WHAT’S NEW PLUS-SY CAT?

Digging into the random acts of gaming a lengthy PS Plus subscription offers

Last month’s PS Plus offered gaming treats for you and your mum in time for Mother’s Day – though perhaps

on PS5 and PS4 won’t top your list of family bonding activities. Also on both consoles was racing game and stealth-’em-up

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen F1 23

That said, maybe your folks are really cool and they’ll be into last month’s final PS Plus offering on PS5 and PS4, A brutal tale of revenge, this playable martial arts flick from Paris-based dev Sloclap (best known for Absolver, a multiplayer martial arts game that puts the ‘deck’ in ‘deck builder’) just doesn’t quit.

This single-player action adventure wears its cinematic inspirations on its sleeve (the continuously shot corridor fight scene from Oldboy is a particularly obvious source). Your fighting style is built around kung fu moves, which you use constantly as you hunt down the villains who slew your family – though there are an awful lot of goons between you and them. The twist here is that your protagonist is very much prepared to die trying.

Sifu. Hello Neighbor 2.

Surprise! This beat-’emup is actually a roguelite! In addition to sniffing out shortcuts and secrets hidden around levels, a mysterious talisman resurrects your protagonist after every death – at the cost of years off their life. But with age comes experience, and as such your strikes become deadlier while your health pool shrinks with every resurrection. It’s a potent blend of mechanics and narrative theming, especially as you can choose either to slay or to spare every villain who wronged you.

It’s also bloody difficult. At launch, there were no difficulty options, inspiring a lot of colourful language that’d make our mama proud during our review effort. Three settings have since been added, though even the easiest, ‘student,’ continues to humble us.