So Does Greatness Await?????
Haha so yeah it has started let the hype and fan boys come out. I recently got a chance to try out the PS4, and because it's the internet and everyone has opinions I figure I would throw my hat into the ring with my initial impressions on the system and few games I played. Sadly I was not able to procure a console at launch like all the cool kids were, but thankfully I have friends who were able to. Thanks to a close friend I was able to play for a bout five hours today and it was good times.
System:
So the system is nice, sleek and quiet. I got to play around with the UI a little bit not extensively or anything. It seems easy to navigate, the part I like was how fast the interface has become. Comparing it to current gen UI, the only similarity is the sort of style it has. It is incredibly smooth and fast, where the current gen is slow and clunky. It feels familiar at the start but thankfully does a ton of new things, which I can not get into since I didn't play around with it too much as it isn't my console, didn't want to mess with his settings, can't be a jerk after all.
Controller:
Thank god the dual shock 3 is behind us! Gone are the irritating non triggers, gone is the six axis flop. The controller is hefty which when compared to DS3 which felt flimsy and way too light. It feels like the Xbox 360 controller which is my favorite controller ever. It finally has curved triggers that actually feel like triggers. While I am glad they finally have proper triggers, I found myself constantly accidentally going back to pressing the top shoulder buttons to aim and shoot which is the way most shooters are on the current gen. I found myself tossing grenades when I meant to shoot which was frustrating but will obviously not be an issue moving forward but it was a noted irritation. The new touch pad seems ok, I am interested to see how it gets implemented in the future. It was used in Killzone to change the orders of your OWL, it felt fluid to swipe in different directions. I thought it would be a pain to do so, but it actually felt natural to move and use the touch pad. Right now it's nothing more than an added bonus on some games but its features are useful which is nice. Built in speaker to play audio logs is a nice feature more games hopefully utilize this as it made it feel like you had some kind of device like you would in the game to play logs. We will see how developers use the controller to take full advantage of the new controller features.
Games:
Ah the games, I played only played a few so let's talk about the ones I did. Football!!!!! Madden more of the same, looks pretty sure but what got me right away was the field itself. I know it's a little silly but the grass, my god the grass. It looked so good I couldn't leave it be, sure the players looked good and the crowd looked decidedly better. I was blown away by how textured the grass was it was just so pretty. I wont go into game play details because honestly it's more of the same. Let's move on to the first party beast Killzone: Shadow Fall. This is definitely the game out of the launch titles that shows off some of what the system can do. First off let me say this, gorgeous! Visually it is almost jaw dropping, we played through a few chapters in our small play session. I noticed how good the lighting was, shadows were impressive and the light moving between columns was beautiful. We went to space and it was dimly lit and not sure if intentionally spooky or not, but thanks to lighting it was a bit spooky. I compared it to how they imagined Dead Space would be. It had me excited to see with the particle and lighting effects how Dead Space will be on next gen. Anyway back to Killzone, the game was dark super dark, I kept saying how wow I would kill for a damn flashlight or something as I couldn't see much of anything is certain areas. I felt so silly when I accidentally sent out the OWL and found out it is my flashlight. It just sucks that we found this out minutes before my play session ended. But now my buddy knows he has a flashlight so I taught him something. All in all a good game, personally I am not the biggest Killzone fan, but visually it was the outright prettiest game I saw in my limited play session. So what is the system seller? Is there even one? Yeah Watchdo....Oh wait that was delayed, hmm so what then? Well glad you asked, the game I would buy the system for is not one you technically purchase. I say technically because it is free with a PS Plus membership. The game I am talking about is Resogun. A Shoot 'Em Up in the purest form, it's fun, frantic, and particles everywhere! It's simple in design fly your ship, shoot enemies, save humans. That's it, no story just shoot, and it is super fun. It starts off easy enough with a few enemies but after a while the screen is filled with things that want you to die. It's weird to think that the game I would spend $400 on is one I would get for free, but the game was so much damn fun. I wanted to keep playing it well after I died, and I died a lot haha.So there you have it the system seems good, no real system seller games to play on it yet (except Resogun, go get it!!!!!!) I have to wait to pick my PS4 up, which is a little sad but when I get mine the system seller Infamous will be bundled with it so I am excited for that. The next gen is here and so far it's pretty, we probably wont see the system better utilized until later this year when developers have more time with it. I am dreading next holiday season because I can only imagine how many games I will have to pick from, but that is an amazing problem to have. Good on you Sony, another good console. I look forward to seeing how the next year will be.
