Summary
Four games that are part of the PlayStation Plus Premium catalog — includingTekken 2andRidge Racer 2— can now be purchased individually. This isn’t particularly unusual, as a lot of the games that are available viaPS Pluscan also be purchased separately by those who either aren’t interested in a subscription or want the added security of knowing the games are theirs even if later removed from the monthly subscription service.
However, up till now, a few have fallen between the cracks and were only available by either subscribing, pulling out a retro console, or maybe going to an arcade. ThePlayStation Plus subscription service regularly adds and removes gamesfrom its library, and oftentimes people may be plumb in the middle of a playthrough when they learn a title will soon go poof from the service. That’s where buying favorite games individually can come in handy.
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Namco PS Plus Premium Games Available to Buy Separately
Tekken 2was originally released in 1995 in arcades and a few years later on the original PlayStation console. A couple of months ago,Tekken 2was listed on the PS Store for $9,999.00, perhaps when somebody prepping it for release at $9.99 added on a few too many nines. The same issue happened withMr. Drillera short while later, before both games went back to solely being available through a PS Plus Premium subscription.
As forRidge Racer 2, other than PS Plus, that game was only released in arcades back in 1994. Despite its name,Ridge Racer 2is not actually a sequel but rather a revamped version of thePS1 launch titleRidge Racer, which has been ranked by many as one of the greatest games of all time.Ridge Racer Type 4was previously only available on PS1, having released in 1999. Like its predecessors, the game was overall well received and is considered by a lot of people to be the best of the series.
Mr. Drilleris the one outlier of these four Namco titles because it was released on multiple platforms and is even available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. However, in the PlayStation ecosystem, it was only available on PS1 and PS Plus. And interestingly,Mr. Drillerwas co-created by the director ofRidger Racer Type 4,Yasuhito Nagaoka, and now fans can grab a digital copy for a very palatable price to play on their PS4 or PS5.
