It's that time of the month again, when I catch everyone up on most of this month's PlayStation Plus games! I say most because, as is usually the case, I didn't actually play all of them. Usually that's because there's a Vita only one that I can't play, but in this case it's because I forgot to download the PS3 version of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. I would actually like to try that game out at some point, but honestly, it being the PS3 version is the thing that stopped me. Now, yes, I know, there's no reason why I HAD to write this blog today, and couldn't just download that game and then write the blog. But you know what tomorrow is?

Bloodborne Day. Which makes today Bloodborne Eve! And because of that, I wanted to get this blog out of the way before I play that game, so I can focus on that game, and then write a blog solely focused on Bloodborne once I'm done with that. When will that be? Who knows! I'm still unemployed, and don't have anything to do with my life, so I could go back to the olden days of yore and play like ten hours a day and finish it this week. But chances are it'll take me a bit longer than that, especially if other people want to play something like CoD with me. Exclusively playing one game to completion is fun, and I see the appeal, but it's also good to have something else to unwind with, or whatever. I dunno. BLOODBORNE. I'm excited.

I've actually managed to stay away from too much info about the game. I know that the controls and combat are fairly similar to the Souls games (but kinda different?), I have a general idea of at least some of the visual aesthetic of the game, I know there's some sort of randomly generated dungeon(s?), and I know there's some sort of co-op. That's literally all I know. And I'm excited that I don't know much more else about the game. It'll be super interesting to just dive in without already knowing how stuff like Estus flasks and bonfires work, like in Dark Souls. Even if Bloodborne has things that are effectively the same, I'd rather discover them for myself.

In other words, please don't spoil anything for me. I'm going to be doing my best to avoid stuff like GB's inevitable Quick Look until after I've beaten the game. Or, if they only super early in game stuff (not sure how I'd know, though), then maybe halfway into the game. Anyway, sorry, I've manged to almost fill a page (of my text editor) with this in a blog that is supposed to be about PS+ games! I couldn't help myself, but now I shall actually get to the point!

Valiant Hearts.

I'm going to get straight to the one that I found both the most surprising, and the most enjoyable of the PS+ games for March. I was expecting it to be a fairly straightforward side scrolling adventure puzzle solving game that also served as a light history lesson on World War I. All of that is true (though I feel like the historical accuracy is fairly hit or miss, which I'll get to soon), but I wasn't expecting the game to tug at my heart as much as it did. This is one of the very few games that actually made me genuinely sad by the end of the game. To the point where I almost shed a tear.

Most games don't even attempt to get emotions like that out of the player, and of the ones that do, few of them actually succeed. And the ones that do surprise me when I think about them, in retrospect. Something like Mass Effect 3, which is the conclusion of a trilogy filled with characters that I cared deeply about, sure. But Valiant Hearts? Was not expecting that in the least. But nor was I expecting Fable II or (not even joking) inFAMOUS 2 to make me feel genuinely sad, but hey, we can't control our emotions, so don't blame me!

I'm not going to spoil anything about what Valiant Hearts did to make me almost cry, because if you haven't played it, you absolutely should. It's not 100% great, but when it works, it works. And, more than anything else, you should play it because rather than glorifying war like most games set during war, this game actively horrifies war. It's not about the thrill of combat, about the moment to moment thrill of seeing if you can defeat enemies and kill your way to victory. It's about showing the cost of war. It's about showing what it does to people, to nations, to society itself. Well, maybe not quite so much that, it's not a Hideo Kojima game where someone talks on for twenty minutes about the military industrial complex, but you get the point.

It reminded me of Spec Ops: The Line, in that regard. But unlike Spec Ops, which is about war turning men into monsters (more or less, I'm SUUUUUPER simplifying it to make a point), this game is about people overcoming the horrors of war to try to do the right thing. That's, about as much as I can say without getting super spoilerly for a thing at the end of the game. Anyway, I think the game should be commended for showing the bad side of war, because so few games do that. Honestly, Spec Ops is the only other one that comes to mind. I hesitate to include something like MGS4 because as much as I love that game (and the other MGS games), I feel like Kojima doesn't focus enough on any one thing to make it fit in with Spec Ops and Valiant Hearts.

Although, I do feel like even Valiant Hearts indulges in violence more than it should (and I guess I'll get a tad spoilerly here). One of the sub-plots in the game involves a woman (one of the four playable characters) trying to rescue her father from the Germans, as he's being forced to help them develop weapons for the war. And by weapons, I mean very large tanks that border on Metal Gear levels of absurd. I'm not even exaggerating very much, there were several times when the game reminded me of MGS3 and The Shagohod. And this is where I feel like the game gets too far away from being historically accurate, too. I know that tanks were a part of World War 1, and I do suppose that making them so giant in the game does help make them more imposing, but it's a bit silly.

Anyway, the point I was getting at before I got sidetracked was that there are several instances where you get into one of these giant tanks, and then it turns into a bit of an action game for a while. You aim the cannon, shoot down planes, and plow through bombed out buildings as you move through the German lines. In the moment, it's a fun little thing that helps break up the monotony, but thinking about it now, I kinda wish it wasn't in there. Aside from stuff like that, you don't kill anyone in the game. Even in the few instances where you have a gun, you never shoot it, the most you do is hit someone with it to knock them out. You don't even use the bayonet on the gun. And sure, there may have been some animation with the pilots jumping out, but if there was I missed it, and it doesn't change my point. In a game that abhors violence in every other aspect of it, it's weird that there's literal tank sequences like that. A very small part of the game, but still part of the game.

There's also a chase sequence near the end of the game that involves throwing dynamite into armored cars whilst avoiding another Shagohod-esque way too large vehicle, which I also thought was more violent than it should have been. That sequence was also kinda hard and not enjoyable like the other chase sequences are. I should explain, I guess, if you haven't played the game. There's a few parts of the game where it goes into Crash Bandicoot chase perspective with the camera in front of a car that the character(s) are in, which you have to drive to avoid obstacles like falling bombs, mines, machine gun fire, etc. The most interesting thing about them is that they're all timed to the music, which makes them really neat, at least at first. But after I died several times in that last one, I got more frustrated with it.

Which is kind of a bummer to get hung up on game-y things like that in a game like this. Other weird things too, like the d-pad just randomly not working some of the time. The stick would still work (both control movement), and then the d-pad would work again a few seconds later. Weird, unfortunate issues that only games have, and drag this one down a bit. But just a bit, because I still 100% think this game is worth your time if you haven't played it. And if I haven't convinced you yet, with what may be the longest I've written about a singular PS+ game since the PS+ Catch Up feature began, then I'll just remind you that it's free on PlayStation platforms until the end of the month, so you have nothing to lose!

Also, there's a dog. I love dogs.

OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood.

This is a bit of a weird one for me to write about. I didn't play the original OlliOlli (not unless you count playing a few minutes of it on my friend's Vita during PAX, which was after I had played most of OlliOlli 2), and I've never owned or really played any 3D skateboarding games. I didn't really have any frame of reference to go into this game with, so I just kinda played it. It's all right. I haven't technically finished it, because I still have a couple of the regular levels left. I only managed to five star one level (the very first one), which means I only unlocked one of the bonus levels (there's one for five starring every regular level), so the idea of me playing every level in this game is just absurd.

Why? OlliOlli 2 is REALLY hard. I'm also REALLY terrible at it. I still enjoyed it, though. Aside from the music, which I disliked so much I just straight up turned it off not long into the game. Which was helpful because I ended up using the game as a podcast game. I'm sure that didn't help me play it any better, but at least the lack of music made it easier to pay attention to the podcasts!

There's not really much else for me to say. It's enjoyable, and I'll probably try to at least finish those last two levels, but that's it.

Counter Spy.

This one is a bit odd in how much my opinion of it changed between starting and finishing the game. Which I did in one day. When I started it, I liked it a whole lot. Loved the style of the game (both in looks and audio), and thought it was a fun little side scrolling (maybe procedurally generated?) stealth game. But by the time I finished it, I felt conflicted between, "well that was really short," and, "on second thought, I don't want to play any more of it anyway."

And that's a bummer, because there's something to the game. It's just way too easy and doesn't have nearly enough variety. It's a stealth game, and it definitely encourages being stealthy over just running and gunning. It does some cool stuff that most side scrolling games don't do, too. Like being able to take cover, and then the camera moves to a Gears of War style perspective, and you can freely aim. Sometimes toward whichever side it was that you were facing, sometimes deeper into the background of the game. That's a neat thing that I'd like to see in some more games.

But the problem is that, like I said, it's too easy. Playing it the way I usually play stealth games (try to be stealthy, but engage in combat when I screw up) resulted in me just gunning my way through a lot of the game. The controls are mostly fine, but sometimes I screwed up and was spotted because I fumbled a bit with navigating the environments. Sometimes I got seen because the perspective didn't really let me clearly see that there was an enemy that saw me (though that's probably also on me some of the time). And even if you do die in a gunfight, the enemies you killed stay dead, so the only downside is that the DEFCON level raises (decreases? It's always confused me because I think they say it raises but then the number gets lower), which affects a thing. I guess, manages the DEFCONs between the Fake US and Fake USSR was so easy that it wasn't a problem.

And that's another thing. The game has this neat system where you need to infiltrate different Fake US and Fake USSR facilities to steal documents to foil their attempts to blow up the moon, and each one has its own DEFCON rating. Screw up enough, and they launch an attack on the moon, and presumably force you to restart the game (but keep upgrades). And I guess that would explain why I was able to get to the end in a couple of hours. But, as I've said, it's too easy. At no point did I feel like I was struggling to get anything done, or accomplishing anything too hard. I do think there's a higher difficulty setting, but it's too late for that now!

But don't get me wrong, I did still enjoy it, overall. I just had my opinion of it sour as I got deeper into it. It's interesting in some ways, and worth checking out.

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee: New 'n' Tasty!

At least I think that's the name of the game. The logo in game puts the New 'n' Tasty on top, and it certainly didn't spell odyssey correctly.

Honestly, I went into this one with low expectations, and stopped about an hour later when I got stuck, and my first thought was, "I would rather never play this again than go through the effort to look up what to do." Which isn't to say that it's bad. It's fine. It's okay. There's some stuff in there that's kinda interesting. But it also didn't hold my attention enough for me to want to keep playing. So I stopped.

It did make me remember that I never played Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. That would probably be the Oddworld game for me. I'll just wait for the Remaster of the PS3 remake that was released a few years ago. I wish I was joking but geez, there's a lot of these remasters these days, huh?

Anything else?

I finally beat Rogue Legacy! It took over twenty hours, and literally hundreds of attempts, but I did it! I was kind of surprised, actually. After all the many, MANY attempts that I made on the other four bosses, I figured the final boss would be even harder. But instead I beat it on my first attempt, and with the same character I used to beat the boss in The Land of Darkness. I was actually a little disappointed in how easily I beat the final boss. This wasn't like Spelunky, where it was a feeling of pure, boundless joy and relief. I was happy, and it felt good, but not that good.

Then I went right back in and started a new game plus...Only to realize that the game is WAY harder on new game plus. Like, to the point where I wasn't even having much fun trying to just get through the starting castle area. I'll keep trying, but I have doubts about beating new game plus.

In other news, I helped the forces of Super Earth conquer the bug homeworld, Kepler Prime, in Helldivers over the weekend. It was fun, and nice to get double XP for helping the war effort. I'm also surprised that the game actually locked me out from doing any bug missions after that, and I can't help but wonder how long that'll be the case. It'd be kinda cool if it just stayed that way until the other two factions are defeated, but I bet it'll reset after a few days. Hell, for all I know it might have already, but I don't feel like turning on my PS4 right now just to check, and I don't feel like actually playing at this moment in time.

It's also kind of a bummer because the thing I need to unlock to get access to the final upgrade on my heavy machine gun was on a bug planet, but I can't get to it now! It's also kinda weird that some of the upgrades work that way. You need to upgrade one thing enough to open up the final upgrade on a separate thing. It's odd.

I bought a couple games in the PSN Flash Sale over the weekend. Specifically Surgeon Simulator and Noby Noby Boy. Both were about $.90 each. I played enough of Surgeon Simulator to realize that it's super dumb and will be funny to watch other people try to play, and I've yet to download Noby Noby Boy. But rest assured, I will, and I will help Girl grow!!!

I've poked around a little in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Core Fighters (or whatever the free version is called), played a few matches online with a friend. Nothing else to say.

But that's been it. Now I'm just waiting for Bloodborne. Nothing else to really talk about in my life outside of games. Not yet, anyway. Anything else worth mentioning is, well, a long term thing that I will talk about when the time is right. The time isn't right yet. But, things are going as well as I reckon they could be, so don't worry. I'm holding up well.

So see you next time, with Bloodborne!