Top PlayStation 4 Games 2023

Destiny is a flashy and beautiful but somewhat generic online space shooter.

High seas RPG Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion brings some of the joy of the TV show to a kind-of open world RPG. It’s a good game for beginners, and we get a small taste of how great exploring the show’s world and quirky characters could be. but the lack of challenge and options will probably bore veterans. The sad thing is that Adventure Time is a special show because its humor appeals to fans both young and old, but this game seems made exclusively for the former.

The racing in Need for Speed Payback is fun. The open world is a decent size without being so huge it gets annoying. The visuals are great, even if the scenery itself is a little bit forgettable. And there are the outright bad bits: the awful upgrade system and the time-limited police chases. Ultimately, there’s nothing outstanding or innovative enough here: it feels too much like the designers took a bunch of features from other racing games, threw them all into Payback and added a few Hollywood action sequences.

Playing Knack is like watching a dull movie on a plane – it's tolerable if all you want is a way to pass the time, but it's not something you'd seek out for its own sake. I finished in about 11 hours and, challenges, co-op, and secrets aside, there's just not much here worth recommending. Sure, some individual elements show potential, particularly when the scale of the encounters changes as Knack grows, but it never moves beyond playing it safe with the concepts or the characters.

After the resounding success of Dynasty Warriors 8, Dynasty Warriors 9 feels like a major step back. What’s lost in the move towards an individually-centered story spread across a massive open world far outweighs the minor benefits that are gained. While the excellent button-mashing gameplay stays intact with great tweaks and additions, it wasn’t enough. The lack of multiplayer, missing alternate game modes, and emptiness of ancient China left me far from satisfied.

The Order: 1886 is a graphically stunning title bogged down by tired combat scenarios and a lackluster story.

A cult classic revived for modern platforms 15 years after its debut, Metal Wolf Chaos remains one of the most gloriously over-the-top games ever made.

Code Vein fails to come to life as a true Soulslike experience, held back by a colorless environment and lazy storytelling.

Fallout 76: Steel Reign isn’t much to shout about by itself, but it offers a good overview of just how far the game has come since its disastrous launch.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers has a great concept with an execution that just doesn’t deliver. While there are fleeting moments of both hilarity and tension, they were often caused by a struggle with its controls and camera rather than anything mechanically interesting about its asymmetrical matches. Add in unimpressive presentation and real-money incentives more befitting of a free-to-play title, and you’re left with the potential for an amusing afternoon with friends, but little else of value beyond that.