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PS4

12 Dec 13

So I’ve finally got to play with my first next gen console, the PS4. Now before I continue this is more of a first look review rather than in-depth.

My brother-in-law was kind enough to allow me into the sacred ritual of unboxing and once you remove all that cardboard and plastic you notice that the design of the PS4 is far departed from its predecessor. To be honest it looks like a big razor blade with its slanted levels but not something that I’d be unhappy with sitting under my telly but not as stylish as some of the consoles that have come before it.

Out of the box there is a pretty lengthy set up, mostly prolonged with the day one updates that need to be applied which makes you realise that this generation of consoles are more ‘PC in a box’ than the previous version but in this day and age I guess we can learn to live with it.

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But what’s the most important thing? Well that’s the games. Now this is where my attention wavers. Now I've only had an XBox 360 for the last 18 months and I've been blown away with the quality of the graphics still to this day. Remember that I’m spanning my game play from the days of the Spectrum and even though the graphics weren't there the game play always was. So what’s changed? Mobile gaming has shown us that you don’t need the most amazing imagery to have a great experience, it’s all about the idea. Yes the PS4 has amazing graphics. But where has game play really evolved itself too? Is Call of Duty Ghosts on PS3 and XBox 360 any less playable than on PS4 and XBox One? My guess is no they’re not but the graphics and power bump are noticeable.

The game I got to play with was the latest Killzone and I do have to say it looked stunning. The depth to the world was unbelievable and everything seemed so smooth, at times you could forget that you were watching a video game and instead a feature length movie.

The controller hasn’t changed much so all those of us who have been playing with the PlayStation since the late 90’s know what’s going on. What is new though is the touch sensitive pad at the top of the controller which can be used with gestures configured game-to-game which is a little feature especially as the world is pretty savvy from the use of smart phones and tablets when it comes to flipping around. The controller is also a slightly different shape to the PS3 and PS2 models in that the handles are much more cylindrical and rounded rather than tapered which does actually make it feel much better to hold.

As with the PS3 there are a lot of other services that it offers other than gaming. It’s not going all out like the XBox One to take over all of your media entertainment but there’s movies, downloads and everything we’ve become a custom too. The only thing that is different is that the PlayStation Network is no longer free in much the same way as XBox Live Gold. Annoying yes but as well as being able to play multi-player games on-line it does throw in digital content every month. I noticed a couple of free games right off the bat.

It’s really early days to say if I’d go out and buy a next-gen console just yet but I think that the same was said about the PS3 so it can only get better but first impressions are very good indeed.

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