Hands-on with the Playstation 4

Though it seems like it will be a long time before I have a Playstation 4 of my own – I’m convinced that every one that was made has been sold – I was fortunate enough to have a friend who picked up a PS4 on launch day last week and invited me over to try it out. The console launched last Thursday, November 14 and my friend picked up his on Friday.

I was super stoked to try out the new console. But as Friday wore on, news I read about people’s experiences so far with the PS4 was not very positive. Beyond the obvious news that the Playstation Network was buckling under the weight of all the new users with PS4s, I was reading some truly worrisome things about consoles being dead right out of the box.

Though Sony claimed that the hardware problems people were experiencing made up less than %1 of all the Playstation 4s sold (which is still a pretty big number considering Sony claims to have moved over a million consoles on launch day alone), the fact that brand new PS4s weren’t working right out of the box had me nervous – not just for my friend but for myself if I were to break down and get one anytime soon. Even the pre-release console awarded as a contest prize by IGN was unresponsive when it got to the winner.

Luckily, my friend’s console worked perfectly fine. I wish I could say the same for our gaming experience that night.

Hands on – the DualShock 4

The first thing I want to talk about is the new DualShock 4 controller, being that it’s the first part of the console I actually experienced. 

Though I had a PSOne and PS2, I also owned an Xbox and Xbox 360 and over the last generation, was much more comfortable with the 360 controller than DualShock 3. The DS 3 just seemed way too small and flimsy as compared to the 360 controller. It didn’t sit in your hands quite right and the buttons felt too close together. The rounded edges on the thumb sticks didn’t make for easy use and I’ve also grown more accustomed to the offset placement on the 360 controller, rather than next to each other on the DS 3. The shoulder buttons also felt narrow and slippery, like I had to make sure at all times that my fingers were resting in the right place.

I experienced none of that with the DS 4. It has a slightly larger design and is more ergonomically crafted to fit into the shape of your hands. The thumb sticks, while still set next to each other, feature impressions on top and give you much more control. The D-Pad buttons are still separate buttons and still quite close but have a distinct feel when pressed, as do the face buttons. The shoulder buttons also have more area and heft to them and the L2/R2 are slightly concave to give you fingers a spot to rest on. It also features a touchpad that doubles as a button in the center. I didn’t have a chance to actually use the touchpad in a game but it has an area about as wide a phone screen which should give you enough room to input commands.

I was pretty impressed with the DualShock 4. Sony put a lot of work into improving the design of the DS 3 while still keeping its signature look and feel. The small touch pad is an interesting feature and I’m curious as to just what game designers will do with it.

The interface

The console itself booted up pretty quickly and once it was awake, switching between screens, games and other menus was quick and responsive. I was thrilled to see that you can visit the PS4 home screen without needing to exit the game you’re playing. For instance, while playing Battlefield 4, my friend went back to the home screen, input a code for extra content, and went back to the lobby we were waiting in, without needing to exit the game and boot it up again.

The home screen itself was easy to navigate as well. All the icons were large and colorful, easily letting your eyes differentiate between the different sections of its interface.

All PS4 games will feature mandatory installations too, with the size of the installation needed for any particular game being several GBs.  Luckily, you can start playing a game while it is still installing. I didn’t see an actual installation myself, but my friend said he had to wait maybe 15-20 seconds after putting a disc in and starting the installation before he could play it.

The games and visuals

Even though we won’t be seeing truly astonishing visuals from the PS4 or Xbox One for some time, the visuals presented in launch games are incredibly detailed and polished.

One of the downloadable games I played, a side-scrolling shooter called Resogun, seemed simple at first but the longer you played, the more intense the action became which increased the level of detail and destruction seen. The game is set on a rotating board, going left to right flies your ship around what looks like some sort of futuristic cityscape. The goal of the game is to earn points by destroying enemies and rescuing humans by picking them up and taking them to special zones. It reminded me a lot of Geometry Wars in both the style of the art and the gameplay itself. The visuals are fairly standard at first but once you start facing larger enemies and causing bigger explosions, you start to notice how the world itself is being affected by the action as buildings crack and crumble and ships explode in showers of colorful sparks and particles. For a downloadable title, the visuals were really impressive. But more importantly, it was incredibly simple, addicting and fun. 

Resogun is a downloadable title for the Playstation 4 that will eat up as much time as some standalone titles

The next game we played was Battlefield 4. I’ve spent a lot of time playing Battlefield 3 and was looking forward to trying out BF4 more than anything else. Unfortunately, it seemed that most everyone else felt that same way. I can’t remember for certain, but it took numerous tries last Friday night to get BF4 to work properly. There was some unknown error (it had a specific code but I don’t remember it) that kept causing the game to crash before we could even use an option from the main menu. After numerous tries, we were finally able to access the menus and start a game.

Once we were playing, I was really stunned by the color and detail I saw in BF4. Now, I haven’t been a fan of the Call of Duty series since COD 4: Modern Warfare, but I have to admit that the COD series did always have an edge in visual detail and beauty. Well, that just isn’t the case anymore. Not only does Battlefield 4 offer the intense action and chaos its predecessors did, but now it looks every bit as gorgeous and detailed as its main competitor.

I didn’t get to experience any “levelution” moments but did get to try several new maps in the classic Conquest and Rush game types. For BF vets, the game is just how you’ve known it to be – just more detailed and colorful. Unfortunately, trying to pick a new game type or session often left us stuck trying to get back into games and before long, we just decided to try a different game all together.

I also got to try some of Assassin’s Creed IV. I wasn’t as blown away by the character models in this game as I was in BF4, though the scenery and environments were stunning. Everything looked incredibly lush and green and sailing the high seas is just as fun as it was in AC3.

Final thoughts

I was pretty impressed with the Playstation 4. I was most worried about liking the controller and was very pleased to find that Sony had taken steps to improve it while still keeping it unique from Microsoft’s design. The interface of the PS4 was clean and very user friendly though I was a bit offput by the numerous problems we had trying to play Battlefield as well as the reports of hardware problems in general. I’ll be very interested to see how Sony responds to the problems with its consoles and am unsure if I should try to pick one up before any changes are made to the hardware itself.

Overall, though, I’m definitely still sticking with the Playstation 4 for this console generation. Besides the fact that it is cheaper, Sony seems more concentrated on delivering a high-quality gaming experience, whereas Microsoft wants to infiltrate every aspect of your media viewing with the Xbox One. I don’t know if I’ll ever even get to play an Xbox One either, considering how most-to-all of my friends – even those with 360s now – are going to be buying PS4s once they are able. Sure I’d like to try Titanfall sometime, but honestly, as long as I have Battlefield, Destiny, Watch Dogs and Metal Gear Solid 5, I don’t need much else.

(Images from – Console: gamerheadlines.com; DS 4: launchgram.com; Resogun: penny-arcade.com)