State of Play

With almost 100 million consoles sold, all the biggest gaming franchises, a catalogue of killer exclusives and the futuristic experience that is VR, Sony’s PlayStation 4 is a gamer’s paradise. Each month we catch up on the latest and greatest PS4 news and announcements.

Big This Month

eFootball PES 2020

Don’t let the name fool you; this is the same great Pro Evolution Soccer series PlayStation fans have enjoyed for decades. The eFootball in the title points to a new focus on eSports and an organic integration of online tournament play for players into such things. For everyone else, however, PES provides the same spectacle it always has. If you went off the series during the rocky PS3 era, it’s well worth rekindling your relationship with Konami’s iconic soccer action. The moment to moment gameplay through that middle third is best in class once again, with precise control of the ball at your feet, wonderfully balanced defence and offence, and an intelligent AI that move players wisely based on your actions. The new Matchday Mode brings real-world weekly matches into the game, while the Master League has been revamped completely, making something already scarily deep the Mariana Trench! It doesn’t have the licenses, visual polish or mode variety of FIFA, but damn, it plays great!

Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot

It’s hard to believe that it’s 2019 and Wolfenstein has never been cooler! The original first-person shooter has not only just come back with a great co-op PS4 adventure game, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, but also this PSVR experience, Cyberpilot. It’s important you set your expectations correctly before jumping into Cyberpilot; it’s not a fully-fledged experience like Youngblood. Instead, it’s a curious diversion, that offers you a chance to feel what it’s like to step onto the gorgeous streets of Paris and set fire to Nazis. The experience goes for less than two hours, but has three different experiences loosely tied together by a story. You can stomp through the streets as one of the dog-like mechs from the main game slaughtering everyone and causing widespread destruction. You can fly a drone in stealth sections, sneaking up on and electrocuting foes. Or there is plenty of hands-on puzzle solving, using tools and gadgets by moving your virtual hands and interacting with objects. Altogether it’s a fun curiosity for PSVR owners who are looking for more after Youngblood.

Wreckfest

We’re pretty sure developer Bugbear Entertainment is made up almost entirely by rednecks. With its Flatout series, the studio became synonymous with over-the-top, off-road racing games that largely involved muscle cars crashing at high speeds into backwater locations. Wreckfest is the developer’s latest effort and follows a similar trajectory. You level-up, customise and earn an evermore diverse range of vehicles (utes, muscle cars, fender benders) and other oddities (lawn mowers, combine harvesters, caravans and buses) and race them in circuits, off-road tracks and demolition derbies. With easy handling, incredible crash effects that sees cars break down into bits or destroy obstacles, jumps and online multiplayer, it feels like old-school racing game. However, it plays as good as the modern gems of the genre.

For the full article grab the September 2019 issue of MAXIM Australia from newsagents and convenience locations. Subscribe here.