Andy Naylor reviews the PlayStation 4….
Nearly a decade has passed since the launch of the last/current (it’s hard to keep track of industry standard terms these days) games consoles. Friday marks the European release of the PlayStation 4. Even though we Europeans are again treated like the black sheep of the world, having to wait two weeks after the US release, we can finally get our grubby little mitts on the PS4.
First off, the Dualshock 4 is a huge improvement on its flimsy predecessor. It feels tough, looks much better and the analog sticks now bevel inwards rather than rising outwards, which makes for much more grip when handling the controller. It also contains a headphone socket, which all sound from the console is able to come through. It’s a simple addition but it’s very clever. No longer are you stuck in bed with your partner moaning, “Will you turn that down! I’m trying to sleep.” Simply flick the option and you have portable sound through your headphones and you can maintain a healthy relationship in the process. The battery life also seems to be about on par with the Dualshock 3, which in all fairness was fairly decent, I’ll be interested to know what it’s like after a few months of use, my Dualshock 3 runs out of juice pretty swiftly these days.
Now, the sidekick has been commented on, so onto the console itself. It looks nice, a little pointy, but at least that’s better than the George Foreman grilling machine that the PS3 was modelled on. It’s also a lot smaller than the first generations of PS3s, think PS2 size but a little longer.
I’m a big fan of the PS4 firmware. It so smooth and quick that you can’t help but be impressed. Pressing the PS button on the PS3 can be slow and cumbersome experience, sometimes you’re left there with just a loading display for what seems like forever. There’s none of that on the PS4, everything is instantaneous, particularly the transitions from gameplay back to the home screen. Some serious thought has gone into it. The PS3 firmware felt like it had things shoehorned into as the console evolved, the Xbox 360 dashboard was always streaks ahead of its rival, but this time it seems Sony have planned it through thoroughly, everything about the firmware is quite intuitive and smooth. However, I still have reservations about the internet browser on the console. I’d love to see Sony team up with Google or Firefox and create a really unique and reliable browser; at present I’d just prefer to stop what I’m doing and use my phone. It’s not a major issue, due to the impressive number of apps that will be available for the console, but it’s still clunky to use and a poor feature.
But all that is irrelevant, we aren’t bothered really what the PS4 looks like, or how the firmware behaves, we want to know what the games are like. Well, in a word, disappointing. Now I am sure this won’t be the case for long, but the launch titles for the PS4 are mediocre at best. The variety in genres is there, but the quality of the games is a baby step up from the PS3 rather than the leap we would’ve hoped. I’m not saying some things are not impressive, Killzone is probably the nicest looking game you’ll see on any console, but it doesn’t blow you away. It’s minutely better looking than its PS3 counterparts but my main thought when playing any PS4 game was, “Oh, it’s shiny.” Everything is shiny. The use of shiny stuff is so over the top I can only compare it to J.J. Abrams’ use of lens flare. It really is quite a bizarre thing to do. Every developer seems to have realised that the PS4 has more power and the only thing they can think of is, “Well that definitely needs a reflection!” It doesn’t. Stop it now. It’s as if every game I’ve played has been coated in a layer of plastic. But where the graphics disappoint, the in-game physics delivers. Check out Knack, every single individual part of his body has its own textures and physics. When he loses life parts of his body tumble to the floor and bounce around individually. It doesn’t add anything to the gameplay at all, but it is exciting to think what will be possible once developers get to grips with utilising the power of the PS4.
Overall, the PS4 has an exciting future. I’m looking forward to games further down the line but the launch titles simply don’t do the console justice. There are not enough of them and what’s there isn’t that much of an improvement for what you can get on your current consoles. Twelve months on and I expect that all to change. There’ll be some truly epic games out there and that is when I personally will upgrade to a PS4. For now, I’m happy to hold out and wait.
Andy Naylor – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published November 28, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
