First Impressions Of The Playstation 4
To call this a review would be extremely unfair. We may revisit this a year down the road possibly and see where it has gone and what games have graced Sony’s Next-Gen console. That’s not to say that there isn’t anything to talk about, in fact there’s quite a bit to talk about. A few days have gone by since launch day and so has my lack of sleep. I’ve feverishly been going through as much of the new console that I possibly can and let me tell you…..there’s lot of great things coming from this piece of hardware. Lets get started.
As soon as you pick up a Dualshock 4 controller you can FEEL a change. The grips on each side are slightly elongated and pushed inwards making for a much more comfortable handle on the controller. Gone are the smooth surfaced grips on the analog sticks. Now we have an outlined grip which helps holding your thumb in place during your active gaming session. The touchpad in the middle of the controller (which is also a button of sorts) is a very interesting and welcome addition. The in game response of the pad is extremely smooth and accurate and I could definitely see myself using it as an added feature in games without it getting in the way. The Start and Select buttons have been replaced by the Share and Options buttons that are located on the left and right of the touchpad. That has taken a little getting used to and I find myself still looking for Start and Select but those buttons now have a bigger, better use. The Share button gives us a stupendous feature that we have NEVER 
had before and that’s to actual share out live gameplay with our PSN friends and our actual friends. To test this feature I popped in Killzone: Shadow Fall and went live with my game. I called up a friend in Georgia and let him know what I was doing. He was at work but immediately logged onto UStream from his cell phone and within minutes he was viewing exactly what I was playing. Now that right there is impressive and something that I will be utilizing from here on out. The biggest change in the controller to me (and this was always an issue for me) was the L2 and R2 triggers. In the past I would be watching a movie or something of that nature and when I set my controller down It would end up accidentally fast forwarding because of the way they were curved inwards. Now the triggers are curved outwards giving your fingers a small resting area and preventing them from being pressed when setting down the controller.
The dashboard itself seems to have gotten a full overhaul. All of the features are still pretty much there (you just have to scroll up to see all of your usual XMB icons) but all of the important and main features are located in front of you for easy access of entertainment. It feels a lot smoother and very quick to navigate in and out of settings or features. I really do like the new layout and extremely pleased that we don’t have to create entirely new PSN accounts again. An added bonus is that all of the previous achievements and trophies appear on the profile as well.
Another great feature was the Playroom. It really isn’t a game at all but just something to show you how one can interact with the Playstation Camera. It’s quite impressive really and basically creates interactive situations to fool around with that involve the touchpad, motion control of the controller and even your own hands. This is definitely something that I have high hopes for and can’t wait to see how these things can be utilized in future games.
The only weird occurrence that I have experienced so far is no Blu-ray and DVD playback when coming back from Stand By Mode. I went ahead and put the console in Stand By mode and when I brought it back up 30 minutes later it didn’t want to start up a Blu-ray I put in. Just to check, I popped in a standard DVD and it did the exact same thing, it just continuously showed a loading circle. After actually powering down the console and starting it back up it seemed to have fixed the problem. I’m hoping that this issue will be fixed in a future firmware update. Other than that this is a terrific system and I really can’t wait to give it further testing. I’m going to reserve any talk about graphical improvements and such for future reviews of some of the launch titles which will be coming very soon. If there any other issues I come across or anything else I may have missed I’ll be sure to update this post and address it as soon as possible. Have Fun and Game On Everybody!
