The free PlayStation Plus games for April 2022 include this underrated gem

The monthly free PS Plus games line-up announcement is here just hours after Sony unveiled its plans to revamp it with Project Spartacus, and there's an underrated gem in this month's selection.

In addition to the intense online multiplayer of Hood: Outlaws & Legends and the fantasy deck building adventure of Slay The Spire, the one I want to play most goes something like this:

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Who's rehydrated for 4 but not PlayStation 3?

Whose platform adventure is big silly fun?

Who's liked by the players who like to speed run?

The answer, of course, is: SpongeBob Squarepants! SpongeBob SquarePants! SpongeBob... SquarePaaaaaaants!

I'll stop now, because I don't want put you off a really fun game. SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a remastered version of the early 2000s original that's been remade for the PS4, and it retains everything that's great about the original as well as a few not-so-great bits.

Get your Bikini Bottom on

I said the SpongeBob game is underrated, and I think it is: there are some really damning reviews out there, and while many of the criticisms are fair – some of the jokes don't land and the boss battles are rubbish – it's a lot better than the critics would have you believe. Their MetaCritic rating of it is 68%, but player ratings are 89% because of important features such as "you can drive jellyfish!"

Maybe I'm biased, because I love SpongeBob almost as much as my kids do: it's a gloriously silly show and its spin-offs are gloriously silly movies and gloriously silly games, all of which have the same sense of humour and super-bright visuals as the show. The platforming here is fun but not so difficult that I get annoyed and the whole thing is completely and utterly immature. Which is why I like it, and why I think my kids will too.

Put it this way. The other PS Plus games may have better stories, and they certainly have much more modern gameplay. But how many of them enable you to battle a giant RoboSquidward?

Exactly.