Sony PS4 – Preview
Last week I got the chance to take a look at the new Sony PS4 and these are my impressions with Sony’s new hardware and some of the announced games!
The first topic is the hardware. We didn’t really get a good look at the console itself since they were still dev. kits and they were inside a glass casing. We did get to see what the shell is going to look like however and I can say it has a really nice and sleek design. It seems like it has about the same size as a PS3 slim, maybe a bit smaller. The controller is improved quite a bit as well in comparison with the old Dual shock 3. First of all there’s the L2 and R2 buttons. This was a sore point for a lot of people when they switched from buttons to triggers with the PS3. While they’re still triggers and not buttons, they feel a lot different when you pull them. The new triggers have a really nice resistance and they don’t pull up so high like they did on the old one so no more chances to slip off them.
Another great improvement is the raised edge on the two control sticks. It’s a subtle little change that just changes the position of your fingers. It makes it feel so much more natural. Lastly was the new PlayStation eye 2.0. For those who haven’t seen it yet, the new PlayStation eye has a bar design similar to the Kinect with two cameras in it and you can rotate it up and down. As far as to how it worked it seemed to work pretty good, although there were some issues with the camera spotting us when we were sitting in front of a big window so if you do plan on getting one, you might want to watch out where to put it.
Then there’s the game. We got to test 4 games, namely Knack, Octodad: Deadliest Catch, Driveclub and The Playroom, recently announced game you get with the new PlayStation eye.
Let’s start off with Octotdad. For those of you who don’t know this game, Octotdad is a game in which you play an octopus that lives among us as a human, having a regular human family, wife, kids and everything else a normal family would have. This game is the second Octodad game and I was a big fan of the original game, more for its sense of humor. It was fun to play but it had some control issues. I was really happy with the style of Octodad 2, since it contains loads of humor and the controls seem much better. It still feels awkward when you move around sometimes but now you can feel that’s intended. The game also feels a lot more natural to control with a controller then it does with a mouse and keyboard. The level we got to play had octodad getting ready for his wedding and was stuffed with a lot of humor. If they can keep that going with the rest of the game, Octodad: Deadliest Catch is looking to be a great improvement over the original game.
The next game I got to play was Knack, Sony’s new platformer from the hands of Sony Japan Studio and directed by industry legend Mark Cerny. You can really tell Sony is pushing this as one of THE games to show of the PS4. The game has great design and graphical effects, intended to show off just what the PS4 is capable off. Sony is really hoping this is going to be their new Ratchet and Clank style game for the PS4. The demo itself showed off parts of several levels throughout the game. It showed a great diversity in levels: from a small village to a system of caves to a big modern city. The gameplay was pretty simple. There is one button to punch, one to jump, and a few special attacks you could use by pressing two buttons at the same times. To execute these special attacks you need to destroy crystals to gather power. The core mechanic of the game is that Knack can pick up debris and other things and add them to his body, making him bigger and stronger. What surprised me the most about Knack is how hard it was for a game that’s clearly aimed at a large audience. Even when you play it in normal difficulty, a few hits are enough to kill you so you really can’t just jump into a fight and start swinging wildly. You really need to think about how to approach a group of enemies or you really won’t last long. All in all I liked what I saw from Knack, I just hope the final game will have some more gameplay complexity or I think the game might become a little bit too much of the same if you play it long enough.
Driveclub, the new racing game from Evolution Studios, the team behind Motorstorm. It seems evolution wants to walk the line between arcade racer and simulation with this one, trying to incorporate elements of both. The game plays fine, it’s not full on sim like for example Gran Turismo, but don’t expect to be flying through corners full throttle either because that will end with your car crashing headfirst into a wall or railing. The biggest part of the game is its social aspect. You can start your own driveclub with your friends and challenge other driveclubs around the world or people without their own driveclub for the top spot. The game doesn’t only grade you on your best time but puts up challenges within races like getting the most drift points on a certain section or getting the highest average speed on a certain part of the track. The game will be accompanied by a drive club app on touch devices so you can set up races and talk with the rest of your drive club even when you’re not playing. The whole club aspect seems like it’s worked out really well and it keeps giving you that “one more try” push whenever you see your standing in a contest with another club or your own. Overall I think Sony’s got a really great game on their hands with this one if they can create the community to carry it.
Lastly there’s The Playroom, the companion game to the new PlayStation eye 2.0. The demo that was available was unfortunately very limited and still had some technical difficulties but it did show off what you can do with the new eye quite nicely. We got to play two small activities. The first one was with a bunch of AR robots . You could play with them, letting them dance in your controller or shaking them around. You can also flick them out using the touchpad and interact with them in limited ways, taking a swing at them or waving at them for example, as if they were walking around in front of you. The second demo had a little robot that flew around your head and you were capable of interacting with it by using the facial recognition capabilities of the camera. There was also a table tennis game but we couldn’t play that due to some technical difficulties. The Playroom was fun to mess around with but it didn’t really feel like a game as much as it felt like a proof of concept for the new Eye camera. Hopefully by the time it comes out there will actually be some games in there too.
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