Welcome to our weekly recap pertaining to all things Inside PlayStation Network. Every MON-FRI, PSU shines the spotlight on a piece of content plucked from the digital delights of Sony’s online service, be it a chunk of DLC, PSOne Classic or regular PSN release. In case you missed out on any of this week’s entries, here’s your chance to catch up and see what titles we dissected under the microscope.
Monday – Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
If videogames were comparable to a type of beverage, then Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions would very much be a posh bottle of plonk. Indeed, Square’s celebrated RPG-offshoot has aged very much like a fine wine, while other games probably share more in common with a keg of beer. Strategically rewarding even by today’s harsh standards, War of Lion is essentially a tweaked port of the original 1998 PSOne outing, adding in all-new cut scenes as well as fresh character classes and playable heroes. (Click here for full article).
Tuesday – Chocobo Racing
Released at the height of 32-bit Final Fantasy hysteria back in 1999, Chocobo Racing represents one of Square’s shameless attempts to cash-in on the meteoric rise in popularity of its mammoth-selling RPG series. Not content with spin-offs Final Fantasy Tactics and Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon, the Japanese giant saw fit to make the transition to the racing genre with this cutesy kart romp, staring Final Fantasy’s loveable yellow, unofficial mascot. (Click here for full article).
Wednesday – Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider II marked the beginning of heroine Lara Croft’s annual adventures on Sony’s grey box of tricks, a trend that would continue for the next couple of years before culminating in 2000 with the retrospective PSOne swansong, Revelations. Released in 1997, Tomb Raider II represents a time in Croft’s illustrious career that the public were practically salivating at the lips for another chance to hop into those brown boots. After a stonking start with the original 1996 classic, Croft found herself catapulted to mainstream success, becoming permanent staple of modern pop culture; a testament to this feat can be seen in the fact the nimble heroine found herself as a centrepiece on Irish rockers U2’s PopMart tour. Unsurprisingly, TR II sold like hotcakes. (Click here for full article).
Thursday – PixelJunk Racers
A slot car-inspired outing from Q-Games’ now-ubiquitous PixelJunk series, PixelJunk Racers offers up a bunch of bite-sized events suitable for either solo or multiplayer consumption. Like its barebones aesthetic, the game’s controls couldn’t be more simplistic. Players use the D-pad or analogue stick to switch lanes, hitting L2 or R2 to toggle speed. As you’d expect from slot car racing, you don’t have any direct steering control, and therefore can only change lanes one at a time. (Click here for full article).
Friday – Secret Agent Clank
Ratchet & Clank remain perhaps one of the most iconic modern day game heroes to grace a PlayStation platform. Kind of like a gaming equivalent of Ant & Dec (minus the Geordie accents, naturally) the duo have bagged a series of celebrated platform romps under their belt, a trend that looks set to continue for some time. However, this PSP outing sees diminutive sidekick Clank stepping out of Ratchet’s shadow for some much-deserved time in the limelight in this stealthy Bond spoof, Secret Agent Clank. (Click here for full article).