THIS MONTH ON PS PLUS

August’s Instant Game Collection lineup stacked free game after free game on top of each other like delicious PS Plus pancakes. Tottering towers, total galactic control, downtown Tokyo and tiny dancing eyeball monsters made the cut this month – and we also got stuck into saving space and time. Now that’s what I call a balanced breakfast.

TRICKY TOWERS was a standout addition to our PS4s (earning an 8/10 in our previous issue). The Tetris-like puzzler pitted you against opponents to build the tallest tetromino-block tower as fast as possible. The twist? Casting light magic spells on your swaying structure, or flinging dark magic at your foes’ building work to topple their dreams.

Then addictive couchplay gave way to deep-space combat in PS4 RPG REBEL

GALAXY. Plonked at the helm of a gigantic destroyer, you conquered the universe as a mercenary. This crime wave rolled on in PS3’s

YAKUZA 5. The open-world actionadventure series’ fifth instalment drew us into a vision of Japan fizzing with life; gripping storylines, beefy combat and entertaining mini-games (claw machines galore) all keeping us hooked. An unconventional world – but PS3’s

RETRO/GRADE laughed in the face of unconventional and gave us downright backwards. The reverse rhythm shoot’em-up had us tap to make our spaceship suckbackin its shots to the beat. Empirically bonkers.

Things got even weirder on PS Vita. The googly-eye army of PATAPON 3 marched onto our screens to provide satisfying RPG battles played out in time to a thumping groove. A little complex for series newcomers – but solid twinstick arcade shooter ULTRATRON had our backs with nostalgic neon action and Cross-Play on PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. Ooh baby, a triple whammy!