Updated the Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) review

November 15 2013, 2:43pm

I decided to give #teamplaystation a go this time around in the console wars. I'm coming from an Xbox 360 (before that I had a regular Xbox but before that I did a foray with Playstation as I owned a PS2), so it had been a while since I played on Playstation.

I was a little concerned when I first booted it up, was the next gen consoles worth shelling out the money? I had bought Battlefield 4 for Xbox 360 and had been playing that. Playing the same game, Bf4, I wasn't seeing that much of a difference in the opening title sequence and menus, but then I started playing the multi-player, and holy crap, it's so smooth; the animation of you bringing up your gun, moving around, and seeing other objects move is so smooth it's quite a noticeable difference. The distance in which you can see everything that has rendered, in detail, is just impressive. And the textures - it's like putting on your glasses or the first time. Being able to have 64 people in a match in BF4, compared to only 24 players that the last gen systems could handle, makes it feel like a completely different game.

The controller has cool features like the futuristic-looking light on the back and the rectangle touchpad on the front. The size is better than last one, so I don't get the same hand cramping I'd get playing on PS3 after playing Xbox for so long. However, the controller feels cheaper compared to an xbox controller, maybe it's the plastic. Using usb cables is nice and replaceable, but these cables also make it feel cheap (although really, they're just for charging the wireless controllers, so who cares I guess).

PS4 OS sadly feels old compared to even xbox's current dashboard. It's cool how everything feels like an app, and at any moment in a game you can quickly jump back to the PS4 home screen. Games load up really quickly, and a nice new features is games that can download updates in the background while you actually play that same game.

Overall, I'm happy with upgrade. If you've got a game you want like BF4 that utilizes these next gen consoles for what their good for, go for it. If the games you wanna play don't however, save your cash till there are games you gotta play that do, and you can maybe grab the console at a cheap price point.

I'll update the review when I've tried out more games, online video services, gameplay video sharing, remote control gameplay, and experience the new controller trackpad more.