooter it was! I don’t mean it was a good shooter for a handheld system. I mean it was a great shooter period.
I just wrapped up the single player campaign last night and like Shadow Fall I had a blast all the way through. It looks amazing, the controls (including the touch elements) are really slick and I even dug the story. It has you playing as a mercenary as you could probably gather from the title. This means that you get a much different perspective on the ISA/Helghast war. This is just a really impressive game all around and an amazing display of what the Vita is capable of.
I also picked up Tearaway for the Vita and beat it just the other day as well. This game is a real gem. I think with all the news about new consoles, launch titles, as well as new Mario and Zelda games this beautiful little platformer for the Vita got overlooked. Tearaway is a game set in a world made entirely out of paper and it looks amazing. You can actually unlock patterns to build lots of the papercraft creatures and props you see in the game in real life. The designs are so smart that I found myself just standing still watching things like curls of paper sliding down a hill to form a waterfall. The platforming controls are solid and you can interact with the world via both the front and the back touch pads. You can push, pull and tear the paper with your fingers to help your little hero as he navigates the world.
I’ll admit what kept me playing this one wasn’t the story as much as the visuals and the gameplay. I also loved the parts that let you design your own paper elements for the game. At certain points you are given a bunch of colored construction paper, some scissors and asked to build your own paper props. For example when you first reach a snowy level you are asked to cut out a snowflake. I used white paper and cut out a simple little five pointed snowflake. The game takes that design and uses it for the snow in the level. So now as you play you can watch the snow falling and see that it’s your snowflake. I love stuff like this and the game is full of it!
Finally the third game I beat was Tiny Brains on the PS4. This came out on Tuesday and I decided to stream my session as I played it for the very first time. It’s a cooperative puzzle game with four distinct characters all with their own special power. You and your friends (or random internet people) will need to work together using your unique abilities at just the right times to solve the puzzles. I loved the puzzles and had a lot of fun with the game but after a little more than an hour we beat the story mode. I have to admit I was incredibly surprised to see the credits roll after playing for only about an hour. The game was 15 bucks and while I don’t generally base the quality of a game on its length, Tiny Brains felt incredibly short. There are some challenge modes and I’ve heard good things about the soccer mini game but I haven’t checked these out yet. It could be these modes represent a ton more fun but I’ll need to investigate that. As it stands when the story mode ended I felt like I was just getting into the game and I was left wanting a lot more. Even the 300 or so people watching the stream that night were shocked when the game just abruptly ended. “Is that really it?” people kept asking as we watched the names of the devs scroll by.
I’ll check out the other modes this weekend and let you know if I think they make it worth the 15 bucks. As it stands right now I’d say sit tight and wait on Tiny Brains.
There's no shortage of great games to play right now. In fact this time of year there's always too much to play and not enough time. Killzone Mercenaries showed me there are great games out there that I just missed for whatever reason and Tearaway is a great example of a hidden gem. It's worth noting that both of them are on a system I had given up on about a year ago. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.
-Gabe out
