Playstation Plus: What’s Worth Downloading – Update #10

Wow. Is it really the 10th update for Playstation Plus? One half of me is surprised it’s been that long while the other half is surprised at what little we’ve gotten so far. Looking over this week’s collection, I do feel it’s an okay week, at least in terms of quantity if not quality. However, considering Europe’s getting all of the Fallout 3 DLC packs for free, this week pales in comparison. Seriously, Europe has had an amazing Playstation Plus offering ranging from a full free Little Big Planet to those aforementioned Fallout 3 DLC packs and here in the States we’ve gotten, well, a mediocre selection of things at best.

As always, if you’re wondering if Playstation Plus is worth the money, then see if you fit into one of the three categories of gamers:

1) You have barely downloaded anything from the Playstation store prior to using the service. Oddly enough the less loyal a customer you are to Sony, the better PS+ works out for you as chance are the people with either a big wallet or a lot of love for the PS3 have bought a lot of the few good games that are offered on the service. If you’re this type of gamer you’ll more than likely get your money’s worth with the service

2) You don’t mind a coupon service. Primarily Playstation Plus has turned out to be a purveyor of coupons. As in, you the consumer, have paid money up front to pay a little less money down the road on various discounted games throughout your subscription. If you’re this type of gamer it will be harder for you to get your money’s worth unless you buy a LOT of games through the Playstation Plus discount, but it’s feasible.

3) You view PS+ as a RENTAL service or a way to try out a lot of free second and third rate downloadable titles. This is probably the best way to view PS+ if you don’t want to spend any money on the discounted games. Most of the minis and PSOne titles haven’t been very good, but at least they are free and you know better to actually PURCHASE them through the service. At the same time, we’ve gotten some fun games like Zen Pinball, Critter Crunch and Mushroom Wars for free. These are all games you’ll be able to get a lot of use out of with your subscription, and yet you won’t feel bad for not buying them when you let your PS+ subscription run out. Besides, those three games, which are well worth buying on their own at $9.99 each if you don’t have PS+ total $30 and that’s more than half your subscription rate for the year (or 15 month plan depending on if you were an early subscriber) . Just remember this is a RENTAL service and that when you let this expire, you’ll have to buy these games on their own if you find you love them.

If you don’t fit into one of these three categories, PS+ really isn’t worth your money or your time. This is simply because you won’t get your $50 out of it.

With this week’s edition, we’ll be continuing with the same format. We’ll take a quick look at the Playstation Plus lineup for this week and then break it down into six categories:

1. Already own, but would have purchased without PSPlus if I hadn’t.

2. Already own, but regret purchasing.

3. Don’t own, but would have purchased w/out PSPlus.

4. Wouldn’t have purchased, but downloaded due to PSPlus.

5. Wouldn’t bother downloading this regardless.

6. Discount isn’t enough to make me pull the trigger.

So there we go. Six possible categories each PSPlus item can fall under. Then at the end of the column we’ll see if I got my $3.33 for the mouth out of it.


Playstation Plus Update for October 19th, 2010

Tomb Raider: Underworld Game Trial (Free and Exclusive to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
Burn Zombie Burn (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers, original price $9.99)
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers, original Price $9.99)
Bloons – minis (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers, original price $2.99)
Everyday Shooter (PlayStation Plus Price $5.00, original price $9.99)
Everyday Shooter PSP (PlayStation Plus Price $5.00, original price $9.99)
Shienryu (PlayStation Plus Price $3.00, original price $5.99)
Tall Unlimited (PlayStation Plus Price $3.00, original price $5.99)
Killzone 3 Beta Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
Halloween Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
Wise Father Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)


Now eleven things is nothing to sneeze about, but I’d trade everything on that list for some of the Fallout content – even though I already own it. I still can’t believe how vastly different Playstation Plus is from one side of the pond to the next. Anyway, let’s see how things stack up.

1. Already own, but would have purchased without PSPlus if I hadn’t.

Nothing. This is usually empty which on one hand is good because it means there’s no doubling up, but on the other there’s nothing that I can give a definite thumb’s up to like Critter Crunch or Zen Pinball.

2. Already own, but regret purchasing.
Nothing. Always a good sign.

3. Don’t own, but would have purchased w/out PSPlus.

Not a thing, although Shienryu might be close.

4. Wouldn’t have purchased, but downloaded due to PSPlus.

Burn Zombie Burn – This is one of those things I downloaded ONLY because it was free and the “big game” this update. Man, I can’t believe people would pay five bucks for this, much less the $9.99 price tag it normally comes with. It’s boring, repetitive, aiming is horrible, controls are sluggish (mainly due to the sheer amount of zombies on the screen at the same time) and it’s pretty damn ugly. I couldn’t recommend this to anyone except the hipsters who are still stuck in the annoying zombie fad. Even then it would only be if I wanted to be cruel to them.

Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee – I was never really a fan of the Oddworld games, but considering up until this update, this game cost $9.99, it’s worth fiddling with to see if it’s improved with age. Considering the other PSOne “classics” we’ve received from Playstation Plus haven’t…I’m not holding my breath.

Bloons – This was a cute little 20 stage puzzle game where you throw darts to break balloons. It’s nothing fancy and I beat the whole thing while waiting for all my other downloads from this week’s update to complete, but it was a decent time waster. It’s a one-off game so three bucks may be worth it for the level editor, but that’s about it.

Halloween Theme – How sad is it that the best thing we got this update was a really nice Halloween oriented Dynamic theme. It’s a very cute theme with claymation style art and a surprise if you let it sit for too long. This is by far my favorite dynamic theme yet.

5. Wouldn’t bother downloading this regardless.

Tomb Raider: Underworld Game Trial – Are you serious? Europe gets free Fallout 3 content and we get a two year old crappy Tomb Raider trial? What’s worse is that this is a 6GB DOWNLOAD for something you can only play for an hour. This is just stupid beyond belief. I would love to actually meet someone that thinks this is not only a good idea but worth the download time. Jesus.

Tall Unlimited – This is the first of the eight PSone games Monkey Paw has brought to the Playstation Store that I haven’t purchased or already owned. I looked at the game, looked at its website and found I had no interest in this whatsoever. It just doesn’t look interesting.

Killzone 3 Beta Theme – Yay for a Dynamic theme, but I could care less about Killzone 3 so pass. Besides, since I didn’t download it, it opens up the Killzone 3 beta to someone who WOULD want to play it, so that’s all the more reason for me not to download it. I will say that I think the way they are going about this will the Killzone 3 beta, is a very fair and reasonable way. It’s far better than the random selection for a demo mishaps we’ve seen in the past.

Wise Father Theme – It looked pretty ugly just from the PS+ store so I passed. I don’t need another theme when I have like twelve options already.

6. Discount isn’t enough to make me pull the trigger.

Everyday Shooter (either PS3 or PSP version) – Anyone that knows me knows that I play through nearly every shoot ’em up ever released. I’ve already played Everyday Shooter before and it was cute, but it didn’t thrill me. I’m glad to see a price break like this, but considering five bucks can get me something like Dead Space Ignition, I’d rather spend my money on that. Everyday Shooter just doesn’t have any purchasing appeal to me after my previous time with it. It’s not a game that made me go, “Wow, I’d rather play that over Gradius V or Ikaruga.

Shienryu – I’m so on the fence with this. I love my shoot ’em ups, but I just have too many games to play. Fallout: New Vegas, Costume Quest, Bakugan: Defenders of the Core, Z.H.P and more. Although it’s only three dollars I just can’t justify getting it when it doesn’t appear to stand out in anyway. I used to own the Sega Saturn version and I can confirm (as can anyone who has played the game), that the Saturn version is far superior than the PSX version. But then, the game was designed to be played on a Sega based system. Even the arcade version used Sega hardware. SO tempting though…


So that’s our tenth ever Playstation Plus update. Yet another below average update full of second rate games that no one would pay for anyway, along with some nice discounts that really highlights that Playstation Plus is little more than a coupon service. It tells you something when out of eleven offerings, the best thing offered to paying customers is a free dynamic theme. So, with this tenth update, we’re still at a 20-30% overall quality rate for these updates. It’d be nice if we could get the US branch of Sony to give us something even remotely close to quality SCEE is giving THEIR Playstation Plus customers. But nope, we’re supposed to be happy about things like a 6GB one hour trial of a two year of Tomb Raider game. Sigh.


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2 responses to “Playstation Plus: What’s Worth Downloading – Update #10”

  1. berforce Avatar
    berforce

    What about the new Assassin’s Creed multiplayer beta.

  2. Alex Lucard Avatar

    That was a while ago.

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