When I first had the thought of pre ordering a PS4, I wasn’t so keen on the idea but I thought to myself “why not?” Last Tuesday was the day that changed my life. Upon walking into my local EB Games store, I was greeted by a friendly “Hey, Bro” from the store manager. I told him why I was there and that was the beginning of a beautiful thing. Once I arrived home I immediately unboxed the console and was astounded by the accessories and console itself. Being roughly one and a half times the width of the PS3 I was rather surprised by the size and weight of the PS4. I proceeded to plug the relevant cords and cables into my new Playstation and was a little sad at seeing Sony’s previous generation give way to the new one.
Once I had the new beast powered on, I reached for the controller, and was quite surprised at how comfortable the DualShock 4 controller was to handle. The controller simply seems to mould to your hands like it was made for them, and my left and right index fingers rested naturally on both the triggers alike. This is one of the most comfortable controllers that I have ever felt and used during my career as a gamer and a big improvement from the PS3 controller.
I continued to turn my TV on and was greeted by the new PS4 menu. Now to me, the internet integrated features are all worthless because I am not an online gamer, but the overall layout of everything on screen was impressive. While the menus still feeling like a Sony product to the core, I was quite surprised by how easily everything was to access. The Playstation 3 was a fantastic console however I felt like there were too many options and settings to choose from just in the menus alone. The PS4, however, eradicates that problem by having five simple menu categories to choose from.
Once I had flicked through the various menus and settings, I decided that it was time to put the next gen jewel through its paces. Upon starting up Killzone: Shadowfall, I was quite surprised at how the graphics looked. When I first was thinking of purchasing a PS4 I thought to myself “the graphics cant be that good” Never have I been so wrong in my life.
The game looks extremely crisp and smooth compared to a PS3 game, and the realism of the scenery and characters in Shadowfall is astounding. Everything has near perfect lighting, shading and textures. The trees and undergrowth look like actual realistic scenery and the Helghast armies have details and different personalities. You can even tell that some are more overweight than others. At one point in the game I was trying to sneak past a certain guard and I overheard him having a conversation with his partner over the radio. Little details like that make a game and these moments are no exception in Shadowfall.
When I first started playing the game I got extremely frustrated with the controls and was disappointed with the control layout, however now that I have spent over 5 hours on the game and I am more used to the control layout the different button presses and swipes from the touch pad on the controller make perfect sense to me.
Oh and did I forget to mention that the DualShock 4 controller also has a built in speaker and touch pad? These are absolutely fantastic features on the new controller and they often come in handy in Shadowfall. The touchpad can be used to control your little drone sidekick by telling him when to attack and defend certain positions in the game.
The new PS4 console gave me a great start to the Eighth Generation and I am looking forward to enjoying many hours on this new piece of art. I highly recommend this console to anyone who is looking into a current-gen console. So tell me, which current-gen console are you getting? Let me know in the comments.