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This new monthly article (built as a replacement to the weekly reviews) is here to tell you about all the best bits from FirstPlay in the past month or so (Episodes 007 – 010). And what a month it has been, with each of the four episodes featuring a free mini! On top of that, there have been many reviews of the May release games as well as tons of cool previews of upcoming games, all of this brought to you with some excellent narration by the lovely Lucy Porter (whom always brings a smile to your face) and a look at the latest goings-on in PSN.

So let’s start off just before Episode 007 shall we? It was the middle of May, and FirstPlay was suffering from the fact that they had started off with lots of content to download and then kind of lost it in the middle. FirstPlay’s answer? Make four consecutive episodes, each with a free mini!

Episode 007 (19th May)

NOTABLE FEATURES: Echoes (PS mini), How To… Score A FIFA Free Kick, PSN Shooter Round-Up.

And here’s where it all started, the minis marathon that turned the community back in FirstPlay’s favour. This week’s episode featured Echoes as a free mini, a great little game requiring you to think ahead – because you are your future self’s enemy if that makes sense. Basically you have to pick up gems, and whenever you pick one up, you create an Echo of yourself picking that gem up, which will kill you if you touch it.

Apart from the mini though, the highlight of this episode was the helpful guide on how to score a FIFA Free Kick, which gave a plethora of tips on how to score from several angles, whether to shoot above or below the wall and recommendations of the best players to use.

An honourable mention for this episode, though was the PSN Shooter Round-Up which covered the three main shoot-’em-up action games out there – Super Stardust HD, PixelJunk Shooter and Gravity Crash. This feature gives you the chance to see the above games in action, and all in High-Definition so you can see them in their best (especially Super Stardust HD).

SCORE: 9/10

Episode 008 (26th May)

NOTABLE FEATURES: How To… Beat God of War III Challenge Rooms, Split/Second Velocity Review, Best of PSN.

Again, one of the highlights of this episode was the How To… Guide for God of War III which included extensive information and tips on how to beat those infuriating challenge rooms – tips like where to stand, which combos to use, efficient methods of killing enemies quickly all combined to provide an invaluable guide to help you on your road to the God of War III Platinum.

Another brilliant part of this episode was the Split/Second: Velocity Review, which appeared just a few days after release. FirstPlay managed to convey the awesomeness of the explosions found in the game with stunning clips of the team using Power Plays. Not only that, but the review is quite picky whilst not being pedantic if you know what I mean, saying that some of the textures were bland, but this was only noticeable if you slowed down enough.

But the honourable mention of this episode has to go to the Best of PSN feature. What I loved about this week’s Best of PSN is that it gave so much variety by selecting games from all genres and both PS3 and PSP, whilst also recommending a free item for Just Cause 2. The featured games were – Aqua Panic!; Namco Museum Essentials; Just Cause 2 Ice Cream Truck; What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord? 2; and Patchwork Heroes.

SCORE: 7/10

Episode 009 (2nd June)

NOTABLE FEATURES: ModNation Racers Review, Red Dead Redemption Review, Age of Zombies (PS mini)

This week’s mini really made the episode for me, such an addictive game where you are ambushed by waves upon waves of zombies and you have to pick up weapons to use against them – think Call of Duty’s Nazi Zombies and Uncharted 2′s Survival mode. A simple mechanic goes a long way, and although the use of the shaped buttons (O, X etc.) is an odd way to shoot,  it is easy to get used to. The addition of a survival mode adds more variety of the game, which has you fighting throughout several periods of time including the Stone Age, and the Egyptians.

I really did like the Red Dead Redemption Review though, which I thought was thorough and covered pretty much all of the bases – there was an in depth look at the shooting mechanics, the gameplay, the online multiplayer and tonnes and tonnes of footage of the game’s stunning graphics and incredible vistas. The review was a couple of weeks late in that the game was released a few weeks beforehand. But don’t let that scare you off, this review is well worth a look if you haven’t made up your mind about Red Dead Redemption.

My honourable mention this week goes to the ModNation Racers review, which again was a few weeks out of date (having been released on the same day as Red Dead), but all the same gave a true and honest perspective of the game. All of the basic gameplay is covered including the weapons, AI, creation tools and more, but FirstPlay didn’t seem to cover the awfully long load times which I thought needed mentioning.

SCORE: 9/10

Episode 010 (9th June)

NOTABLE FEATURES: Aero Racer (PS mini), Just Cause 2 Easter Eggs, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review

Again, this week’s mini was a real seller for this episode. Aero Racer is a racing game set sometime in the future, where your vehicle has no brakes. Obviously, this means you have to think about how to take turns very carefully and although the handling is terrible at first, it is great knowing that you’ve mastered it when you finally go around a track without hitting the walls. There’s plenty to do in this mini, with a fully fledged campaign and extra tournaments, multiplayer and more for you to enjoy – I wouldn’t hesitate to say that this is the best and most well developed mini of this month’s episodes.

Next up is the Just Cause 2 Easter Eggs, which is very similar to the feature about the same subject in last month’s OPM – but I’ve been assured it is an independent production. Similarities aside, it is a lot more helpful to see where these Easter Eggs are, there’s only so much a picture can do after all. I was surprised to see how many references there are to other games, movies and TV Shows from the Square Enix London Team, and it was good fun to find these places dotted around.

The honourable mention this week goes to Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review which gave a brilliant look at how the game returns to its roots. I’d never played Prince of Persia before the PS3 revival, and the gameplay (in terms of platforming) looks remarkably similar to that – apart from the new combat mechanics, which are pretty underdeveloped and boring to use, well that’s what FirstPlay thinks anyway.

SCORE: 8/10

Well, that’s all from me for this edition of “The Highlights of FirstPlay”. Come back in the middle of July for some highlights of Episodes 11 – 15. I can only hope that they’re as good as this lot.