It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The PlayStation January Sale is now live with some absolute bargains on top titles both old and new. We’ve taken a deeper dive to bring you our own PlayStation January sale favourite picks:
Tom’s Favourite Picks
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a cartoony platform action game, taking you on a sci-fi journey across multiple gorgeous planets. The game makes full use of the PS5’s abilities; it’s graphically stunning, and haptic feedback and trigger resistance are used to great immersive effect. Rift Apart is also a showcase for the console’s zippy SSD, with wormholes pulling you into expansive new locations in the blink of an eye.
As with any Ratchet & Clank game, much of the appeal lies in the huge arsenal of zany weapons. My favourite has to be the Topiary Sprinkler, a small turret that turns enemies into shrubbery and leaves them vulnerable to attack. I must warn you that it’s not exactly a lengthy game, but at a reduced price of £34.99/$29.39, Rift Apart packs in a whole lot of fun for your money.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Galactic Edition
The Skywalker Saga is the first Lego game in a few years, a welcome break that might not have resulted in a total change to that formula, but has allowed for some important refinements. The structure will be familiar to anyone who has played a recent Lego game. There are five levels for each of the nine mainline Star Wars movies, with multiple vast open areas filled with side missions in-between. The variety of environments is staggering, all beautifully rendered in Lego form. The side quests and puzzles aren’t exactly challenging, but they’re enjoyable and well-written.
The gameplay itself hasn’t undergone a radical transformation either, but there have been some smart changes here too. The camera stays a lot closer to your character, even switching to an over-the-shoulder view when you pull out a blaster and start shooting; you can even take cover behind pillars and chest-height walls like most shooters from the last decade. Hand to hand combat now involves countering and pulling off combos, rather than only mashing one button. It’s no Gears of War or Dark Souls, of course, but it does feel like a much more modern third person action game.
The Galactic Edition bundles in a historic franchise’s worth of levels as well as two large character packs, making it incredibly easy to recommend at £34.99/$39.99. The Force is strong in this one.
Castle Crashers Remastered
If you were a terminally online teenager in the early/mid 2000s (like me!), there’s a good chance you spent some time on Newgrounds.com. It was a haven of crude Flash-based cartoon and games, but more relevantly, its creator Tom Fulp later went on to co-found indie game studo The Behemoth. Now, one of their earliest games Castle Crashers is available on PS4 in all its remastered glory.
Castle Crashers Remastered is a madcap hack and slash game, where you and up to three friends play as knights on a quest to save the realm’s young princesses from an evil wizard. I have such fond memories of playing the Xbox 360 original with my sister, and I can’t recommend playing this co-op experience enough, whether you play online or on the couch. At a mere £6.99/$7.49, you and your mates can pick up four copies for less than the price of a mid-range takeaway and have a lot more fun.
Joe’s Favourite Picks
Control: Ultimate Edition
Long-time PS Plus subscribers may have already bagged this wonderful game for free last year, but for anyone who missed out, I can’t recommend Control enough. With a similar dose of strangeness as their 2010 cult hit, Alan Wake, Remedy Entertainment deliver a thoroughly engrossing story with a unique voice and stellar gameplay.
Playing as the enigmatic Jesse Faden, you’ll explore the shifting corridors of the Federal Bureau of Control in search of your missing brother, Dylan. Making your way through the labyrinthine building, you’ll soon realise that the Bureau has been overcome by supernatural forces which you must defeat in order to regain control.
Armed with a raft of powers and a shape-shifting gun, combat is gleefully chaotic and unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The Maze fight sequence is easily one of the most bizarre few minutes you’ll have sat in front of your TV, but it’s also absolutely thrilling and left me picking my jaw up off the floor.
At only £7.49/$8.99 in the PlayStation January sale, it’s an absolute steal.
Metro Exodus
Okay, I’ll hold my hands up – I picked up Metro Exodus on a bit of a whim last year, having not played any of the previous instalments in the series. The game does a good job of catching you up with the story so far, so you’ll be able to jump straight in with a decent understanding of what’s going on.
Playing as the mysterious Artyom, you’ll lead a gang of survivors across post-apocalyptic Russia in search of sanctuary amongst the chaos. First off, I was majorly impressed with how good Metro Exodus looks. If you’re lucky enough to own a PS5, you can upgrade to the Enhanced Edition for free which adds ray-tracing at a beautifully smooth 4K 60fps. DualSense implementation is great too; from the satisfying blast of a shotgun to the pump of your rechargeable flash light, you’ll feel fully immersed as you roam the ravaged wastelands.
At a mere £6.24/$7.49 in the PlayStation January sale, this is not to be missed.