WHAT’S NEW PLUS-SY CAT?
Digging into the random acts of gaming a lengthy PS Plus subscription offers
Last month’s PS Plus lineup pitted you against dinosaurs and samurai – before throwing in Team Sonic Racing on PS4 just to keep you on your toes. Alongside the Blue Blur were MMO Ark: Survival Evolved and standalone multiplayer experience Ghost Of Tsushima: Legends.
But it’s the PS5 version of Ghostrunner that gave us the itch to jack into its cyberpunk world, and perfect our routes.
Co-developed by Slipgate Ironworks and One More Level, platforming in Ghostrunner feels not unlike memorising a dance. Slick movement sees you jumping, wall running, and sliding along on your knees through a grimy, city-sized skyscraper. Enemies don’t need to do much to hamper your ascent, with a single hit sending you back to the nearest checkpoint. Every level is to the point, broken up into smaller checkpointed stretches that feel perfectly portioned – which is just as well because you’re going to die a lot.
Shame-faced as I am to admit it, I died a total of 63 times in just the opening tutorial level. Ghostrunner does offer various Assist options and these do not subtract from the satisfaction of finally getting the latest part of your action ‘routine’ down. You’ll still need to be open to improvising a bit along the way, but the path to success involves running like a well-oiled machine.
Setting aside the pun this entire column has been legging up to, Ghostrunner’s laserfocused cyberpunk vision is one we can’t resist. Unfortunately, you’ll often breeze by too quickly to enjoy the smaller details or be too absorbed in planning your next move to pay proper attention to the cryptic, gravelly voice in your ear. If you’re a platforming fan who’s already jumped at the chance to play this, be sure to check out the
Project Hel DLC for more of its dystopian world.