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VPNs for ad-blocking In Overcooked 2, groups are tasked with fulfilling a growing list of kitchen orders while the restaurant around them shifts, introducing new obstacles and win conditions as levels get harder. The key to success is to divvy up responsibilities; one person chopping tomatoes, one flipping burgers, one washing dishes and one jack-of-all-trades who slots in where needed. Sounds simple enough but when the heat is on, it’s surprisingly difficult to stay on task. Overcooked 2 will bring out the best and the worst in your friends; there’s often just as much back-patting as there is finger-pointing. Together with the original Overcooked, they’re two of the best PS4 party games money can buy. Word of warning: Beat Saber is a real physical workout and many folks suffer from motion sickness using PSVR so one too many bevvies beforehand could have you tapped out on the bathroom floor earlier than expected. This colourful beat ‘em up throws up to four players into a stage with the sole purpose of whaling on each other until all but one have been thrown from the edge of the stage. Combat is a simple combination of punches, kicks and grabs and escaping your foe’s grasp is achieved by mashing the buttons. This leads to some nail-biting struggles for power as both players hold their breath and mash those buttons. Gang Beasts is a multiplayer game that will have you cry-laughing throughout the night. If you’re keen to see which non-party games are coming to (or have already arrived on) the PS5, check out our games roundup. The basic gist is this: The player with the VR headset can see a bomb that nobody else in the room can see. The VR player needs to describe the puzzles and elements of the bomb while the rest of the players in the room consult a physical manual and try their best to blindly guide the bomb defuser through each challenge. There’s a timer and only so many fails allowed. When it’s down to the wire, your trusty guides tend to lose all composure and begin shouting directions over each other while the defuser scrambles to make sense of it all. As of 2021, there are seven Jackbox Party Packs and each one has its own unique set of minigames that are all controlled using players’ smartphones (like PlayLink) and select games allow for up to 8 players at once. Each pack comes with a different set of games, and all of them are ridiculous and fun – it’s no wonder the Jackbox titles are frequently dubbed the best PS4 party games of all time. There’s a huge variety of games across all four packs but the most popular are the ones that give you the freedom to make risque gags, like the Cards Against Humanity clone Quiplash and Drawful, a Pictionary-inspired excuse for drunk people to draw dongs. If you sold your PlayStation 2 and Singstar microphones on Gumtree after a particularly bad rendition of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’, there’s a way you can recapture that magic with nothing other than a smartphone and a PlayStation 4. SingStar Celebration is the PlayLink version of the popular party game that uses your phone microphone, rather than an extra peripheral. Now you can belt out boozy ballads like Adele’s ‘Hello’, ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ without forking out for the extra kit. Spectators can also cue up the next song from their smart device. BaraBariBall has a bit of a Super Smash Bros. slash Kung Foot (Rayman Legends) vibe. Two teams stand on opposing sides of an island. Players must dunk the ball in the other’s side of the ocean without falling in themselves. Hokra is a minimalistic evolution of Pong with four corners/players and obstacles to bounce the ball off. Both great fun, but the stars of Sportsfriends are Super Pole Riders and Johann Sebastian Joust. Super Pole Riders is a game from Bennett Foddy (Ape Out, Getting Over It) that feels like 1v1 basketball and pole-vaulting had a baby and raised it exclusively on Tekken. Johann Sebastian Joust, on the other hand, doesn’t use the screen at all. Instead, players are each handed a PlayStation Move controller which they can only move as fast as the tempo of J.S Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (playing through the PlayStation 4). When the tempo picks up, players must use the opportunity to psych out their opponents and break their composure. When it slows down, players must slow their movements to a crawl to stay in the game. You might have purchased the peripherals for this game one too many times which is great for a party sure but terrible for the environment. If you do get a sudden urge to shred, might we suggest picking up a peripheral second-hand on Gumtree? Because there’s nothing more metal than sustainability. It’s also worth mentioning; the latest Guitar Hero has had some iffy legal issues. Activision had to offer refunds for the game after its Spotify-inspired song streaming feature “Guitar Hero TV” shut down. That still leaves you with the game’s 42 base tracks but not much else. This might not be the kind of game you play at a raging house party but it’s the perfect choice for smaller gatherings of 4 to 5 people. It also helps if the people playing grew up in a household with direct access to platforming games like Super Mario World or even old school Rayman. While it’s easy to learn, the rhythm-based stages (set to the tune of licensed tracks like Black Betty) push you to perfect them and not miss a single beat. There’s also Kung Foot, a 1v1 soccer game using Rayman characters and their attacks. Dumb, simple fun. Then there’s competition mode, which plays out like games of deception such as One Night Werewolf and Secret Hitler. At the beginning of the game, one player has a “Hidden Agenda” sent to their mobile device. From then on out, it’s their job to derail the decision-making and pull strings without getting caught. Hidden Agenda’s ongoing narrative makes it more suited to repeated plays, so this one is best enjoyed with roommates or friends and family you see on the regular. The first time I played Death Squared was at a conference with three complete strangers of different ages and experience. We didn’t say hello or goodbye and we never spoke again but for a good 30 minutes, we were whooping and hollering like we’d known each other for years. Death Squared can be played by anyone who knows their left from right and the main controls are purely directional but as you rapidly progress through the game’s short and clever puzzles, a deeper challenge is revealed and the only solution is rock-solid teamwork.
