It’s the first full week of the month, so three new games have just been made available to PlayStation Plus subscribers across all three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. These games aren’t being tossed into the Extra and Premium game catalog indefinitely. Instead, PS Plus subscribers can redeem these games between now and September 2, and they will remain in your game library as long as you have an active PS Plus subscription. It’s a solid batch of games too, so if you’re looking for something to play this weekend, I’d definitely recommend checking out any of these three games.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the most ambitious Lego game TT Games ever made. It’s simultaneously a vast Star Wars sandbox that players can play around in and a cartoonish retelling of all nine films in The Skywalker Saga. While I feel that these two halves of the game clash at times, there’s no denying how giddy I felt exploring intricately recreated planets like Coruscant and Ahch-To, even if it was as a Lego version of Jar Jar Binks. It’s kid-friendly, supports co-op, and features more engaging combat gameplay than any other Lego title. The PS4 and PS5 versions of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga are available via PS Plus throughout August. It’s also available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S through Game Pass, as well as Nintendo Switch.
If you’re in the mood for something more eerie and atmospheric than Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, then I’d recommend Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. It’s an entertaining Metroidvania with RPG systems that follows an amnesiac priestess named Lily as she fights people and other creatures corrupted by the Blight. Lily doesn’t actually do the fighting herself, and instead uses the spirits of purified knights to fight on her behalf. This gives a memorable visual aesthetic to an otherwise straightforward and enjoyable 2D action game. The PS4 version of Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is available through PS Plus this month. It’s also on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a pretty iconic horror franchise at this point, and Security Breach is probably its most ambitious game. Rather than lock players in a single room, Security Breach instead lets players explore Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex and void creepy animatronics themselves. It adds a lot of interesting wrinkles to the series’ complex lore, too, as Freddy is more of an ally than an enemy in this game. You can even climb inside of and operate Freddy in this game. If you’re looking for something spooky and full of jump scares to experience this weekend, then this is definitely worth checking out. The PS4 and PS5 versions of Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach are available through PS Plus this month, while the game is also available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.