Join us over the next few days as we look at all of the leading games consoles and platforms out right now and try to convince you why you should spend your hard-earned cash. Today we're looking at the PS4, with Mark Walton telling you why it's the next-gen console of choice.
You've got three options when it comes to buying a next-generation (current generation?) console, but the PlayStation 4 is great one. It's sleek, powerful, and--most importantly--all about the games. It's even got an online service offers more than just access to online multiplayer, with Instant Game Collection giving you access to a host of great games as part of PlayStation Plus. And with sales already reaching 4.2 million units worldwide, you'll find plenty of friends to play online with too.
The Library
Having only been around a few months, the PS4's line-up of games might be a little sparse, but there's still plenty to keep you entertained. On the exclusive side there's Killzone: Shadow Fall, which--for all its faults--is an impressive showcase of the PS4's power, and offers up some mighty fine multiplayer gaming to boot. Then there's Knack... actually, the less said about that little doozie the better.
The brilliant Resogun is free to PS Plus subscribers.
More fun are the PS4's many indie titles, the best of which is Resogun, an old-school shoot-em-up dressed up in some very pretty voxels. It's got that "just one more go" arcade vibe about it that makes the hours fly by, and I've lost count of the time I've ploughed into it trying to land a perfect run and top the high scores on my friends list. Also worth checking out are the excellent Flower and Sound Shapes. They might be available on PS3 and Vita as well, but they're still wonderfully unique games that you can't get outside of a Sony platform.
There's all the usual cross-platform stuff to dig into too, with the likes of Assassin's Creed IV, FIFA 14, and Call Of Duty: Ghosts featuring noticeable graphical improvements over their last-generation versions. And let's not forget that the PS4 has been topping the Xbox One's visuals, most famously of all with COD: Ghosts, a game that runs natively at 1080p on Sony's machine and at an upscaled 720p on Microsoft's.
Upcoming Games
Let's face it though, if you fancied any of the launch games you'd have jumped on the next-gen bandwagon already. It's what's coming up that makes the PS4 a worthy buy, and there are some great-looking exclusives on the way. Sucker Punch's inFamous: Second Son is looking particularly tasty, with the series' trademark super powers and open-world action getting a crisp visual overhaul and some neat new power sets. Then there's the likes of Driveclub, Shadow Of The Beast, and The Order: 1886 on the way, not to mention whatever Naughty Dog has in store for Uncharted 4.
inFamous: Second Son leads a great lineup of upcoming games on PS4.
Sony's active courting of indie developers has landed it some great-looking timed exclusives too, with the stunning-looking adventure Rime and the wonderfully cheesy Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number both making their console debut on PS4. I'm particularly excited for The Witness, a Myst-like take on the puzzle game created by Jonathan Blow, the man behind the brilliant Braid.
We don't yet know for certain if cross-platform games like Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy's The Division, Mad Max, and Destiny are going to look their best on PS4, although the furore over the likes of COD: Ghosts and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition certainly suggest that's going to be the case. Plus, there's a six-month timed exclusive on Watch Dogs DLC to look forward to too.
The Hardware
The PS4 has a sleek monolithic vibe about it that just screams cool. It's small and quiet, even with its handy integrated power supply, and its unassuming exterior makes it look right at home in an AV rack. As far as cost goes, it might not be as cheap as a Wii U, but the PS4 is certainly cheaper than an Xbox One, even when you factor a game into the cost.
The PS4 is a great-looking console and the controller is vast improvement over the Dual Shock 3.
Even if you weren't a fan of Sony's Dual Shock 3 controller, it's worth checking out the Dual Shock 4: it's a wonderful thing. The improvements to its grips, analogue sticks, and size make it a far better to use than its predecessor, and there's the potential to do great things with the DS4's touch pad too, even if they haven't quite materialised in the current crop of games.
If you're holding out for a price drop or a hardware revision, don't expect to see either in 2014. With its already small size, it'll be a while before the chips can be scaled down enough to make a smaller box, and with sales going so well at the moment, a price drop is unlikely. Basically, if you jump on board now, an immanent price drop won't be burning you in the near future.
Other Stuff
Want to access services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer? PS4 gives you access to their respective apps for free without having to subscribe to PlayStation Plus on top your existing media subscriptions. You still need to pay for PS Plus to play online, but it's great value thanks to free games that Sony puts up every month as part of Instant Game Collection. The likes of Resogun, Contrast, and Outlast (in the UK) are already part of the deal on PS4, and if you own a PS3 or Vita, you can use the same subscription there to net you even more games. They're big games too, with the likes of Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2 up for grabs.
Vita owners can also make use of Remote Play, which lets you play PS4 games on your Vita provided both devices are on the same network. Unlike with the PS3, Remote Play is being built into almost every game on the PS4 (the exception being those that use the PS4 camera), so you can continue playing, even if the living room TV is suddenly needed for a Breaking Bad marathon.
The PS4's UI is swift, clear, and a joy to use.
When it comes to day to day use, the PS4 is a great experience. The user interface is swift and clear, with everything just where you'd expect it to be. Then there's the excellent home screen that instantly gives you updates on what your friends are up to, letting you jump onto their online sessions, or see their latest high scores at a glance. Plus, you can stream straight to Twitch and UStream on PS4 with just the push of a button.
The PS4 is well-built machine, with a thoughtful UI and a lineup of great games. But it's what's coming up that makes it so enticing, with everything from exciting big budget blockbusters to unique indie experiences hitting the console soon. If you've been sitting on the fence waiting for something more than the launch lineup, 2014 is the time to make the jump to PS4.
There's a lot to be said for fan service and its role in entertainment. Providing material that speaks directly to an audience with a specific love and appreciation of a given source provides a palpable sense of private-club-like inclusion, allowing fans to feel connected through their shared interest whether they're in the same room or on the other side of the world. Rather than feel isolated and frustrated by an undying love for a given movie, character, comic, or novel, the existence of indulgence-orientated products makes us feel part of something bigger--there are people out there who like this stuff as much as I do. The Ultimate Ninja series has always taken this idea to heart, concentrating its focus to a laser point that other franchises would never dare to attempt for fear of alienating all but the most dedicated of followers. If you're part of the club, then such single-mindedness is great. If you're not, then don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is perhaps the most extreme example yet of Namco Bandai's attempt to appeal to the converted and only to the converted. Here's a game not simply for any old Naruto fan, but for Naruto fans who are completely up to date with the story and characters as they currently exist in the anime/manga episodes and are seeking a new way of experiencing previously explored plotlines. If you're not up to date, then not only are you going to struggle enormously with the story as depicted in the game's early stages, but you're going to ruin what you've not yet seen of the TV series. Unfortunately, due to gameplay that is as unwieldy and bloated as its title, Full Burst is not an acceptable way to get yourself up to date with this franchise.
With so many characters, the story is all but impossible to follow without intimate knowledge of prior events.
This may be a beat-'em-up, but the primary Ultimate Adventure mode features so little gameplay in comparison to cutscenes and dialogue-heavy exposition that you'd be forgiven for thinking you're sitting through a barely interactive (albeit combat-heavy) soap opera. It feels as though developer CyberConnect2's plan was to create a condensed edition of the anime in which fight scenes are playable, rather than create a game in its own right. This leads to an experience that features such haphazard and irregular pacing that your principal cause for intrigue rests in trying to work out just how long it's going to be before the game asks you to pick up the controller again--and even when you do, the core combat is a shallow, button mashing affair that requires little in the way of skill. While there's definite and worthwhile value in repackaging the events of a beloved series in a new format, there's also value in a game giving you something to do.
There may be a lack of interaction in story mode, but that doesn't hold true for the package as a whole. Including all of the downloadable content released for the original Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 3 release, the volume of content on offer is gargantuan. Chief among the additions is the extra Ultimate Adventure chapter, which sees Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha take on the nefarious Sage Kabuto, a segment that is so phenomenally difficult in comparison to the rest of the game that all previously learned tactics become essentially redundant. The same Sage Kabuto is unlockable as a playable character if you have the patience to jump through the numerous hoops to unlock him, and there are also some new costumes to swoon over.
Sage Kabuto is a new and unlockable character, but less interesting to control than he looks.
The biggest, but certainly not most interesting, piece of extra content comes in the form of supplementary challenge missions. One hundred of these have you beating an opponent in a fight while handicapped in some way--removing your ability to jump, for example, or setting a limit on the number of attacks at your disposal. While these missions do add some welcome variety to the combat, they primarily serve to highlight just how shallow the core mechanics are. Without these externally shoehorned twists on battle, fighting suffers from an overwhelming shallowness that sees you engage autopilot once the basics become second nature. Only during set-piece boss battles are you asked to do something out of the ordinary.
To compound matters, the most members of the enormous character roster plays in the same way. You swap between characters regularly during Ultimate Adventure, but this is done predominantly to facilitate the narrative rather than to spice up gameplay through variety and diversity. Granted, significant and impressive visual flair is achieved by switching often between characters with attacks that are literally out of this world, but that aesthetic quality doesn't remain interesting long enough for the combat inadequacies to be forgiven. Clearly, this is not a game with the remotest desire to cement its place in the bastion of hardcore fighting game legacy, but that doesn't excuse the fact that there's so little meat to the gameplay that you're essentially feasting on elaborately painted bones.
Similar problems exist with Ultimate Adventure's role-playing-game-lite elements, which allow you to roam around a number of different environments with a view to collecting and buying items to use in combat (health potions, strength buffs, and so on) and optionally talking to loitering non-player characters. At times, these moments provide a welcome break from the cutscene/fight/cutscene pattern, but more often than not, they feel designed to artificially lengthen the game and trick you into thinking you're playing something with genuine genre-blending aspirations.
The Sasuke/Itachi vs. Sage Kabuto battle is the most difficult in the game.
The closest comparison to this format is Asura's Wrath, another of CyberConnect2's offerings. However, where Asura's Wrath succeeds in this style of storytelling thanks to its short length and ferocious pace, Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 suffers from attempting to cover far too much ground for the core mechanics to handle. If you do classify yourself as a Naruto aficionado, then simply having another medium through which to consume the narrative is potentially going to be enough to satisfy you. Without a doubt, everyone else should look elsewhere.
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu