PlayStation 4 Console Review By: Dan Papa

PlayStation 4 Console Review

By: Dan Papa

     Sony has come a long way with their technology, and the PlayStation 4 is nothing short of amazing. It’s hardware capitalizes on everything. The console is fast, fluent, and takes multi-tasking to a whole new level, considering the PlayStation 3 wasn’t really good at multi-tasking, at all. The PS4 sports a GPU: AMD next-generation Radeon based graphics engine and a 500 GB hard drive. But, don’t get your hopes up about the large starting hard drive. Each PS4 game takes up about three times more memory than a PS3 game did, which is quite disappointing. But, if you are like me, it shouldn’t bother you too much, considering you could just delete a game when you are done with it.

     Next, the controllers are revamped to improve on literally every aspect of the Dualshock 3. The Dualshock 4 has indented analogs for more precise movements. The controller actually reminds me of the XBOX 360 controller. The L2 and R2 buttons are now triggers, which is a change, but not much of a noticeable one. I didn’t think that the button triggers made much of a difference when compared to the Dualshock 3. Another creative, but not necessarily important feature that was added was an integrated touchpad in the center of the controller. Uses consist of opening up certain menus in games, etc. Unfortunately, unless more games really capitalize on it, I see it being quite the pointless feature. One last feature on the new controller is the “LED player identifier.” Its uses consist of showing if a player is low on health in certain games, or it just glows. The controller also comes with a headset jack, along with a cheap little headset, and a small integrated speaker on the front, that actually omits certain sound effects from some of the games you are playing.

     The “start” button on the controller is now the “options” button for some god forsaken reason, who knows, but continuing on; the “select” button is now the share button.  The “share” button when clicked, lets players’ record videos of their games and also captures screen shots. Video recordings are initiated by holding down the share button for a short amount of time and then releasing. An icon that looks like a piece of film strip with a red dot will appear on the screen letting you know that you have started your recording. Screen shots are captured by double clicking the share button. I believe these can be uploaded to social networks, I’m not sure. Another welcomed addition is the ability to broadcast live gameplay via streaming to friends or others. The quality isn’t perfect, but this addition is sure to make many players happy. I have yet to use it, because I realized that you can only broadcast gameplay live if you use your master account on your PS4. This is quite unfortunate considering the fact that I don’t really use my master account anymore because all my friends I play with online are on my Sub account.

     Going back to multi-tasking, it is so great it’s not even funny. Example; let’s say you are playing a game and you want to go to the PlayStation store to download a demo a friend told you about, but don’t want to quit your game. Well, you don’t have to. Just click the PlayStation icon button in the center of the controller, and it will take you to the main menu and you can open up the PlayStation store while your game is still running. However, you cannot open up a bunch of applications, things will be required to close sometimes. On a side note, the PlayStation store does not run like a piece of junk like the updated one of the PS3 did,J.

     The PlayStation 4’s design is eye candy. It is elegant to look at and it is also very sleek and light weight. It does attract dust and fingerprints easily, so if you are a clean freak, be careful. The front has two USB ports and the buttons for eject and power on it. The buttons are very small and a bit hard to see in the dark, but no matter. The console comes with an HDMI cable this time around, thankfully. Setup is easy, just like the PS3. You should be done setting up the console in a matter of minutes. Discussing the PlayStation 4’s camera, its, well, “eh.” While it has a sleek look and captures in 1280x800 at 60 frames per second, it doesn’t have much use for now. Also, it’s $59.99, so I would recommend saving your money.  The most anyone could probably get out of it is using it for the “Playroom.” The “Playroom” is an app on the PlayStation 4 that lets players interact with little robots as a small little activity for fun, letting players kick, touch, and or throw the little guys on or off screen.

To be honest, I only really have one complaint with the PlayStation 4. Its launch titles, or lack thereof. The titles available for the PS4 at launch were Angry Birds Star Wars, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - Standard Edition, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Contrast (Free for PS Plus), DC Universe Online, Escape Plan, Escape Plan Collection, FIFA 14, Flower, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition, Just Dance, Killzone Shadow Fall, Knack, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Madden NFL 25, NBA 2K14, NBA LIVE 14, Need For Speed Rivals, Putty Squad, Sound Shapes, Super Motherload, Trine 2: Complete Story, Resogun (Free for PS Plus), and Warframe. Yes, it’s a lot of games, but most aren’t exactly worthy as PS4 launch titles, except for Killzone Shadow Fall, Resogun, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and Battlefield 4. Some of them are just the same games, except with all the DLC. If you really want to test the power of your PS4 and be amazed by some games, a wise choice would be to wait to for better titles, which aren’t that far away. Thief, February 25, 2014 and Infamous: Second Son, March 21^st, 2014, and Watch Dogs, June 30, 2014 will be released in the coming months. J

In short, the PlayStation 4 is a breathtaking new take on the console generation with highly improved specs, gameplay, and graphics. If you are looking for a next gen console, I recommend the PS4; it’s only $399. The XBOX One is $499. Your choice. What will you decide? Happy gaming! J

And don’t forget to check out my other reviews, thanks.

-          - Dan Papa