Month Nine of the New Console Generation - My gaming Laptop is the best!

 Just a few errant comments on having had a Playstation 5 (which I had to drive to another city to pickup) and Xbox Series X (and two Series S's) since roughly December/January: it's nice to have them, but also not really. Despite their popularity, this is starting to feel like the Laziest Console Generation, indeed perhaps even a clear indication that the Big Two have moved from the old notion of releasing new consoles as a demonstration of new computing power for games to merely being incremental iterations in which a virtual dearth of actual timed support is leaving me with the sensation that neither Microsoft nor Sony ever intended for this generation to be anything more than a general purpose hardware upgrade.

I'm not including Nintendo in this because Nintendo is still playing its own game, making consoles designed to be an experience in their own right. It is not trying to compete with the Big Boys, it is trying to cater to the consumer notions of what it means to buy and experience a console. Nintendo has made something of a mis-step with its Switch OLED edition but only because for months now the online buzz has been about an imaginary Switch Pro that Nintendo never said was coming and which likely Nintendo is aware it does not want to release at this time in the midst of a worldwide microprocessor/electronic parts shortage. This has not stopped an amazing number of Youtubers who make their clicks and likes out of insisting they have an inside scoop look like idiots and in turn viciously attack Nintendo for not catering to their imaginations. Nintendo is only guilty of not realizing the narrative that they needed to get out ahead of before announcing the mildly upgrades OLED console.

Meanwhile, Sony and Microsoft might finally have some games by the Fall/Winter season that fit the definition of "next gen" for the new consoles. Up to this point though we've got mostly last gen holdouts with very mild upgrades, and a smattering of "new" stuff. On the plus side it has never been easier to find games and playing old games on the new consoles does give console players a chance to feel, briefly, like PC gamers have felt all along.

For me personally my investment in a decent gaming laptop (with a 2070 TI GPU, mind you) has eclipsed my console experiences. Pretty much everything except for Returnal (one of a handful of PS5 exclusives) is available on PC, and runs great on the laptop, usually at 4K resolution or maybe 2550p for higher framerates. Meanwhile if I play something on console it is purely as a deliberate choice....for example it is still easier to play split-screen Gears 5 or Call of Duty with my son on Xbox Series X, and Returnal is, after all, only available on PS5. 

Most of the newer games to come out so far (including Outriders which my wife and I both like despite its flaws) have been less than stellar, the sort of stuff you usually see coming out on last gen consoles catering to that quiet period between really good releases. For the most part, though, the next gen has benefited the most from the Games as a Service types including Destiny 2 and Fortnite, but I think there's a limit to how much people can put up with the never-ending hamster wheel of repetition and microtransactions these games sustain on, and you most definitely do not need a Ps5 or Series X/S to enjoy either of these games.

This is all a long way of saying, that had I not secured the new consoles I would still have the satisfaction of being envious of those who have gotten them. But because I have them, I now realize it was kind of a trap and I could easily have waited to 2022 without actually missing anything. 

Six Months In with the 9th Generation Consoles and....

When this sordid story of next gen console acquisition left off  I had secured a Playstation 5 a week before Christmas in an unorthodox move which involved driving 2.5 hours from Albuquerque to Farmington just because Best Buy only had one in stock there. Two weeks later a pre-order from Gamestop coughed up my Xbox Series X, miraculously surviving a journey via UPS to my doorstep. Meanwhile, I had secured not one but two Xbox Series S consoles (the budget machine) for the rest of the household, one for my wife and one for the living room (and ergo the kid). So yeah, by about January 5th I had one of each next generation console sitting in the house. So how has it been?

Short version is: satisfying to have them, but the actual games one expects to see from a new generation of systems is anemic, to say the least. For most owners, the advantage of these consoles has been about seeing how the newer machines improve existing older gen experiences. Days Gone and Horizon: Zero Dawn are better experiences on the PS5, for example. Gears of War 5 and the Halo franchise likewise show improved performance on the Xbox Series X/S. 

But....the new games? Well this week we are finally seeing some new stuff. Returnal for PS5 is out and I am quite enjoying it. Resident Evil 8: Village with the Big Scary Lady is about to release. But in terms of what a console generation's groundbreaking first few months are supposed to look like? It's pretty shallow. If Activision and Ubisoft hadn't dumped out their usual annual affairs (well, in Ubisoft's case if they hadn't delayed them a year) there would have been precious little to enjoy on the new generation. For PS5 we have...Demon's Souls (a remake, albeit a very nice one), Godfall (a game which I have thoroughly enjoyed but for which most had a mixed reception), and...um.....I'm sure there was something else....* And for xbox Series X/S we have Medium (well, if you discount the PC release) and....um....yeah I am sure there is something else, right? 

I'm discounting titles like Outriders (a frenetic co-op shooter with some identity issues), Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion and Call of duty Black Ops: Cold War because while playing these titles (and a handful of others) on the new generation provides an enhanced experience, they are all still retroactively available. And let's not even talk about Cyberpunk 2077, which somehow managed to release without any forward compatibility for the new consoles (see endless other blogs and videos on that subject).

Let's not even mention Fortnite, which provided next gen consoles with exclusive amazing graphics such as: thick clouds and chug jug animations. Wooooo.

Amidst all of this has been a flood....a torrent, if you will, of weird cashgrab and indie titles, most of which can "technically" claim to be forward compatible but their graphical demands are sufficiently low that actually being able to tell they are taking advantage of the new systems is difficult or even impossible. Many of these are insanely cheap, disgusting cashgrabs (I have for the first time ever asked for my money back twice on Xbox purchases....and gotten it!) due to games which were essentially unplayable, in a state which at best suggested that the publishers or devs of said games have barely concealed contempt for their potential audience. Worse, these garbage titles, what was once called shovelware, are so bad it demonstrates that there's a critical failure in Microsoft's vetting process for what sort of titles they let on to their console. I haven't had a truly unpleasant purchasing experience on the PS5 yet, but that would be even worse if it happened since Sony's refund policy is cryptic and not at all consumer friendly.

Still, better I suppose than the Nintendo eShop on the Switch, which is tantamount at times to diving into the shallow end of the kiddie pool and hoping that there's more water than urine in it. Speaking of which, thanks of course to the pandemic the Switch is also suffering from a rather shallow (but wide) lineup of releases this year. Without Monster Hunter Rise (a game I am having a hard time seeing the appeal of) it would be a much less interesting year for most Switch owners. 

All the ranting aside, I'm glad I got the consoles when I did if only because without them I'd be delegated to the Other Camp, the much larger group of gamers who watch in dismay as dismal restocks trickle out only to be snapped up by scalpers again and again, where one can only wonder if those reviews about Returnal being either A: an amazing experience because it is a roguelike or B: an awful experience because it is a roguelike (let's not even worry about the $70 game debate for a moment) are all just imaginary hypotheticals to you, answered at best by watching streamers play through the game.

(By the way: I know the answer, and Returnal is awesome. I am not a fan of roguelikes, having found Dead cells fun but tedious after a while, and Hades charming but not worth the effort. Turns out if you make it a really good 3PS shooter/exploration game with a mix of Prometheus/Alien design in a roguelike package I will play it obsessively and when not playing it think about how I can't wait to play it. So there's my answer) 

Still, now that we have Returnal and RE: Village it looks like this console generation is at last going to get some stride. If only they could have had some of these titles on release! And even better, if only they could get these consoles on store shelves at non scalper prices! 

Thanks, 2021! You're not as ugly as your big brother 2020 but you try.

 

*Spider-Man Miles Morales, which my son played through three complete times in the first week we had the PS5, then was done with. I watched the entire game in action and could not see significant differences in the graphics from the first Spider-Man outside of some better framerates, so yeah.

Playstation 5 - The Cool New Thing That Replaces the Cool Old Thing

My story about how I managed to acquire a Playstation 5 before Christmas is amusingly convoluted. I'd like to say I didn't jump through some hoops but I most definitely did. The good news is: no scalper! I will never buy a console from a scalper. But I did have an excess cost.....the story:

Best Buy announced a week and a half ago it would have a limited number of Playstation 5's in stock. As has become traditional, I lined up on the page like no doubt a million other purchasers did, and an untold number of bots, and waited to see the retailer online storefront fail again in dramatic fashion. Except this time it didn't! Best Buy, apparently trying to change things up a bit to handle the problem with scalper's bots, put a sort of "wait and re-authenticate your purchase" process in place that was a bit confusing but I held in on the hope the site's spinning wheels led to promise this time instead of disappointment. Lo' and behold, after about 20 minutes I had a PS5 in the basket and want to checkout. The system immediately told me I had to do pickup, but all local stores in Albuquerque declared they were out of stock as I clicked on them. "Want to try Santa Fe?" the prompt suggested but nope, Santa Fe was out of stock. Suddenly only two places were left for grabs: El Paso and Farmington. 

Now, long before El Paso became a COVID hot zone I was disinclined to visit that city anyway, and it's a non trivial drive south, whereas Farmington is a nice location along the north border of New Mexico and there's plenty of things to do in nature along the way, as well as archaeological sites that I suspected weren't open but maybe could still be visited.....so as I realized it was still sitting in the basket and unclaimed I decided, to hell with it, road trip!

The PS5 was ready for pickup by Saturday. My son and I took the 2.5 hour drive up and and back, making it more of a day trip, and that is where the excess cost arrives (about $25 in gas plus some snacks). During this time I learned that my son knows an almost epic level of detail on the thousands of SCPs out there, largely due to the seemingly endless churn of Youtube videos on the subject. Along the way we passed through the reservation and an area containing an almost spookily sturdy fenced area along the road with specific crossing spots for wildlife, which my son readily speculated was to keep skinwalkers from getting to the road to try and surprise unaware travelers. Fun times!

Anyway, the PS5 was set up in my office on my big screen monitor with the intent of being able to let him play with some regulation while I could turn it on and play after he went to bed. Little did I know that as of Saturday night this turned my office into The Arcade instead.....I also learned that while I have never particularly liked the controls of the Spider-Man games and thus not gotten more than 20 minutes into it, my son is a master and completed the Miles Morales game by Monday, then promptly started a new game+ mode. I enjoyed getting to experience the game without having to put effort in to it!

Unfortunately he then got in to Bugsnax and I had to insist he put headphones on. Is Bugsnax good? That will depend heavily on who you are, your generation as a gamer, and your tolerance for obnoxiously cute. I thought it ironic that he enjoyed the game despite his disgust for muppets, because to me the game was full of digital muppets.

You might be wondering about my impressions of the PS5 after the last few days. I have the following comments, with the caveat that if you don't have one now, you're not missing much yet, since most of the really interesting titles won't release until next year. But if you have an interest in why this is probably the best console to get going forward, here's a summary of my experience so far:

Pro: Graphics

The ray tracing effects are impressive but so far in the games that take advantage of this you need to kind of think for a bit on why they look better. When you start noticing the lighting, reflections and water then it starts to stand out more. Miles Morales looks better than its predecessor, hands down. The game which I thought demonstrated this most aptly so far was, ironically, Fortnite, which even just with adding realistic clouds suddenly stood out. Even without ray tracing the 4K default resolution plus 60 FPS (with the potential for 120 FPS I am told) is going to impress console users from the prior generation; to PC gamers with decent gaming PCs the differences will be more along the lines of, "Look who caught up....for now." 

Pro: Processing Power

This thing loads games damned quickly, and so far it's only died once on my son's Miles Morales playthrough (about six hours in). It moves in "real tme" which is to say that the stutters and delays common to PS4 and Xbox One UI's is nonexistent here.

Pro: Backwards Compatibility

A majority (as in almost all) games playable on PS4 are also available on PS5. Your existing library from the PS4 will port over. I played a few PS4 games, and only one so far gave me a "this may not play as intended" warning (Batman: Arkham City). Days Gone ran at 60 FPS. There are lists on various PS websites showing what PS4 games are getting enhancements on the PS5, and Days Gone and God of War are amongst those. Some get direct PS5 upgrades such as Mortal Kombat 11 and Dead by Daylight. I haven't tried either of those out yet, but I have them in PS5 versions now for free since I owned them on PS4 which is nice. I played some Black Mirror which did not appear enhanced (but that game's merits lie not in the graphics anyway, but rather the mood). Left For Dead II The Last of Us 2* looked great as usual but it looked great to begin with so I can't tell if it's enhanced or not yet.

A feature I didn't realize until investigating is that while no extended storage options exist for PS5 games yet, you can take any existing extended storage on the PS4 and move it over without any issues to the PS5, just plug it in and all the games you had on that storage will work on the new system. The catch is you cannot run PS5 games from the extended storage, I am suspecting because you need some minimum specs to do so efficiently. The extended storage I had on my old PS4 Pro was a 1 TB SSD drive so this has worked out well for me; I moved all games I wanted to play on PS5 over to it, and my PS4 Pro is now basically a dumpster for older games I will keep on it until I decide if I need the thing anymore.

Pro: Controllers

The new Playstation controllers use haptic feedback and sensitive triggers that are difficult to explain but they are absolutely game changers. The level of haptic feedback is demonstrated in a demo game that comes preloaded with the PS5 and shows off what can be done; the controller is bar none the best experience about the new console, and I sincerely hope more PS5 games in the future take full advantage of the level of feedback and sensitivity that the controller offers. It also includes the usual speakers and a microphone, built in. This controller is hard to talk up enough; you need to experience it to appreciate it.

Pro: Redesigned UI

I like the new UI overall, and it feels like an iterative leap into a new console generation. There are some features that are just plain better in how you access things, and information is grouped smartly (for the most part). A few things bug me, but these are minor quibbles (why does your full library pop up first, and the second tab is your installed games, for example), bit overall it dramatically improves on the Playstation UI design and feels like a move forward.

Con: Storage

Despite being able to attach PS4 storage and immediately use it, the PS5 only really has about 600 GB of accessible storage for PS5 titles, and no expandable storage available yet. This is good now, with so few PS5-only titles out as of yet, but will become a problem Sony needs to fix if they want to encourage people to buy more games. 

Con: A Dusty Wasteland of Releases

The PS5 has maybe a dozen titles that are exclusively PS5 or enhanced for PS5, and all of them can be played in PS4 iterations. It looks a lot better than the Xbox Series X (which best as I can tell has no exclusives, but my Xbox Series X arrives on January 5th so I'll talk more about that then). On the plus side it is showing off a good two dozen future titles which all look amazing....and will be, when they arrive next year. This means you can comfortably afford to wait a few more months before diving in to the new console generation expecting lots of exclusives and enhanced titles.

Two titles I want to gripe about: Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War's split-screen play is just as broken on PS5 as it was on PS4. I am so irritated at Activision (in the general consumer sense of, "Hey, I paid money for this and it didn't work" sense) that I may sit out future CoD titles at last. Is this the straw that broke the camel's back? Maybe....I mean, Epic clearly invested in prepping for the new consoles, as Fortnite runs beautifully and also handles split-screen like a professional game developer was doing it. Take note, Activision and CD Project Red!

The other gripe is about Warhammer: Chaosbane. I have this on PS4 but the PS5 edition is exclusive and must be purchased. Shame on you, Nacon! 

My Take

Getting this felt more like a triumphant win against a broken online retail process, so I guess for that alone it's worth it for me to have this so early in its release just so I can see the PS5 library grow. Also, I had the money at that moment and am glad to get this thing before Xmas, my kid is having a great Winter Break as a result (and I am too, when I pry him off of the machine). If you are not an early adopter and you don't mind waiting, however, it's certainly okay to sit this out for a while. If you already have a nice gaming rig with a ray tracing-ready GPU (RTX) you'll be less impressed with the PS5, anyway. That said....the console makes many games more accessible and fun at a family level, and for that alone I am glad to have it. Also, the forthcoming (and existing) Playstaion exclusives make this a must-have, especially for gamers who enjoy good single player campaigns, of which the Playstation 4 and 5 both have many existing and forthcoming titles. 

Anyay, once I have my Xbox Series X I will be interested to see how the two stack up to one another. I am pretty sure my Series X experience is going to be (for a while at least) just a "play my existing library of games and debate whether to get Halo Infinite on Xbox or PC" type situation, but I think it will also continue to serve its purpose as the family console and UHD/Blu-Ray player nicely. With the Playstation 5 though I feel like I have little to no use for my old Ps4 Pro, as this new iteration expands on it in every manner I could hope for. Indeed, I feel like the only reason to own an Xbox at this point is to be an arbitrary completionist....but we'll see soon if there is any truth to this. 

*Watch out kids, this is the sort of mistake you make when your brain gets old.