Review: Updated: PS4 Introduction October 16, 2014 Update: a lot has changed for the PlayStation 4 since its November 2013 release date. Weve recently updated this review to include additional information about System Software 2.0, codenamed Masamune. Original review by Alex Roth. Ten million consumers cant be wrong, the PS4 is the future of gaming. Housing some of the most powerful hardware ever to sit before a television, Sonys new console is two sleek slabs of industrial design fused together for one purpose - living room dominance. Since it was first announced at E3 2013, the PS4 has been in hot contention with Microsofts Xbox One. When its rival stumbled with a now-reversed always online policy that had gamers fretting, Sony jumped at the chance to win hearts and minds and rack up pre-orders. PlayStation 5: what should we expect from PS5 and the next generation? Manufacturer messaging aside, both systems have the same goal: to become your sole source for movies, music, TV and gaming. After a hefty day one patch, the PlayStation 4 will be begging for you to pack it to the gills with streaming media apps and any of its twenty-two launch titles, which range from a handful of mega-budget AAA titles to download-only indie darlings. The PlayStation 4 is almost a year old, but is still short on AAA titles. Like the Xbox One, it came out of the gate with some solid multiplatform releases, mostly uprezzed last-gen titles like Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, NBA 2K14 and Battlefield 4. As far as exclusives go, though, it really only has Killzone: Shadow Fall, Infamous: Second Son and the HD re-release of The Last of Us to brag about. In an ideal world, every gamer would get to have both. The two consoles would share shelf space in living rooms worldwide, cats and dogs would frolic together, Apple and Android fans would laugh off their differences and everyone would have grown up with a pony. The reality is that neither machine is cheap, and theyre both vying for the same spot in your entertainment center, your heart and your hard-earned dollars. Even if you plan to eventually buy both, essential questions remain: what can the PS4 do that the new Xbox cannot, and vice versa? For the long and short of Sonys new system, read on, dear gamer, read on. Design One look at the PS4 and you know youre seeing Sony hardware. Its slim, sleek and jet black, roughly the size of a second generation PS3. The full measurements are 275 x 53 x 305 mm. Its a bit more compact than an Xbox One, which is longer and taller at 274 x 79 x 333 mm. The PS4 is 6.1 lbs, about two MacBook Airs heavy. In a feat of engineering worth tipping your hat to, Sony has tucked the PS4s power supply inside the system, leaving no external power brick to trip over. Microsofts system has held onto its power adapter, and weighs just a little bit more, tipping the scales at 7 lbs. PS4 sports a sloped, asymmetrical design. Thats its largest departure from PlayStations past. It lies flat on its belly by default, but can go up on its tiptoes with the help of a plastic stand, sold separately for $14/£16.99. On its face is a slit of a mouth, a slot loading Blu-Ray disc drive free from the jutting and breakable disc tray of the Xbox 360. To its right are two powered USB 3.0 ports, which can charge your DualShock 4 controllers when the system is turned off, a feature the PS3 sorely lacked. Along the top, or the side if youve opted for the stand, is a light, which glows blue when you boot it up. It breathes some life into the otherwise cold industrial design of the system. Turn it on and it blinks a yawning hello. Inside, the PS4 is all business. It has a custom single-chip processor that combines an eight core x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU with a 1.84 teraflop GPU based on AMDs Radeon technology. Thats backed by 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a 500GB mechanical hard drive. Sony claims that the PS4s overall performance is ten times that of the PS3. In an official FAQ, Sony also stated that the PS4s hard drive can be removed with a little tinkering, and can be replaced with a larger drive, or a solid-state drive for better performance. Sony says these do it yourself upgrades will not void the systems warranty. Those two USB ports are the PS4s only front facing connections. In the rear youll find HDMI, Ethernet, a digital optical audio out and a proprietary auxiliary connection for the PlayStation Camera. For wireless connections, the PS4 uses 802.11 b/g/n for WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 for its wireless DualShock 4 controllers. Features The PlayStation 4 is a living room computer, more so than the PS3 ever was. Not just because of its specs and AMD-based architecture, but because of its robust feature set. Its capable of bringing games and movies quickly into your home, as well as connecting you to your friends and other online gamers through the PlayStation Network as well as Twitter and Facebook to share brag-worthy gaming moments. Whats in the box? Youre bringing home more than a just a stylish asymmetrical black console. In addition to the actual system you get a power cord (not a big power brick), an HDMI cable, an earbud microphone combo, one DualShock 4 controller and its charging cable. Extra controllers dont come with another charging cable, so dont lose that one. Also, note that we said earbud singular, not earbuds, as in just for one ear. Its cheap but serviceable, but you can actually plug any old headset or pair of buds you already own into the controllers headphone jack, so its not much of an issue. Along with the tech stuff you also get coupons for a month of PS Plus, a month of Music Unlimited and $10 in PlayStation Store credit. Setup Setting up the PlayStation 4 is painless, especially if you have a PS3. You can actually use the same cables from Sonys last system, making for a very easy swap. Setup is one place where the PS4s asymmetrical design actually got in the way. The extended slant of the systems rear obscures the ports, making it hard to see where to plug in power and HDMI when youre leaning over it. This can be aggravating when youve got your head in a darkened TV cabinet. Its less of a problem if you stand the system up on its side. You dont really need the $14/£16.99 stand to do this, but if youre not going to keep it somewhere completely out of harms way, you should play it safe and get one or just keep it lying flat. Once its all plugged in and booted up, your new PS4 will ask to connect to internet. It wants that 300MB day-one patch, but it doesnt need it for offline play. You are able to skip WiFi or ethernet altogether and just pop in a game. Unlike the Xbox One, you can get to the homescreen without initially connecting to the web and patching. Once you do connect to the internet, youll need to let the PS4 update before you can make purchases from the store or play online. PlayStation Store Sony won the popularity contest at E3 by promising not to fiddle with used game trade-ins, but gamers will still have the option to purchase any and all games on the day of release digitally through the PlayStation Store. While opting out of a physical copy means no disc to resell down the road, a digital copy brings a level of convenience to your purchase thats reminiscent of Steam. It means no disc to lose, scratch or even bother inserting when you want to play. You wont have anything to sell to GameStop though, nor will you be able to lend out the game. Games can even be played before a download completes. When purchasing a game like Killzone: Shadow Fall, youll be asked which portion of the game should be prioritized, single player or multiplayer, essentially letting you choose which part of the game you want to hop into first. In a little less than an hour, youll be able to start playing a title. It may seem like something only the truly impatient would enjoy, but when you consider that many releases are in excess of 35GB, its real luxury feature, and another impressive bit of engineering. Then theres the PlayStation app for iOS and Android. With just the touch of a touchscreen, you can remotely purchase games, and get the download going on your PS4 so its ready and waiting when you get home. Finally, starting in mid-June, youll actually be able to pre-load games you buy from the PlayStation Store. Big game coming out next week that you want to play 12:01 Wednesday night? Pre-load it onto your console and the game will be ready for some action instantly after the games launch. While it will only affect certain titles (Battlefield Hardline, Bloodborne, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, LittleBigPlanet 3, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, The Order 1886 and Uncharted 4), this should make getting a digital edition of a game on the first day easier than its ever been. PS Vita Remote Play When Remote Play for the PS Vita was announced, everyone chirped that the PS4 would be the best thing ever to happen to Sonys struggling handheld. While it may not sell many Vitas, considering customers have already spent a lot on a PS4, itll certainly get current owners to dust off the system. Basically, a WiFi connected PS4 can stream gameplay to a Vita, much like a gaming PC streaming Borderlands 2 to an Nvidia Shield, or the proposed Windows to Linux streaming of Valves Steam Box. We used the PS4 and Vita over our home WiFi, provided by a three-year-old Apple AirPort. The connection to the PS4 was lag free, to the point where you could actually use the handheld as a controller. And you can use it as a controller, as well as a second screen, Smartglass style. Its a great way to avoid using the on screen keyboard, if nothing else. Outside of the same WiFi network as your PS4, Remote Play is not an option. At the office we couldnt get it to connect to our PS4 at home, and it simply isnt an available over a 3G data connection. In regards to this, Sonys official statement is: We strongly recommend that Remote Play be used within the same WiFi network where the PS4 system is connected. Remote Play may or may not work over a wide area network. For Remote Play to function over a wide area network, a robust and stable WiFi connection and broadband Internet connection is required, and the local area network where the PS4 system is connected must be configured to permit the PS Vita system to access the PS4 system. Sonys statement holds true, so Vita Remote Play is really more like a Wii U Gamepad, letting you play in bed or get a game in while someone else is using the TV. Its not a strong reason to go out and buy a Vita, but if you already own, its an impressive novelty at the very least. Sharing Gameplay Videos When Sony pulled the PS4 out of the shadows and started rattling off features, it mentioned one truly original and intriguing feature: saving and sharing gameplay videos with the press of the Share button on the DualShock 4. At all times when playing a game, your last fifteen minutes of action is being recorded. This can be disabled, if you find it creepy or want to save on hard drive space, but its switched on by default. There are also places where recording or screen grabs are locked out by developers. Its usually during cinematics or in certain menus. Right on the console you can manipulate the video to a limited degree, more like trimming than true editing, and then share it to Facebook or on the PSN. You can also take a screenshot by holding the Share button, and then attach it to a PSN message, Facebook or tweet it. Sharing videos and screens is limited to social networks and the PSN. In a perfect world wed be able to plug in a thumb drive and grab the raw video but, in the meantime at least, thats not allowed. However, you can stream live gameplay for others to watch over Twitch and Ustream, something PC gamers have enjoyed for a while now. Its quite painless to set up, especially compared to the third-party mechanics needed to employ this on a last-gen system. Share Play One of the most anticipated features coming down the ever-flowing update pipeline is Share Play. Shown off originally at the PlayStation 4 announcement soiree two years ago, Sony promised gamers a feature that would allow friends to remotely jump into their game and take control of the console. Details are scarce about the upcoming firmware 2.0 feature (which includes a dedicated YouTube app for video sharing and more modern friend suggestion tools), but Sony has gone on record telling an audience at Gamescom that only the player initializing Share Play will need a copy of the game. This virtual couch idea isnt new for the system that came with built-in social media buttons, but the ability to pass the controller over the internet is something that we look forward to trying for ourselves. Gamepad + PS Camera The PlayStation 4 is one hot combination of industrial design and gaming hardware, but what about those accessories? How are they for interacting with the system? Out of the box youve got one DualShock 4 controller and its charging cable. Sold separately, a spare will run you $59.99/£49.00, with no extra charging cable included. Then theres the PlayStation Camera. Its $59.99/£54.99, and while it lacks the robust feature set of its new Kinect rival, the fact that its sold separately is likely why the PS4 was able to undercut the Xbox Oneby $100/£80. So thank it for that, at the very least. DualShock 4 controller The PlayStation and its DualShock controller have been peas in the proverbial pod since the brands inception. Ever since the introduction of the twin analog stick design in 1997, Sony has changed little about its signature gamepad. The DualShock 4, the current controller model that ships with the PlayStation 4, is the most refined iteration yet, but Sony has not thrown the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, DualShock fans will find it immediately familiar, and those that disliked Sonys design will find that some, but not all, of their gripes have been addressed. The DualShock 4 might look an awful lot like a DualShock 3, but its far from the same old controller from the past seven years. Its built on a series of tweaks, rather than an overhaul, of the last Sony controller. Even though the new DualShock is even PS3 compatible, a lot has changed from one generation to the next, and mostly for better. Most alterations made to the DualShock seem based on user feedback, targeting a specific annoyance gamers had with last gens model. For example, the twin analog sticks are now spaced a little bit further apart, so its no longer possible to smack your thumbs together when pulling both sticks towards each other. The tops of the sticks are now dimpled. They also have an extra grippy rubber texture, making them very easy to manipulate. Shooter fans especially should appreciate these tweaks. Over long gaming sessions we still found its symmetrical stick layout to be more fatiguing than Xboxs asymmetrical design. The DualShock 4 is the best DualShock yet, but die hard fans of Microsofts gamepad, or long time DualShock haters, wont be won over. The L2 and R2 shoulder buttons, which commonly function as triggers, have been extended. Theyre a lot easier to catch and grip, and its more comfortable to rest a finger on one, ready for that quick reaction shot. Sony has also stepped away from the classic DualShock design by shifting from Start and Select buttons to Share and Options. Not only are they labeled in a way that better fits their functions, theyre no longer rubber. Theyre very flush, making them hard to hit by accident, and they feel closer to a mouse click then the spongy button we were used to. Speaking of a mouse, the DualShock 4 also sports a touchpad. Its metal construction feels great to the touch. Fingers glide smoothly and it can be clicked, just like on a laptop. In fact, it feels a lot like what youd find on a MacBook; the overall construction is excellent. While its underused by the current crop of games, the touchpad is a smart addition. Its fabulously intuitive, and will certainly be a boon for both menu navigation and casual gaming. Borrowing a feature from the Wii Remote, the DualShock 4 has a little speaker. It leave us wondering if Sony will best Nintendo here by figuring out something useful to do with it. Right now the best weve encountered is the way Resogun pipes important bits of narration through it, leaving us free to mute the game and blast our own music. Theres a 3.5mm headphone jack too, so you can plug any old headphones or headset right into the controller. Its extremely convenient, and a great money saver since you can use earbuds or whatever else you already own. The sound outputs in stereo, so its a bit of a waste to use a fancy 5.1 cans this way, but the sound options in settings let you choose between piping chat or game audio into your ears. Sony has also streamlined the whole whos player one? question. Each controller has a light bar that glows one of four colors: blue, red, green or purple. Players are now identified by color, rather than a number. Its now much easier to know whos who at a glance, but these glowing controllers can get obnoxious when youre trying watch a movie in a darkened room. Theres really no reason why they should be lit up when youre using Netflix, or when theres only one controller turned on, for that matter. The only solution is to turn the controller off, which means having to wake it when you want to pause your movie. The DualShock 4 also has less battery life than the previous model. A day of moderate gaming, or leaving the controller on when you watch a film, puts a serious drain on its charge. Our controller frequently ran dry before the end of the day, to the point where we seriously suggest owning at least two, especially if your TV is too far from the couch to play while plugged in. Basically, you need to remember to keep a controller plugged into the PS4 whenever its not in use. Thankfully the system can charge a DualShock when its off or on standby, something the PS3 shockingly could not do, so at least Sony has addressed that major last-gen oversight. It is a pity that a sold seperately DualShock 4 doesnt include a charging cable. GIven that, Sony really ought to be selling the system with two of these cables, one for each USB port. However, well still take this over the Xbox Ones reliance on AAs any day. PlayStation Camera Nothing says next-gen like voice and face recognition technology, hence the PlayStation Camera. While its a shadow of its rival the new Xbox One Kinect, its a massive step up from the PlayStation Eye Camera, thanks to controller tracking and a built-in microphone. Its still a rather unnecessary accessory, at least at this point in the systems life. There are hardly any games that use it and the interface doesnt depend on it in any meaningful ways. At login, the PS4 can use the camera to recognize your face. It actually needs you to hold up a DualShock, where it uses the light bars color to figure out whos player one and so forth. Its amusing and futuristic, but doesnt really speed up the sign in process, which is already as simple as clicking on your name. The PlayStation Camera has a microphone, which can pick up simple spoken commands. The PS4s voice controls are limited, especially compared to the Xbox One. It can be used to launch games, put the system in standby or capture a screenshot. However, voice functions can also work through a microphone, either by plugging the ear bud that comes with the system into your controller or through a fancy third-party headset. As far as games go, only one title truly requires it: Just Dance 2014. For gamers, this should be the deciding factor: do you want to spend an extra $59.99/£54.99 to play just one game? Personally, wed recommend waiting until theres another title or two. Theres also the Playroom, a sort of tech demo that comes with the PS4. Its a showroom feature, the kind of thing that gets otherwise uninterested people engaging with the console. The closest thing it has to a game is air hockey, but the most engaging feature is AR Robots. Here, AR stands for augmented reality. The camera puts you and your living room on the screen, surrounding you with little squealing robots. You can interact with them in limited ways, knocking them around or vacuuming them up with the controller. Since theres no goal and limited gameplay its a really just a tech demo. Its amusing and terribly cute, until you run out of friends to show it to. After that, youll quickly stop visiting the Playroom. Basically, the PlayStation Camera works well and has some amusing features, but its entirely inessential. While these camera probably wont fly off the shelves, were happy that Sony chose not make it essential. Performance The PlayStation 4 has some serious guts. Sony has been bragging about its 8GB of GDDR5 RAM since it was announced, and frankly, the system needs it. While 8GB is a lot of memory right now, how much will it be a few years down the road? The PlayStation 3, with its with its 256MB of XDR Main RAM and 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM made it seven years, and managed to support visual feasts like The Last of Us and God of War: Ascension during its final days. The PlayStation 4 needs to go the distance. So how is it performing now, one year into its life? Interface The PlayStation 3s interface was dense, and plagued by pop in. While it got you to the homescreen quick enough, all the icons needed a little more time to appear. The PlayStation 4s interface has been streamlined considerably. Now known as the Dynamic Menu, its composed of two horizontal feeds. The primary menu serves up games and apps, the one above it hosts your trophies, friends list, your PSN profile and system settings. All of this lays on top of a customizable theme. Coming out of a cold boot, youre on the homescreen in less than thirty seconds. The same goes for coming out of standby. Theres still some icon pop in, meaning the menu needs a few extra second to populate. None of that is terribly impressive, performance will undoubtedly be better for those who upgrade to an SSD. As far as responding to player inputs goes, its very fast. You can drill through menus almost immediately, and everything moves in the blink of an eye. This homescreen is never far away, just pressing the PlayStation button summons it and pauses your current game. Also, if you get lost in an avalanche of menus, the PS button will bring back to the primary feed, a simple alternative to spamming the back button. Switching from one game to another will end your current session; the PlayStation warns you of this and asks you to confirm the shutdown of whatever title you have paused in the background. Better make sure youve reached a checkpoint, as the title will boot fresh the next time you play it; it does not pick up right where you left off. We said the interface is streamlined and it is, practically to a fault. That primary feed constantly reorders itself, putting the recently accessed applications first. Thats fine if youre only playing a game or two, but getting at something on your back burner means scrolling to the end of an ever growing list. Icons towards the back also need a second or two to appear. The Dynamic Menu also lumps all your streaming apps into one icon. Everything from Netflix to Amazon to whatever else is found under TV & Video. Only Sonys Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited are allowed to hang out on the homescreen. The only icon that never moves is Whats New, basically the PSNs news feed. Its always at the front of the line and clicking into is to enter a jumbled nightmare that would make Mark Zuckerberg cry or laugh, we cant decide which. Its an asymmetrical mishmash of icons representing everything your PSN friends have done, from play games to earn achievements to share gameplay videos and screenshots. Its a total mess, especially compared to the neatly laid out Dynamic Menu. The biggest problem with Whats New is not the eye gouging layout, but the fact that theres not much to be done with 80% of the information there. Suppose theres an icon saying Joe played Battlefield 4 for three hours last night. Clicking on the icon just provides a description from the PSN Store and a link to buy the game. And you can like the activity, adding yet another icon to everyones jumbled feed. Whats New is in desperate need of a filtration system. There needs to be a way to reduce the trophy spam and see just the things you can actually interact with. Being able to see gameplay videos posted by friends is cool, but not so cool that that youll dig through this feed to find them. From a design perspective, the Dynamic Menu needs work. It alternates between too stripped down or absolutely cluttered. The saving grace is that its fast and pleasant looking, minus the pop in. Games Alright, the stuff that truly matters. The PlayStation 4 is indeed a graphical step up from the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The games look very good, and everything loads quite quickly. Beyond the speedy, one time install when you first pop in a new game, its hard to even notice the loading times. Theres nothing that even comes close to the disconcertingly long load up of the PS3s The Last of Us. The graphics are good, but not mind blowing. If youve played on a PC that costs two or three times what a PS4 goes for, youve seen as good, if not slightly better. Its the fact that youre getting it for so much cheaper, and on your HDTV, thats worth something. Just dont expect your head to explode and your eyes to melt like its the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Theres an impressive level of detail on display in Knacks character models. Killzone shows off some vistas with a draw distance that would have melted a last-gen system. The most muscle being flexed on the PS4 comes in subtle ways from the performance side. The fact that Battlefield 4 can manage 64 players with just a brief load before a match is the kind of stuff worth noting. The third-party titles on the PlayStation 4 have one foot in next generation and the other in the last. Games Call of Duty: Ghosts and Madden 25 look better than their last-gen counterparts, and they certainly perform better, but theyre not on par with Sonys private stable of titles. The one exception to that is NBA 2K14, which is truly striking. The animations, the renderings of famous players, the detail of the crowd and the accuracy of its animations make it something to write home about. It stands among the first-party titles as one of the best looking games on the system. Were being harsh but only because we know that better games will come. If you rush out and buy a PS4 now, youll be wanting for titles to show you what this system can truly do. Theres a reason Sony made such a big deal out of confirming a new Uncharted game, the best is truly yet to come. Must-Own Games The PlayStation 4 looks slick and its chocked full of gigabytes, but what exactly can you play on it? Thats the question gamers should be asking before lining up at the local electronics store. The PS4s library isnt large, some standouts have already emerged. For more, we turn to our sister site GamesRadar. If you still need something to play after reading this, check out their list of the best PS4 games. Infamous: Second Son The new Infamous is the first game that looks like its actually putting all that fancy hardware to work. An open world game with an incredible amount of detail, it boasts excellent production values and a dark, comic book-style story. From GamesRadars review: If youre looking for a next-gen showpiece to demonstrate the power of PlayStation 4, inFamous: Second Son will definitely do the trick--it looks great, plays well, and gives you a dozen or so hours of city to explore. The gameplay itself isnt all that revolutionary, but the stellar presentation and enjoyable characters assure youll enjoy your trip to Seattle--even if youll wish there was more to do there. Read the full Infamous: Second Son review on GamesRadar The Last of Us Remastered Hands down, The Last of Us was the best game on the PS3. It shocked us with a heartfelt plot wrapped around a brutal world full of creeps, weirdos, and one genuinely nice guy. With fully remastered graphics and updated soundtrack, The Last of Us Remastered finally gives next-gen adopters a chance to play the game weve been raving about for the past eight months. From GamesRadars review: The Last of Us remains a must-play, genre-defining action survival game, and the Remastered version brings with it plentiful tweaks and additional content that make it well worth the asking price. Read the full The Last of Us review on GamesRadar Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Monolith Games, Shadow of Mordors developer, couldve made the title Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor. There was nothing stopping them from a legal stand point. But that wouldve led people to think that SoM is nothing more than a movie knock-off looking to capitalize of The Hobbits success. Instead, this turned out to be one of the most well-received games of 2014, leaving its movie-based peers in the dust. Return of the King may have been the king of the movie theater, but SoM has claimed the throne in videogames. From GamesRadars review: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an outstanding action game, offering a satisfying mix of stealth and melee combat that series like Assassins Creed or Batman: Arkham have perfected. But the Nemesis system, which cleverly makes enemies grow and evolve along with the player, is what elevates Shadow of Mordor into the upper echelons of open-world excellence. Every time you die, its personal. Read the full Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor review on GamesRadar Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag A pirates life for ye? Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag takes the naval aspects of the series and turns them up to 11, crafting a sea faring, sword fighting, treasure taking adventure thats at once a return to form and a departure for Ubisofts time-traveling series. From GamesRadars review: An ambitious start for Assassins Creed on next-gen. The vibrant Caribbean world and bloody piracy shine brightest, while the only sour notes come from contrived series story beats and repetitive missions--both need rethinking for AC5. Read the full Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag review on GamesRadar Resogun Resogun is a fast-paced, addictive 2D-ish shooter. Beyond the simple fun of a neon gun show, its a major selling point for PS Plus. Subscribe and youll get it with your monthly payment. If Plus keeps stacking up games like this, itll really have Xbox Live Gold looking bad. From GamesRadars review: Resogun looks incredible and provides plenty of arcade fun. Its only held back by sudden difficulty spikes and some frustrating point-scoring mechanics. Read the full Resogun review at GamesRadar Watch Dogs Imagine the best Matrix game never made and add in a bit of Assassins Creed-style exploration. What youve got is Ubisoft Montreals Watch_Dogs. Following Aiden Pierce as he dismantles a power-mad society from the inside out, the game is an absolute blast and one of the biggest games of 2014. From GamesRadars Watch Dogs review: Watch Dogs interconnected world is a wonderful, explosive, high-tech playground. Shame the people who inhabit it are so forgettable. Read the full Watch Dogs review at GamesRadar Destiny Calling Destiny ambitious is a disservice to the game. Its an ambient world (er, galaxy) that operates in real time. It combines single- and multiplayer into a single campaign, seamlessly transitioning between the two. Its from the team that made Halo, so while Destiny may not have the iconic face of Master Chief plastered on the box, it will have the same creative minds doing what they do best: sci-fi. From GamesRadars Destiny preview: Bungie had a lot to do with what the first person shooter has become today. Now that the developers time with the landmark Halo series is over, the developer is setting out with a brand new IP. With the companys next project--an open, shared-world shooter called Destiny--it looks like the creators of Master Chief are aiming to change the face of the shooter once again. Read the full Destiny preview at GamesRadar Games Coming Soon Its not enough to have four or five stand-out games available on your console; what you really need are great games waiting in the wings, ready to launch this holiday season. The PS4 may not have had the better of the two launch line-ups (sorry Knack!), but its making up for lost time with some huge, triple-A games exclusively available on the PlayStation 4. A mix of late 2014 and early 2015 release dates, theres a lot to look forward to on Sonys system - not the least of which is the recently unveiled Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End. Assassins Creed Unity Release date: October 28, 2014 Just when you think youre out, they pull you back in. The latest installment of the Assassins Creed universe follows protagonist Arno Dorian around Revolutionary France where the templars have again taken power and the assassins to take up arms with the proletariat. This time around, you and three friends can take on the story mode in co-op mode while seeing crowds 1,000-people strong thanks to the power of the PS4. LittleBigPlanet 3 Release date: November 18, 2014 There was a time when the terms childrens game and destined for the discount bin were synonymous. The original LittleBigPlanet changed that. An easy-to-understand platformer similar in spirit to the original Super Mario Bros., LittleBigPlanet is a cute, fun, ephemeral adventure that will make you smile time and time again. The third game in the main series will have Sackboy - the games crochet protagonist - teaming up with three friends to save Craftverse. From GamesRadars LittleBigPlanet 3 preview: LittleBigPlanet was one of the key new franchises for the PlayStation 3, and both it and its sequels engaged millions of players to create countless stages for the many different Sackboys to explore. Read the full LittleBig Planet 3 preview at GamesRadar Bloodborne Release date: February 6, 2015 Right out of the gate, Japanese RPG developer FromSoftware was on Sonys side. The original button-breaking-out-of-sheer-frustration game Demons Souls was a PS3 exclusive. The companys latest title, Bloodborne is going to return that soul-crushingly difficult gameplay back where it belongs, exclusively on Sonys PS4. From GamesRadars Bloodborne preview: From Softwares upcoming PS4 exclusive delivers the same kind of giddy thrills as the [Dark] Souls series, with a few new twists and a spooky Victorian-era setting. But the delight of playing still comes from the same places. The suspense before each fight; the intensity of the combat; the desperate clinging to hope when things look dire; the euphoric relief that comes with finally downing your enemy. Its all here, and its incredible. Read the full Bloodborne preview at GamesRadar The Order: 1886 Release date: February 20, 2015 Flat out, The Order 1886 is cool. Imagine the Industrial Revolution set in a world where man and lycanthrope are at constant war and for once, man finally has the upper hand. With superior technology its finally time for man to conquer beast, but the werewolves arent going down without a fight. From GamesRadars The Order: 1886 preview: Alright, yes, this is probably going to become a standard for games developed specifically for next-gen consoles, but mother of GOD is The Order 1886 a beautiful looking game. The level of detail on the characters, environments, and everything in between is astonishing. Not surprising considering the developers stated they wanted to make an experience that looked as cinematic as possible. Read the full The Order: 1886 preview at GamesRadar Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End Release date: TBA 2015 One of the biggest surprise appearances at E3 2014 was Uncharted 4. Its too bad we know as little about Nathan Drakes final adventure into the wild green yonder as we do about the lost city of Atlantis. What we can expect, however, is another edge-of-your-seat adventure steeped in some loose world history and a quite possibly heart-breaking ending. Hey, no one said the life of an adventurer would be easy. From GamesRadars Uncharted 4 preview: Whether its the end of Uncharted too is hard to say, especially since you wouldnt expect the final game in a franchise to be the big, shiny iteration for new gen consoles. Theres still the potential for prequels, or Drake sidestepping his end, or maybe Naughty Dogs getting sneaky on us and thief refers to someone else entirely. Its hard to say just yet, and we might not know until we play through it ourselves. Read the full Uncharted 4 preview at GamesRadar For more insight into this years biggest releases check out GamesRadars list of Upcoming PS4 Games. Media The PlayStation 3 was beloved among AV enthusiasts and home theater techies as a simple, relatively inexpensive DLNA media server. Without breaking too much of a sweat you could have it streaming music and videos from your PC, playing them back over your stereo and HDTV. While the functionality isnt quite on par with its predecessor, the PS4 does have plans to add a USB music player in system software 2.0 that will support MP3, MP4, M4A, and 3GP file types. Until then, however, consider the PS4 to be closer to a Roku than a PS3 in terms of media streaming functionality, as it hosts a bevy of third-party movie apps as well Sonys own music and movie storefronts. Streaming video apps Like a good little console, the PS4 is playing host to a plethora of third-party apps for streaming movies and television. While its neck and neck with the Xbox One in terms of library size, Xbox Live keeps all these apps behind a $60/£32.49 paywall. Even if youre paying for Netflix, you wont be watching it on your Xbox unless pony up for Gold. Not so on the PSN. You need a subscription for online multiplayer but not for media streaming. Right now, the PS4 has apps for most of the major players in the streaming video market. Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, NBA Game Time, NHL GameCenter Live, Redbox Instant, Twitch and Crackle are all present and accounted for. The notable absences are HBO GO, YouTube and ESPN. Concerned about getting our Game of Thrones fix, we reached to Sony about the status of HBOs app, but were told it had nothing to announce at this time. Music Unlimited There are no third-party music streaming apps on the PlayStation 4. Same goes for Xbox One. Microsoft has its Xbox Music, and Sony has Music Unlimited, a proprietary app very similar in execution to Spotify. It requires a subscription fee of $5 a month, $10 if you want playback from mobile devices. It lets you stream whole albums or create stations, or channels, as it refers to them, from a massive library of artists. There are enough genres here to cater to cover the majority of mainstream music, some obscure stuff as well, and a strong showing of comedy albums. The best part of Music Unlimited is how its been gloriously well integrated into the consoles interface. Music can be streamed over gameplay, with playback controls just a long press of the PS button away. You can also access the Music Unlimited app without closing your current game. Unfortunately, Music Unlimited needs work. The app is slow, youll see a loading screen each time you open it, even if it was just recently accessed. Thats far more loading than youll ever see in a game. Channel song matching is poor. When you first create a channel youll always hear a track from the artist youve chosen. What comes up next is a crapshoot, often a track entirely outside the genre youre expecting. Music Unlimited doesnt seem to learn from your skips either. Blow past an undesirable track and the next song is often in that same genre youre not interested in, or even by the same artist. Theres no way to give a track a thumbs down either. We also had music playback drop out frequently times during our testing. Hopefully this is all just a server issue, something that Sony can sort out sooner rather than later. All in all its a real missed opportunity. The strong interface integration on the PS4 really got our hopes up, and since theres no Spotify, Rdio or Pandora here, Music Unlimited really is the only game in town. Also, since there are apps for Android and iOS, as well as an in-browser player, this could conceivably become your all around source for music, and therefore a worthy investment. As it stands now, its hard to recommend. We suggest saving the free trial that comes with your PS4 for a month or so and to see if things improve. Well be back again to check it out and update this review. Video Unlimited If Music Unlimited is Sonys Spotify, then Video Unlimited is its iTunes or Amazon Instant for movies and TV. It works much the same way as those services, offering streaming playback of movies and TV in standard or high definition. Its a bit of a change from the PS3, which allowed you to download movies for local playback. If you have an unreliable connection for streaming, this probably isnt the best option for you, but to be fair, Netflix and others wont fare much better. Those services are streaming only as well. Price-wise, its on par with the competition. An HD rental of Man of Steel goes for $4.99, the same price as on Amazon and iTunes. Episodes of Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones are present and priced competitively. The selection is pretty close to its rivals as well. We did our best to stump it, but found a wide library of new and classic movies and television. The only gap we could find was Portlandia, and other shows from the cable channel IFC. Other cable comedies like Chappelles Show and Childrens Hospital were available. The roadblock here is that your playback devices are severely limited, namely to Sony devices. Only Xperia Android devices will be able stream your purchases, with no support for any other flavor of Android, iOS or even Mac computers. There is an app for playback on Windows PCs, and it did not appear to be limited to Sony Vaio machines. Amazon uses a similar tactic with its Prime Instant Video, only providing streaming video service for its Kindle Fire devices. It does offer playback on iOS over WiFi though, while Video Unlimited does not. Basically, while Video Unlimited has competitive selection and pricing, we cant recommend buying anything more than a rental from it, something that youll watch in one sitting on your PS4 or PS Vita. Unless you own a few more Sony devices, you wont have a lot places to enjoy your library. Network In the last generation, Sonys PlayStation Network, or PSN, was always number two to Xbox Live. PSN was by no means poor, but it was a get what you pay for situation. Xbox Live Gold was $60/£32.49 for a year, got you access to online multiplayer and streaming services (even ones you might already be paying for, like Netflix) and had a robust list of features that made it easy to communicate with friends and join their games. Sony gave away online multiplayer for free with the PlayStation 3, but you could opt for PlayStation Plus status for digital store discounts and other perks. Now the arrival of the PS4, Sony has given the PSN a major renovation, and introduced a paywall for online multiplayer. The PSN on the PlayStation 4 has gotten a major renovation. It has new features, and benefits, and new, much more compelling reason to spend $50 for a year of PlayStation Plus: its now required for online multiplayer. PlayStation Network Unlike Xbox One, Sonys console does not need to be connected to the internet for its initial setup. There is a 300MB day one patch, but if you live in a lead lined bunker without a trace of WiFi, youll still be able to pop in a disc and enjoy some single player without downloading it. During the initial setup, the PS4 will ask to be connected to internet, like any PC, phone or tablet would do. As we said, you can deny it, and still get some gaming and DVD watching done. However, youd be missing out on a lot of the fun. The PSN now supports a party chat function, which lets you group with friends outside of a game for open mic chat. If you do enter a game, youll be able to communicate privately with each other. The mic quality is clear, but we do suggest investing in something beyond the tinny earbud that comes with your system. Your PSN profile can now be linked to your Facebook account. Its relatively well executed, but take your time going through the setup menus or youll end up spamming your friends news feeds every time you play a game or earn a trophy. Theres an option to make your real name public to everyone yahoo you encounter online. We opted to make it private, meaning that after your friend someone, theres a can send a second request to make your real names visible to each other. This is a smart, well executed feature. This second request can be sent at any time, allowing for a getting to know you period with the people you meet online. Of course, if youre dealing with someone you know in real life, you can go ahead and send the request. Using real names makes it easier to keep track of who exactly HeadShot9999 is, and makes for a much nicer looking friends list. Also new is the PS4s ability to offer friend recommendations of real-world gamers you might know. While the PSN did have some hiccups during the first 24 hours of the systems North American launch, its smooth sailing now. Weve been able to maintain a steady connection with a fast ping on our home internet connection, in both first and third-party games. PlayStation Plus On the PlayStation 4, Sony has followed the Xbox Live Gold example and put online multiplayer behind a paywall. While its easy to find that disappointing, it was an inevitability, and Plus still comes with all its old benefits, and its priced a bit less than Xbox Live ($50/£40 versus $60/£32.49 for Live). Also, you can still access services like Netflix without buying into Plus. If you have an active PS Plus account from your PS3 or PS Vita itll carry over and apply to all your Sony systems. Benefits like digital store discounts, monthly free games and early DLC access are still part of the package. Plus, game patches can download and install automatically while in the PS4 is in standby, and firmware and overall system updates will download automatically even if youre not a Plus member. Youll also gets you 1GB of cloud storage for your saved games. While any PSN member can sign into a friends PS4 and access their digitally purchased games, only Plus subscribers will be able to yank their progress out of the cloud. Right now, two of the best benefits of PlayStation Plus are Resogun and Contrast, the games you currently get to download at no extra for charge for subscribing to Plus. Its rotating selection, so eventually these wont be the freebie games, but those who were subscribed to Plus during their reign will get to keep them as long as they have Plus. Sony also has a pretty forgiving system for those who let their Plus lapse. Should it lapse, your free games wont be removed from your hard, but they will lock up. Once you buy back in, they be accessible again. It would be pretty draconian of Sony to take away your games just because youre not auto-renewing. Sony is also adding an add to library function that allows PS Plus members to add a game to their media library without downloading the full game right then and there - a handy feature if youre already running low on storage space. While its sad to see free PSN multiplayer got the way of the dodo, Sony has done a lot to sweeten the Plus deal. We think its an essential part of the PS4 experience, and totally worth the price. At the very least, use the free trial that comes with your system and grab Resogun and Contrast before they disappear. PlayStation Now and PlayStation TV Perhaps the biggest announcements since the PS4s reveal last year has been the rebranding of game streaming service GaiKai as PlayStation Now and the western edition of the PlayStation TV. Firmware update 1.71 has enabled the first batch of beta testers to get their hands on an early PlayStation Now build. We got a chance to check it out and had few critiques, the first and foremost of which is that the rumored unlimited streaming option may not be available. Games typically start at $2.99 for a four-hour rental and can skyrocket up to $29.99 for the largest 90-day package. There are seven day and 30 day options available too if the two extremes dont fit your fancy. The other big concern is that a dropped connection means game over. If you get disconnected the stream will stop mid-game whether you saved 10 seconds ago...or three hours ago. Youll really need a stable ethernet connection to get the most from the service when it launches closer to 2015. PS TV is essentially a set-top box rolled into a games console. It can stream games via PlayStation Now and can link up to a PS4 to stream content on a separate TV. Of course, you can expect apps like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video to make an appearance here as well. Whether or not these initiatives will ultimately succeed, however, will depend largely on their performance, cost and Sonys ability to make the whole of the PlayStation Store available to consumers upon launch. Hands on gallery Verdict With the PlayStation 4, Sony opened the door to the next generation of console gaming and put forth a serious challenge to Microsofts Xbox One. Its packed the system with future proof specs, improved the controller, lined up tons of great developer support and undercut the competition on price. We wont beat around the bush: its a great machine. But is it worth diving into now, or should you wait for a that new Uncharted? Lets break it down. We liked Gaming on the PS4 is fantastic. The graphics are a big step up from last-gen consoles. Its not only the visuals, though, the performance of this machine is off the charts. Theres hardly thirty seconds of loading time between the dozen launch titles we tested, and multiplayer sessions can get massive, like the 64 player showdowns on Battlefield 4. The interface is fast too. Everything is speedy and responsive right from minute one, and the interface is full of clever design choices that speed things up. Games begin to install the second you pop in the disc, firmware updates download while the system is on standby and game patches do too if you have PS Plus. The DualShock 4 controller is a significant upgrade. The most bothersome aspects of the DualShock 3 have been addressed, resulting in a comfortable controller thats more functional for games of all genres. The touchpad, while currently underused, is well built and nicely placed, the light bar makes player identification simple and the system can finally charge a controller while its off or in standby. PS Vita Remote Play works well over WiFi. Using it on a different network or 3G is a no-go, but being able to play Knack in bed or Killzone when someone else is using the TV was reliable and lag free over our home WiFi, plus a lot of fun. The system looks great and has no power brick. On a purely aesthetic level, the PS4 is very cool. The asymmetrical design is striking, even if it makes it difficult to get at the rear ports, and its also a restrained size. It makes you wonder how the Xbox One could be so massive and still have a power brick. PS Plus is totally worth it. While its a bit disheartening to see online multiplayer go behind a $50/£40 paywall, Sony has tossed in a lot of stuff to sweeten the deal. You get improved standby functionality, discounts on games in the digital store and freebie downloadables that are actually quite good. You dont get a PlayStation Camera in the box, and it should be noted that its not as powerful as the new Kinect, but if you dont care about that, then its hard to argue with saving $100/£80. We disliked Eight months on, and the PS4 doesnt have enough great games yet. Historically, launch lineups are often mixed, and filled with games most players wont remember six months later. Thats exactly where the PS4 is at right now. Most games done feel like theyre tapping the true potential of the hardware. The interface is too stripped down, and the Whats New feed is a mess. Having the PS4s Dynamic Menu constantly reorder is too simplistic, especially if youre going to tuck Netflix into a Movies & TV folder. This is nitpicking really, its the Whats New news feed that needs work. All the useless trophy spam is burying genuinely engaging stuff like gameplay video and screenshot shares. Sharing gameplay videos and screenshots is shackled to social networks. There really ought to be a way to grab your gameplay videos with a USB drive, or a the very least upload them to a private link. Being forced to share them on Facebook or on the PSN just makes us not want to do it. No DLNA sharing is a step backwards, the lack CD or MP3 playback is really strange. People who used their PS3 as a media server are really going to miss these features. At least Sony has said its listening, hopefully itll start patching this stuff in soon. Wed also like to know when the HBO GO app will arrive. Winter is coming, Sony, winter is coming. Sonys Unlimited services need work. Music Unlimited has a big library and a great interface, but as of this writing its basically broken. The song matching is poor and playback frequently drops out. And Sony, not providing an Android app for Video Unlimited on anything but your own Xperia devices is downright miserly. Amazon may do the same thing and reserve streaming for its own Android devices, the Kindle Fire HDX, but at least it has iOS support and allows simple in-browser streaming. Verdict Well say it again: the PlayStation 4 is a great piece of hardware. Its fast, attractively built and has a streamlined philosophy that puts games front and center and has helped it achieved a relatively attractive price point. Its also in its infancy. Its worth owning, but not worth rushing to the stores for. Its only going to get better, when the truly next-gen titles start to arrive, when more streaming media apps are available, when its own media services gain stability and Sony patches in that much needed media playback support. Maybe itll even clean up the Whats New feed. Weve really enjoyed our time with the system, but as far as the games go, weve failed to find a truly standout title. E3 2014 provided a few glimmers of hope, but were still waiting for the game that makes us say yes, this is why you buy a PlayStation 4. First reviewed November 2013
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 05:40:47 +0000
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