Friday Blog - PS4 one week in

Just a short update for Friday....so we've had the PS4 one week now, and I have a few observations:

Five Good Games: unless you're into sports or legos, neither of which appeal in my household (yet; Marcus is just learning about real, physical legos right now so give him a couple more years and I'm sure video game legos won't be far behind) it means my wife and I collectively have snagged Call of duty: Ghosts, Need for Speed Rivals, Battlefield 4, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and (despite having it on PC) Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

I couldn't resist playing some ACIV on getting it, and it turns out the purchase was worth it (fair disclosure: I used Gamestop credit so it didn't really cost me anything, although the Season Pass did). The PS4 version runs better and looks nicer than the one I have on the PC....a sad sign my PC, at three years old, is getting long in the tooth.

I played just far enough into ACIV to have a double-take moment followed by the usual "....oh, I better finished the other games soon so I know what major plot bit they were just refering to...." moments.

Netflix on PS4 is Testy: what is up with Netflix? It randomly freezes the whole system, gets testy when you do things like pause, and also corrupts any background loading you've got going on. We're still using the PS3 for Netflix right now, the PS4 version of the app can't be trusted.

Handy Reboot Tip: if your PS4 has frozen you can reboot it by placing your finger over the whole "start" strip and don't move even if you think hell just froze over. It will eventually reboot, I promise. (About 20-30 seconds, IRL)

Couch Co-Op: My wife and I have ascertained that if you want local multiplayer, Call of Duty Ghosts is a solid win, with multiple split-screen modes to keep us going, despite the fact that Battlefield 4 is technically the superior shooter experience....we both want to play Battlefield 4, but it won't let us play together, so CoD: Ghosts gets more of our time, and we take turns on Battlefield 4 otherwise.

Aside from CoD: Ghosts Injustice has some fun beat-em-up multiplayer, but I suck horribly at these fighting games, so its more fun to let my wife play while I watch the unlocked story scenes. Rumor is the game Knack is good for co-op couch gaming but neither of us found the cutesy platformer genre that Knack comes from to be interesting.

Touchy Feely Console: The PS4 turns on by swiping it's on-spot, which is not an obvious place unless you read the manual. You can also eject discs this way. For some reason it does not let you just turn the console on from the controller like the PS3 did (though you can turn it off that way). It also seems to get uppity in it's power-saver mode, so I've been keeping it in hard-off mode when I shut it down.

Beyond this point....I have to say we're both happy to have the PS4 now. I still have PS3 games to finish...and I shall....but the potential of the new system is obvious, and I expect it will only be a matter of time before the Xbox 360 is retired, and the PS3 will probably hold us over for another year before I finish all the backlogged titles I have on it, too. By then, the new gen consoles should have a decent array of titles to keep us from even wanting to look back.

The Console Shelf Got Very Crowded Last Night

My wife took it upon herself to buy us (and by us I mean me) a Playstation 4 for Xmas. And because neither she nor I can resist giving out gifts to each other two second after we get them, I got it last night. I reciprocated with a Deadpool Omnibus Vol. I (she's a big Deadpool fan) but it felt a little...off kilter. Might need to find some more lewt for her....!

So yeah, despite not planning to get a PS4 I now have one. Which means this is all I have to blog about today. But a few observations for those interested:

1. I received Killzone: Shadow Fall and Need for Speed Rivals with the PS4. Both decent games. It's impossible not to notice that they are suddenly in 1080p. It's hard to believe it took us this long to get a console that displays games natively in 1080p.

2. The selection of free to play titles on the PS4 is modest but important: Killzone: Retribution, DC Universe Online, Warframe and a few others (such as Contrast and Resogun as PSNetwork freebies) are vital downloads, since outside of this there's a pretty skimpy lineup of launch titles. Also, near as I can tell no one is making splitscreen co-op anymore, which is a damned shame.

3. If you were not a fan of the old Playstation interface you might like the new one. It had a few quirks, but once I got used to it I find its pretty easy. A bit odd how one closes out a game or app, though.

4. A weird negative: don't try to watch Netflix on the PS4 while downloading games. It does not like this, and will make you sorry by corrupting the download files.

5. I think this has been fairly well established, but in case you didn't know, the new generation of consoles are not backwards compatible. So....don't chuck your old PS3 anytime soon. Unless you're completely done with it, the PS3 may still have some life left in it. For me, I've still got a couple dozen games I'd like to finish on the old machine.

On Need for Speed: Rivals....this is a pretty addictive game. Damned addictive. Despite there not being a way to pause while actually rolling around the tracks, primarily because this is a sort of "racing MMO lite," if you need to pause you just go into safe drive mode or quit out to your garage screen. This may cost you winnings....assuming you don't suck like I do....but it's not nearly as problematic so far as some gaming outlets might have suggested. Beyond that, the pick-up-and-go multiplayer racers vs. cops is very addictive for those who are into racing games.

As for Killzone: Shadow Fall the game looks very nice, and starts off promising. It's got a very comfortable interface and the gameplay feels very right. I like the drone you acquire. The forests you stalk through are very impressive. It bodes well for what we can see on these machines in the future. Note that you do not need to have played the prior Killzone titles to enjoy this one, as the story takes place decades after the end of Killzone 3.

Beyond all that, the new PS4 game controller is extremely nice, and I like it much, much more than the older sixaxis controller for the PS3 and prior versions. The revamped controller was long overdue but well worth the wait. So far the only oddity about it is the placement of options button....for me, anyway.

So....more later on the PS4! I'll try to do proper reviews of the aforementioned titles, and also plan to snag Call of Duty Ghosts and Battlefield 4, too. I already have Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag for the PC, so that will have to sit out, I suppose. I do have CoD:Ghosts on Steam but....my wife would kinda like to play it as well, preferably in splitscreen mode....which I've heard this one might actually support (internet rumors are hazy on this though...)