PS4 Review

I was lucky enough to get a Playstation 4 recently have been trying it out since launch. It’s a great next-gen gaming console, with a lot of potential. That said, it’s not perfect. Read on to learn more about our experience with the PS4 hands-on.

Exterior/hardware

As we showed you in our recent PS4 unboxing, the hardware itself is beautiful and well-designed. It’s sleek and smaller than you’d expect, fitting nicely in any home entertainment setup.

The guts of the PS4 include an 8 core processor, AMD Raedeon-based GPU, 8GB of memory, and a 500 GB hard drive. Of course since it’s made by Sony, it includes a Blu Ray drive (which will hopefully support 3D blu rays in the future via software updates). It also includes USB 3.0, ethernet plus Wifi b/g/n, and an HDMI port supporting 1080p.

This thing is a beast from a hardware perspective, and it had better be – the nex-gen consoles are expected to last for at least 5-10 years.

Controller

The controller is smaller and lighter than an Xbox 360 controller, and has a nice balanced feel to it. However, I personally prefer the xbox controller. The added size and weight of the xbox controller seems to fit my hands better, whereas the PS4 controller feels almost too light by comparison. The thumb knobs on the Dualshock 4 are small and a bit slippery, and a few times my fingers slid off the knobs during gameplay. The “Option” and “Share” buttons are recessed and difficult to press at times. And for all of the bells and whistles on the Dualshock 4 controllers (dual rotors, built-in speaker and playstation camera light),  I’d really like a backlight allowing you to see the buttons in low light conditions.

The touchbad above the thumb knobs definitely has potential. For example, while playing Kill Zone Shadow Fall, the touch pad is used to control a companion drone. Swipe up for an attack, swipe down to launch a zipline. It’s clever, and I’m intrigued to see how future developers utilize it. As some other reviewers have noted, the light on the controller is a bit bright and if you like to play in a dark room with a glossy tv screen, it may become distracting.

OS/UI

The PS4’s UI is an evolution of the PS3 UI. No surprise there – it’s a logical step forward. The home screen shows all of your content, which you can view by scrolling left and right. When you select an item, you can then drill down to see more information. There is also a menu of system/account options above the main row of icons allowing you to configure system settings, view notifications such as updates, and view/edit account settings. There is also a “facebook news feed meets windows 8 tile” mashup showing all of your recent activities (I assume this gets shared with friends), such as when you play a game or earn trophies.

As expected, most of the launch titles (and the console itself) required day 1 patches. The system update downloaded and installed pretty easily with the exception of me getting stuck on an install screen, not knowing the system was waiting for me to do something. The game updates are a bit odd, as they will download but you have to manually install them next time you run the game. I prefer the Xbox method, where game updates are automatically downloaded and installed with very little action required by the player.

The UI takes a bit of getting used to, and feels a overly busy at times, but is very easy to navigate and use.

Launch titles

I’ve played a few of the launch titles (including Kill Zone Shadow Fall, Assassins Creed Black Flag, and Need for Speed Rivals). So far the launch titles are a bit “meh”. I’ve played Kill Zone for about 30 minutes, and while the visuals are pretty, there wasn’t much “wow” factor graphically speaking (but less jaggies is nice!). Assassins Creed looks like it could just as easily be running on the xbox 360, so I am so far very unimpressed with that game’s graphics on PS4.  This is more a critique of the developer than the hardware, the PS4 is obviously capable of much more – as we experienced at PAX. Need for Speed is gorgeous on PS4, and is the one title I’ve seen to really show off the system’s graphical capabilities.

One title that I haven’t tried yet but plan to asap is Contrast, an indie game available on the Playstation Store. We first saw Contrast at PAX in August, and it’s a unique premise: you play the imaginary friend of a girl in 1920s paris, and have the ability to disappear into shadows to solve puzzles and progress through the game. Check it out if you haven’t already!

Conclusion

The PS4 is a beautiful piece of hardware (in my opinion, much prettier than the xbox one), and the svelte exterior hides some real horsepower. The games at launch are mostly underwhelming (at least the few that I’ve played, although other reviews I’ve read of the full launch catalog seem to agree). This is to be expected with a new generation of hardware. But fret not! There are amazing titles such as Watch Dogs and Elder Scrolls Online coming soon and I can’t wait to get my hands on them. The controller is a bit underwhelming, but perfectly functional.  While not perfect, the PS4 is definitely the future of gaming, and I am excited to be along for the ride!