Gadgetory

this year has been an amazing year for video games not just for big triple-a titles that everybody rushes out to grab but also for smaller indie games now we've talked about the Xbox one we talked about the switch well now it's time for the ps4 to take a turn as we talk about the best ps4 games that you can grab for 20 bucks and under we're gonna start off with a game called night in the woods night in the woods is a fairly classic style adventure game but with a lower focus on problem solving and a bigger emphasis on exploration and dialogue you'll spend most the game exploring a small town and talking to its inhabitants learning about their personalities their histories and relations of another also everyone is some kind of animal which can be a little weird at times now the game starts off fairly tame and straightforward with its plot line you're a character named May you've just come back to your hometown after a few years of college and you're experiencing how things have changed while you've been gone but as you get further and further into the game things start to get a lot weirder and much much more bizarre than things started out as if you're the kind of person that has a little trouble focusing on games that are this narrative heavy the good news is it also throws in a number of different small minigames that breaks up the pacing and are actually surprisingly really good for being such small additions it's fun it's weird and sometimes the plot can hit a little close to home not in the woods is definitely worth checking out now narrative heavy games are all well and good but sometimes you just want a fun cheap game that lets you blow stuff up and see lots of pretty colors and that's exactly the point of next machina now next machina falls under the same kind of pattern but instead of being a side-scrolling shooter where you're flying a ship instead falls more on the lines like something like geometry Wars where it's a twin stick shooter where you run around aiming in different directions using the right stick now the structure of this game is very very simple there's no story mode or anything complex like that it's just a fun old-fashioned arcade style game where you're running from level to level blowing stuff up and they get surprisingly difficult at times because there is so much different things you have to juggle and pay attention to you're normally shooting and destroying enemies but you're making sure to keep your distance from them there are human civilians they have to save from the Indies before they can reach them lasers you have to dash through all kinds of crazy stuff all happening on this beautifully presented world when you need a game that's just simple fun that you can jump in and out of without having to worry about where you were in the story or what's going on next machina is the perfect to fill in those shoes especially for the kind of person addicted getting high scores now next actually won't talk about two games because there's a lot they both have in common they're both 15 bucks they're both HD remasters of classic Sony games they're both rhythm games albeit very different ones and they're both so delightfully weird and that's parappa the rapper and Patapon now for those of you that have only heard of it or have never really played it before Parappa the rapper is a classic ps1 game which is a very simple rhythm game all you have to do is hit the right buttons at the right time displayed up above all while watching and listening to really bizarre rap videos about baking cakes or how to drive properly meanwhile with Patapon you're basically this drum god thing that these little one-eyed creatures worship and you command them by entering the right drumbeats with the right timing so you're constantly having to maintain the same kind of tempo while issuing different commands like square square square circle to move forward or Circle Circle Square Circle to attack now one thing that is really weird about both these titles is that while they are very good-looking during gameplay as part of the HD remaster the HD remaster only actually redid those gameplay parts all the different cutscenes and things in between are still an outdated old resolutions which can be really jarring when you're switching between those and the gameplay despite that though it does nothing to detract from just how fun and addicting both of these titles can be honestly if you've never played either of them pick them both up right now they are so much fun and then we have thunder now sundered is a new game that falls under this kind of genre I've been seeing emerging more and more with indie titles which is roguelike Metroidvania games that take the metroid aspects where you have a nonlinear progression you get different items and abilities at all you to explore areas you can reach before but also take elements of roguelikes where you're constantly dying unlocking new abilities getting more powerful to try and survive your next playthrough and each time you do so while the overall map maintains the same kind of general design individual rooms are constantly changing so you never can actually take the exact same route you did one time before this is coupled with beautiful visuals and probably most interesting of all out of the game this very bizarre plotline involving an ancient civilization some kind of dark maybe Cthulhu like God and how everything went horribly wrong way back when and how you can escape now now not only does the game make use of procedural generation to make each playthrough a little bit different they also has three different endings to watch so all in all that makes for an extremely replayable game you could spend a lot of hours into especially if Metroidvania czar your jam as I said earlier this year has been a tremendously good year for games and this next title is not only a great game for 20 bucks but honestly I would argue that is one of the best games of this year period and that's pyre pyre is the newest release from supergiant games the same developer behind Bastion and transistor and just like with those last two games something that I really love about the studio is that they maintain a similar art style a similar excellent musical score yet each game is extremely different and in Pires case I'm not even sure what genre really typify it as I guess the simplest way to do it is that it's a sports RPG visual novel the progression of pyre is very simple you start off the story into your first sports match win or lose you move on get to the next match wash rinse repeat until the end but that's what's really interesting about this game is that losing is not a game over instead every time you lose there our plot implications for what's happening in the game's plot line now hearing this you might think that this is one of those games where well obviously I have to win every match if I want to get the best ending in the game and if I lose a bunch I'm gonna get the bad ending not the case at all there are merely simply different endings with tons of permutations based on which teams win which teams lose and none of them are really truly better than any other other than how your own personal interpretation may be now the brushing plotline does help to keep the game really replayable but honestly what just keeps me hooked is that the actual core sports gameplay is really really good I mean it's this interesting fusion of 3v3 sports but also kinda RPG where each character has their own abilities that can unlock different play styles different ways of dodging attacks taking out enemies it's just a really bizarre game that's hard to explain the rules too until you start playing it and it is so much fun and the best part is even once you finish the game you're done doing the story mode a bunch of times the game still offers a multiplayer mode where you and your friends can play locally against each other using the myriad of characters that you've met across the game story honestly supergiant games is just a studio that has continued to pleasantly surprise me and I cannot stress enough how good this game is and worth checking out it is worth every penny of the $20 asking price