THE 100 GAMES TO PLAY NOW

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

A slithering handheld high

FORMAT PSP / YEAR 2010 / PUB KONAMI / DEV KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS / ISSUE OPM #46 / SCORE 9/10

100 How Kojima and co managed to squeeze an adventure of such polish and scope onto PSP only 1,623 sacrificed goats and the La-li-lu-le-lo know. Taking MGS4’s enjoyably fluid controls and porting them into snack-sized missions, this was a far leaner, more focused brand of stealth. The game’s indelible legacy is Mother Base – an awesome quasi-RTS that allows you to manage Snake’s fabled fortress.

Tokyo Jungle

It’s animal crackers

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2012 PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO ISSUE OPM #76 / SCORE 7/10

99 What if humans suddenly became extinct, leaving nature to reclaim their concrete cities? That’s the idea behind Tokyo Jungle, where you take your pick of animal from herbivore to carnivore and set out trying to survive from generation to generation. As well as a survival mode, there’s also a story mode that follows each main animal. It’s a truly strange game, but exploring ruins and hunting for food becomes incredibly more-ish as you fight for your beast of choice, from pomeranians to hyenas, to emerge unscathed. This is a cult classic you really should play – and now you can.

Flower

Winds of change

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2009/2013 PUB SONY / DEV THATGAMECOMPANY, BLUEPOINT GAMES ISSUE OPM #29 / SCORE 9/10

98 We’re used to emotional, non-challenging, allegorical games, but ten years ago when Flower (the sequel to Flow, also available on PS Now) put us in control of a gust of wind making a flower petal dance to bring colour and life to a world, we were taken aback. There’s no alien invasion to battle or zombie hordes to fend off, it’s just you and an emotional connection to a fluttering flower across six implied narrative arcs. While the original released a decade ago on PS3, on PS Now we get the improved visuals of the later PS4 remaster.

Ape Escape

No monkeying around! Time you tried this PlayStation classic

FORMAT PS1 / YEAR 1999 PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO ISSUE N/A / SCORE N/A

97 We couldn’t omit this iconic platformer in the year it marks its 20th anniversary. Created to showcase the new DualShock controller’s twin analogue sticks back in 1999, the game remains a cute and novel challenge. The cheeky and somewhat evil ape, Specter, has created an army of intelligent monkeys and sent them through time to rewrite history. Armed with an arsenal of fun gadgets and a large net, it’s your job to catch ’em all and maintain normality, albeit a status quo that gives super-smart monkeys access to time machines.

Red Faction Guerilla Re-MARS-tered

A smashing cult classic you may not totally recall

FORMAT PS4 / YEAR 2011 PUB THQ NORDIC / DEV VOLITION ISSUE OPM #33 / SCORE 8/10 (ORIGINAL VERSION)

96 This series has had more makeovers than Madonna. Wedged between the first- and third-person shooter iterations is this open world GTA-like adventure. The series’ hallmark destruction – you can break, explode, or crush nearly everything – is a perfect fit for a sandbox adventure. While the reason behind all that destruction is superficial and gets lost in the action, there’s fun in the ensuing chaos. PS Now gets last year’s pun-tastic remastered edition, which had a 4K visual upgrade.

The Darkness II

Tentacles, gun-fu, and Mike Patton – what’s not to like?

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2012 PUB 2K GAMES DEV DIGITAL EXTREMES ISSUE OPM #68 / SCORE 7/10

95 This first-person shooter with light RPGing is the sequel to the Starbreezedeveloped game, and pips it, Godfather-2-style, to be our preferred entry in the series. With Warframe’s Digital Extremes at the helm you get more action with your weirdness. As well as picking off enemies with the Darkness’ ‘creeping tendrils’ you can dual-wield guns. It’s one of PlayStation’s stranger shooters, made all the weirder by Faith No More singer Mike Patton whispering bloody demands in the role of the Darkness.

Heavenly Sword

Third time’s the harm

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2007 PUB SONY / DEV NINJA THEORY ISSUE OPM #10 / SCORE 7/10

94 As a PS3 window launch game Heavenly Sword can suffer from the same overuse of Sixaxis tech that plagued Lair and Uncharted. But motion-controlled segments where you manually fly arrows through tiny gaps, for example, can’t hold back the core flow of the game; its God Of War-style combos, sense of exploration, and neat puzzles force you onwards. The Stance system saves the melee hits from feeling repetitive – Nariko’s Heavenly Sword can change from twin to chained to one massive over-sized blade. Still fresh years later.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Ultimate Sith Edition

Proving even very average character design can be fun

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2009 PUB LUCASARTS / DEV LUCASARTS ISSUE OPM #24 / SCORE 7/10

93 You play Darth Vader’s secret apprentice Starkiller (a nod to Luke Skywalker’s original name) on a mission to hunt down and kill Jedi. Mixing melee combat and Force powers, this does a good job of making you feel like a Sith-Lord-in-waiting, even though Starkiller is a little bland. On PS Now we get the Ultimate Sith Edition, which came out a year after the game’s release, and features all the DLC and new content. This is the definitive version.

LocoRoco Remastered

If you can whistle it, we’ll carry on playing this one

FORMAT PS4 / YEAR 2017 PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO ISSUE OPM 138 / SCORE 8/10

92 You need to experience the bouncy, joyful nonsense of LocoRoco at least once in your life, and on PS Now you can enjoy the sharp, upscaled visuals of the PS4 remaster. The gameplay remains identical to the PSP original, with you guiding your Loco through mazes of puzzles and dangers, eating fruit to swell its size – its new blobby weight activates some platforms and gizmos – or downsizing to squeeze into gaps. Oh, and that music! Some of the best earworms in games, ever.

Steep

Can get stuck in the powder, but looks good doing it

FORMAT PS4 / YEAR 2016 PUB UBISOFT / DEV UBISOFT ANNECY ISSUE OPM #132 / SCORE 6/10

91 Ubisoft applies its open world know-how to winter sports as it takes the familiar trick-based snowboarding of old up a mountain or four. Add in skiing, wingsuits, and paragliding and Steep becomes an all-in-one adrenaline junkie’s playground. The sheer wealth of sports to try and things to do in this snowy paradise can be unsettling, and a little unfocused. But on PS Now, it’s a solid addition to the library and offers something nothing else on the streaming service can: slick open-world winter sports.

Motorstorm Apocalypse

Even as the world ends, you gotta get your race on

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2011 PUB SONY / DEV EVOLUTION STUDIOS ISSUE OPM #56 / SCORE 8/10

90 The Motorstorm series feels a little forgotten in Sony’s back catalogue, but this third entry deserves to be played. The racing is set at a Motorstorm Festival that’s hit by a massive natural disaster, which means the tracks can change as you race. Earthquakes, tornadoes, and even helicopters crashing through buildings can alter a track’s layout. If that’s not enough, factions trying to scupper the races will invade the tracks and attempt to ram or blow you off the road.

The Last Guy

Tokyo maze runner

FORMAT PS3 / YEAR 2008 PUB SONY / DEV JAPAN STUDIO ISSUE N/A / SCORE N/A

89 By gamifying high-resolution satellite imagery from Google Earth, The Last Guy was one of PlayStation’s first genuinely great indies. As ‘the last guy’ you must search the world’s most famous