Or: Ashaman's back and he bought a PS4.
It's been some time but I've decided to drop a quick note to my fellow Game Informer members and bloggers. Things are going good for those that care and I got a PS4 and plan on talking about early impressions for them and the ones that don't. I'm one of those people who order nearly everything from Amazon these days so my system arrived later in the afternoon than I would have liked but I didn't get off work until four anyway so it didn't really matter. I happen to be off tomorrow however so will be diving back into my selection of games shortly after posting this.
My first impressions of the system itself and the UI in particular are pretty positive overall. It's got a sleek, sturdy look and feel and everything plugs in where it's supposed to on the hardware side. As far as the UI goes it seems pretty solid with none of the abrupt lagging and loading that the PS3 has been know for.
Everything is sharp and obviously leads where you would expect your search to go. The initial set-up with the 1.5 update only took a few minutes but setting up my network proved problematic at first. After convincing my pc it was ok for my new buddy to access the network I was up and running with my new PSN name of TimSedai (for anyone looking for occasional mp hijinks). The only real issue I ran into was the controller crapping out twice (once each on two different games-more later) but that was resolved by leaving the system on with it connected for a few minutes without playing to (I assume) build a bit of an initial battery charge. No problems since.
Without games though, all this sexy outer and inner nerd-goodness wouldn't be worth the box it shipped in so we'll get to the first of my three selections now.
Knack's kind of my guilty-pleasure launch buy as I've told most people it's for my niece and nephew to play when they're visiting but it's really for me. I've only gotten about twenty minutes in but the art style and story are both amusing and Pixar-style impressive so it's got something going for it. The early combat is a touch bland but the first of the two controller crapping out episodes happened early on and I moved onto my next buy for a quick try.
Assassin's Creed 4 wouldn't seem like an obvious choice to those who know me (I never finished Brotherhood and this is my first since) but with the gaping hole in the launch line-up that was once filled by Watch Dogs I needed a next-gen open world game and I wasn't waiting until March for Infamous. It didn't hurt that it was free with the other two I bought from Amazon so there's always that as well.
Like Knack before it I only got to the end of the initial naval tutorial before my controller ran out of juice (again, I think) so all I can really say is that the water effects, particularly the rain and how the ships reacted to the swells is done really well and blowing things up with cannons probably won't ever get old so I'm surely on-board (get it?) for the rest of what the game can offer.
After waiting a bit for my controller to charge I popped in the game I wanted to play most last. Killzone: Shadow Fall is an impressively beautiful game and, while formulaic in its early gameplay, is a delight to the eyes and relatively fun to play as well.
This is the eye-popping, frantic action that gamers always clamor for with some intense action and, while predictable even in the early stages, it comes across as pretty damn impressive for a launch title. It sort-of reminds me of how sweet Resistance was when the PS3 released what feels like so many years ago. Neither break any new ground but both where good early indicators of where the system could go in the coming years. I played about an hour of the campaign and just finished brewing a pot of coffee for some late-night mp action.
While not without it's minor flaws and hiccups, the PS4 launch has gone well for me. I've got three good if not terrific games (not to mention the 5+ available for free with the free month of PS+) and some terrific looking titles in the coming months and years to keep me entertained for some long time. Things are good in the gaming world today and it'll only get better next week when all three are out in the wild.
It's good to be back everyone!
From what the early titles have shown I'll be continuing my tradition of pausing nearly every game played at the first opportunity to invert the camera controls for another generation at least!
Add me on PSN at TimSedai if any of you early adopters would like.
Anyone else want to share their early experiences with these or any other games?
Thanks for reading and have a kick-ass weekend!