With the PlayStation version of Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home, the PSVR2 port of Before Your Eyes and console ports of Cions of Vega and The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature, we’re heading into the weekend with four games that recently found new homes on other platforms.
Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home review (PS4)
Released on Steam back in November by Enjoy Studio and Longterm Games, Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home is now available on PlayStation and Xbox as well – bringing the puzzle platformer in which you star as a spacefaring canine to new platforms and audiences.
Protagonist Bea finds herself amidst aliens and robots on her search to find her human friends again, and although the game initially looks like a typical 2D platformer the game’s puzzles make great use of some dog-specific capabilities. And as with most any good puzzle platformer, you’ll gradually learn new skills to use, keeping the puzzle gameplay feeling fresh across some well realized and diverse environments, ranging from industrial to lush over the course of the campaign.
And while some abilities are fairly standard for the genre, it’s the more dog-specific ones that stand out. Bea can use her heightened sense of smell to navigate and find her way, but it’ll also tell her when there are toxins you should avoid. In addition, you can use familiar dog behavior like wagging your tail or rolling over to try and communicate with the aliens you run into – or just resort to barking if that doesn’t work.
If you look past the “dog in space” premise then Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home is a fairly standard puzzle platformer, but it’s one that has more than enough charm for its 5 hour runtime, with an interesting story and a few decent puzzles to solve along the way. Since it’s available for a budget price, it’s worth a look if you enjoy the genre.
Before Your Eyes review (PSVR2)
Developer GoodbyeWorld Games and Skybound launched Before Your Eyes on Steam almost two years ago, and we remember seeing its announcement because it had such a novel idea to it – you control the game with nothing but the blinking of your eyes. When they announced a port for the PSVR2 headset, we thought it was a natural fit, thanks to the new headset’s built technology for eye tracking.
Story-wise (and this is a very story-heavy game – almost like an interactive experience rather than a traditional game), Before Your Eyes places you in the afterlife, where you’re pulled out of the water by a ferryman who tells you he’ll take you to the “gatekeeper”, who holds the key towards letting you back into the land of the living. And while the original release of the game was for a flat screen format, the Before Your Eyes’ cartoon-like visuals translate extremely well towards VR.
What makes this such a unique experience is that you have no physical interface to control the game with – no traditional gamepad, no Sense controller, and not even a need to reach out and put your hands into the view for a bit of hand tracking like some Quest games offer. Essentially, it’s your blinking that pushes the story forward – which is basically a retelling of your life to the ferryman on your way to the gatekeeper.
As such, the game’s title is no coincidence – this is literally your life flashing before your eyes. Blinking means you fast forward in the story, and because the storytelling is very well done you’ll try to keep yourself from blinking as long as you can. And, we considered wearing glasses with a printout of opened eyes to trick the game (let us know how you get on with that one). Get ready for some “oooooooh, but I wanted to know more!” moments. Unless you feel like you can keep yourself from blinking longer this is a game with a limited amount of replay value, but it’s incredibly unique and anyone willing to wear the headset can experience it for themselves. With so many PSVR2 releases available on other VR platforms as well, this is one of the more standout titles yet.
Cions of Vega review (PS5)
Long time collaborators Tonguç Bodur and Eastasiasoft are bringing another one of the developer’s PC titles to consoles with Cions of Vega – a walking sim with the usual impressive visual work that was originally released almost two years ago on Steam.
Story-wise, you’re looking for your lost daughter Leila – who’s just one of the people disappearing from your town while a strange cult grows more influential. Together with your brother Logan, you set out to find her – opening gates in order to progress, which is one of the main gameplay mechanics here in a story that only lasts about an hour if you know where to go. As such, this one’s relatively light on story content, despite the interesting premise.
As with most Tonguç Bodur titles, the graphics are very impressive for a low budget game like this – the lighting effects being particularly noteworthy this time, adding a nice sense of atmosphere to this short story – as do the ambient sound effects that play. This is the kind of game you pick up to play through over the course of a single evening if you enjoy story-driven walking simulators, and if that’s your genre then you’ll enjoy the budget-friendly price point – though we imagine trophy hunters will also be happy about the short running time and the fact that the PS4 and PS5 versions are bundled together in each purchase.
The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature get PS5 port
This is actually the second time we’ve featured The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature in one of our port roundups, as the game launched on PlayStation 4 almost exactly a year ago after an earlier Steam version. Now, it’s been ported over to PlayStation 5 as well, making a native version available to those playing on Sony’s current flagship console.
Content-wise, it’s no surprise that the new version is exactly the same as the previous ones – and on the surface you’d be forgiven for thinking it looks identical as well. We checked both versions side by side though, and noticed slightly faster load times as well increased visual detail. Not the kind where we’d advise players to go out and buy the game again (there’s no upgrade for current owners), but if you have the choice between the two versions the PS5 one is the better choice – though the changes are rather subtle.
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