WHAT’S NEW PLUS-SY CAT?
Digging into the random acts of gaming a lengthy PS Plus subscription offers
The new PS Plus tiers have rolled out and all subscribers got three free games last month. On PS5 and PS4 those were Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time and online co-op title Arcadegeddon. On PS4 alone was cinematic adventure The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man Of Medan.
This month we’re going to pick out a furry face from the crowd and focus on Crash 4. After finishing development on the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and porting Vicarious Visions’ Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy to other platforms in 2018, developer Toys For Bob began pitching a new Crash game to publisher Activision. The studio’s plans began as a reboot before growing into a sequel to Naughty Dog’s original three games. The result debuted in 2020 to the tune of 8/10 from our previous incarnation.
We love the addition of the Quantum Masks, which offer a suite of abilities that allows you to manipulate time and space as you chase your escaped nemeses across the multiverse. You’ll find these masks throughout levels, rather than whipping them out of your jorts pockets whenever you feel like it, and they present a fresh challenge that perfectly complements all the platforming action that you already know and love.
Throw in the alternate N.Verted level forms and the Flashback tapes that you can only scoop up if you haven’t died once during a run, and there’s plenty here to *ahem* jump into. That said some new additions feel comparatively wanting in execution, such as the ability to wall run – for a start, the fixed track of the levels aren’t really designed for it and getting it to work is frustratingly fiddly. There are a few minor annoyances like this but, when considering the complete package, hardly something to spin out about. Okay, no need to have a bad fur day – I’m finally all out of puns.