Author: Trafficblast

December is almost here, which means PlayStation Plus members will soon get a new batch of PS4, PS3, and PS Vita games they can download for free. Sony has just announced the PS Plus lineup for December, and it’s a good one. Let’s take a look at what games you’ll be able to grab for free between December 4 and January 1.

For one, PS4 owners will be able to pick up Soma, a sci-fi horror game set in a research facility at the bottom of the ocean. But unlike many creepy games that mainly offer jump scares, this one actually has something to say. In our 9/10 Soma review, Richard Wakeling called Soma “an intelligent game that forced me to think and contemplate ideas as only the best sci-fi is capable of doing.”

Also free on PS4 is Onrush, an online team racing game that has a lot more going on than just rushing to the finish line. Using influences ranging from Burnout’s takedown mechanic to Overwatch’s hero abilities, “Onrush is such a bold, refreshing twist on the genre,” according to our 9/10 review.

Meanwhile, PS3 owners will be able to pick up the space shooter Steredenn and the mind-bending visual novel SteinsGate. The free PS Vita games for December are the Metroidvania-inspired Iconoclasts (also playable on PS4), and the indie gem Papers, Please.

If you hurry, you can still grab November’s PS Plus games, which include Yakuza Kiwami and Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition on PS4, Jackbox Party Pack 2 and Arkedo Series on PS3, and Burly Men at Sea and Roundabout on PS Vita.

As always, you’ll have access to the games you add to your account as long as you have a current PS Plus subscription.

Free PS Plus Games For December 2018

PS4

• Soma
• Onrush
• Iconoclasts (also on PS Vita)

PS3

• Steredenn
• SteinsGate

PS Vita

• Papers, Please
• Iconoclasts (also on PS4)

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The Bearded Ladies Consulting, developer of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, has revealed Farrow, a new fox character for the upcoming X-COM-inspired tactical game. Mutant Year Zero is set for release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on December 4, so the new character comes as a last-minute surprise.

Farrow is described as an assassin who specializes in stealth tactics, equipped with gear and skills that give her the ability to move quickly yet silently through a battlezone. She will fight alongside the two previously known characters, the iconic duck, Dux, and the grizzly looking boar, Bormin. Farrow’s skillset will compliment Bormin’s explosive launcher and tank-like defense, as well as Dux’s preference for long-ranged sniper attacks.

Mutant Year Zero’s newest survivor, Farrow the fox.

Mutant Year Zero’s reveal earlier this year struck a chord thanks to its unusual cast, and it was given a bump in the public eye thanks to Microsoft’s recent announcement of its inclusion in the Xbox Game Pass program at XO18.

The Bearded Ladies dev team is made up of former Hitman and Payday developers, and Mutant Year Zero is based on a popular pen and paper RPG from Sweden, simply titled ‘Mutant’. In addition to releasing on Xbox One, the game will also arrive on PC and on PlayStation 4 early next month.

BioShock creator Ken Levine has been relatively quiet since the release of BioShock Infinite in 2013, but he’s still at work on new video game projects. In fact, his latest one is already playable, but he’s only rolling it out among a very select few participants.

In a tweet, Levine told a fan, “We’ve done some friends and family testing but that’s all at this stage.” Friends and family tests are usually conducted relatively early in development. It does mean the game exists in some form of playable state, however.

Levine hasn’t talked much about the direction for his next project. He gave a talk at GDC 2014 about a concept he dubbed “Narrative Legos.” The idea involves distinct storytelling pieces that can be reassembled to make new combinations and in different orders, making a story-driven game that can be replayed endlessly.

He said in an interview in 2016 that he stopped leading BioShock games due to adverse effects on his health and relationships. He said at the time he’s more interested in smaller, experimental games–possibly like the Narrative Legos concept he outlined. Levine still heads up the studio formerly known as Irrational Games, now Ghost Story Games, though it has scaled down significantly since making the BioShock series.

BioShock and BioShock Infinite were both critically acclaimed. “BioShock Infinite isn’t afraid to magnify the way religious and racial extremism inform our culture and change lives,” critic Kevin VanOrd wrote in GameSpot’s BioShock Infinite review. “It isn’t afraid to depict a less-than-holy trinity diseased by power, deception, and manipulation. As the story circles back on itself, you’re left wondering whether redemption cleanses us of our atrocities, or simply invites us to commit greater ones. Once the finale comes, you will want to play again, watching each event and image through the lens of information you can never un-know. BioShock Infinite is more than just a quality game: it’s an important one.”

One of the first images on the screen at the start of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is an “Approved By The Comics Code Authority” stamp, trailing right behind a glitched out slideshow of different studio logos. It’s a nod that comics history buffs will no doubt appreciate, both as a fun Easter egg, and as a perfect tone setting introduction. This is a comic book movie–not a movie based on characters from comic books. It is literally a comic book turned into a movie, and every single piece, from the character designs to the animation itself, has been designed from the ground up to make that possible. The result is visually stunning and completely unique.

Into the Spider-Verse is the story of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a slightly put-upon but otherwise unassuming teenager in Brooklyn who is struggling under the weight of his parents’ lofty expectations. However, during a slightly less-than-legal graffiti excursion with his slightly less-than-reputable Uncle Aaron, Miles’ life is turned upside down when he’s bitten by a dimension-hopping radioactive spider. Dimension-hopping becomes a recurring theme–it’s the basis for the titular “Spider-Verse,” an inadvertent convergence of Spider-people from different universes, brought about by a villain’s scheme. It’s all pretty sci-fi, but never too sci-fi, even for those who are less well versed in comic book science than others–especially not in the same year as Thanos’s snap or Ant-Man’s exploration of the Quantum Realm.

In fact, Into The Spider-Verse’s self awareness of just how over-the-top its own science is makes for some of the most clever gags in the movie. It’s brilliantly playful in introducing a supporting cast of various alternate reality Spider-people to the mix, like Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir, a nazi-punching 1930s detective who is animated in perpetual black and white; John Mulaney’s Spider-Ham, an anthropomorphic pig animated like a Loony Toon; or Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen Stacy–A.K.A. Spider-Woman–who carves her own path of cool through this film. At one point, Miles points out that Noir’s constant rain-slicked, windblown look makes no sense–they’re inside–but Noir shrugs and says that “wherever I go, the wind follows.” And that’s the end of that, even if Miles is practically left looking directly into the camera and contemplating how his life has gone so far off the rails.

The entire movie oozes this same sort of style. It’s an explosion of color–part motion comic, part music video, part traditional animation–with a driving, almost frantic energy that carries every scene. There are montages that pluck real life comic covers off the shelves, word balloons splashed on screen to represent internal monologues, benday dots smearing over shadows to convey depth–really, you name it. There seems to have been no limit to the aesthetic experimentation allowed here, and the end result is an animation style that feels completely and totally new. It may take some getting used to for the purists out there, but by the second act even the weirdest visual quirks manage to level themselves out and become totally endearing.

Somehow even more endearing is the relationship between Miles and Peter Parker (Jake Johnson)–not the Peter of Miles’ Earth, but one from an alternate dimension who is a little past his prime. Peter becomes Miles’ unwilling mentor, which builds into as many laugh-out-loud gags as it does genuinely touching moments. Sure, this Pete may be a decade or so away from the youthful exuberance of someone like, say, Tom Holland, but that doesn’t make him any less familiar–in fact, it really only makes him even more relatable for the twenty and thirty something crowd.

That relatability is really Into The Spider-Verse’s core, when you get down to it. The premise may be bundled in a sci-fi camp wrapping and served up as a desperately stylish, rapid fire visual extravaganza, but its heart is pretty simple. Anyone, anywhere, has the power to be as heroic and as special as Spider-Man. It doesn’t matter if you’re an angst ridden teen struggling through high school, a middle aged divorcee down on their luck, or a cartoon pig with no concern for the laws of physics–the ability to do good, the ability to make the world a better place, is universal. It’s multiversal, even. It’s a constant.

It may seem a bit saccharine, typed out in so many words, but it’s a message that superhero comics–that Spider-Man comics specifically–have been touting for ages, and something that’s been long overdue for a big screen debut. It probably wouldn’t work if Into The Spider-Verse weren’t just so funny, self aware, and bleeding-edge modern–but it is, and it does. It manages to blow right past the dangers of sinking into after school special territory by believing wholeheartedly in its own message and delivering it with appropriately genuine stakes. The end result is an instant animated classic, and, with any luck, the first of many of its kind.

The Good	The Bad
Incredible, unique animation and style
Johnson and Moore’s hilarious chemistry
A great message
Almost too many easter eggs for comics fans to count
Interesting, new spins on classic characters