PS4 & XB1 - The Aftermath - my first impresions

[WCP]

So, I've had my PS4 for more than a week now, and I've had the Xbox for a couple of days. I will admit that my time with the Xbox One has been limited. I've played Forza 5 and Kinect Sports Rivals demo. I was at a buddies house and watched him play Ryse. I've seen my kids play Dead Rising 3, but I haven't had a chance to start a DR3 game myself yet.

I've messed with the UI and Netflix a wee bit. I need to try the Killer Instict demo and Xbox fitness (to help judge the new Kinect). I have a sealed copy of BF4 for XB1, but haven't opened it yet. ( waiting to make sure the online isn't busted like it is on the PS4 )


As for PS4, I've played it quite a bit more, and I've tried more games. I own NBA 2K14, Killzone Shadow Fall and Madden 25. I also have Resogun and Contrast because of PS+. I've tried the demo for Fifa 14, as well as Trine 2. (I tried Trine 2 in stereoscopic 3D as well).


Here is my current takes regarding the best games that I've played:


1. NBA 2K14 - (PS4) - This is the best next-gen game on either system, imo. It's unfortunate that many gamers have zero interest in sports games, and despite this game being a true breakthrough, the game would be a bit hard to play if you simply can't stand sports and don't really know much about basketball. Still, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that this is the current killer app for Next-Gen. You play this game on a super large HDTV and you're going to be shocked at how close it gets to the real product. It can be surreal at times.

2. Killzone Shadow Fall - (PS4) - I'm very, very early into this game. So, maybe it goes downhill in a hurry, but so far I'm liking the game. I can tell that the gameplay is a bit subpar overall, but the graphical fidelitiy is at such a high level, that it's hard not to keep wanting to play, to see more of the Purdy graphics. Hey... we pay all this money for these next-gen systems, why not see something that actually takes good use of the new hardware ? If you played Resistance Fall of Man during the PS3 launch, then this will be a similar experience. Not earth shattering, but very solid. I think Resistance might have had slightly better gameplay but Shadow Fall probably has better graphics. (for their respective launches)


3. Resogun - (PS4) - This game has kinda turned into the media darling of launch. The critics really love this game. It's definitely a fun game to play if you like twin stick type arcade games. I do think that it might be getting a little bit more hype than it truly deserves. It's a fun game, but some of the reviewers are going a bit overboard imo.

4. Forza 5 - (XB1) - My time with the XB1 has been limited since I got it Friday. Still, I've spent more time with Forza than anything else. Forza 5 is what you think it's going to be. A rock solid racer that got a nice graphical boost. It plays good, it looks good, it sounds good. Turn 10 normally puts out a strong game, and this one continues that tradition. I'm more of an arcade racer type guy, so maybe Rivals would have been the better choice for me but I'm still enjoying what I've played of this game.

5. Madden 25 - (PS4) - I haven't owned a Madden game since August of 2008. I've been pretty much disgusted with Tiburon's efforts over the years. With the arrival of these new systems, there is always that hope that Tiburon could throw out the blueprint and start over from scratch, and maybe they get lucky with a new game engine they can build on. Unfortunately, this game doesn't feature a new engine. It's basically the same game engine they've been using for years, but there are some major enhancements. First off, the running game is much more realistic, and much better once you get used to it. The offensive and defensive line play is much improved. Pass defense is better. Some of the presentation leaves a lot to be desired. NBA 2K14's presentation is light years better. Still, this Madden actually isn't too bad at all. For somebody like me, who hasn't played Madden in years, it's a pretty cool return to form. It's not the dream game I was hoping it could be, but it doesn't blow cheese either.

6. Dead Rising 3 - (XB1) - I've yet to actually play Dead Rising 3 myself. I've watched both of my kids play the very beginning. Just haven't had a chance yet. My Xbox One is in the living room, and sometimes the wife has control of that area. I need to find another power brick for XB1, so I can move it from room to room easier. Anyways, I've seen enough of this game to know that I'm going to have a fun time with it. I hope to start my game later tonite when the wife goes to bed.

7. Fifa 14 - (PS4) - I don't have the retail version of Fifa, I just tried out the demo on PSN. The game is very good, but it doesn't look too different from the PS3 / 360 version. You need to have a REALLY big TV to see much of a difference. It's still a very good playing game, and has playability in spades. There are a lot of really nice details that are hard to see on anything other than a huge TV. The default camera angle is so far from the action, that it's hard to see anything next-gen about it. The replays and cut-scenes have a somewhat next-gen look, but it's not overly impressive if you ask me. The crowd is 3D, but they have a weird look to me. If I could find it used for cheap, I'd definitely grab it.

7. Kinect Sports Rivals - (XB1) - This game doesn't actually come out until next spring. There is only one event available in the demo, the jetski waterboat racing. It's pretty fun, and the control is pretty easy. I didn't have too much trouble with it. I like the water in the game, it looks good. The Kinect doesn't seem vastly improved, at least it didn't seem vastly improved, but it wasn't broken either. It seemed to work pretty good, and it was pretty entertaining.

8. Ryse - (XB1) - I don't own this game, and haven't played this game myself. However, on Friday, I was at a good friends house, and they were playing through the game. I watched quite a bit of the opening part of the game. The graphics are absolutely amazing. Probably the best graphics of any non sports game (NBA 2K14 during replays is still a bit better imo) . Killzone has pretty good graphics, but Ryse is slightly better I think. Unfortunately, the gameplay seems kinda monotonous. I'd love to rent Ryse, but I can't see myself buying the game. My buddy thinks Ryse is amazing, but I just think he's going to be bored after playing it for a few days. Or maybe he will have already finished the game and probably won't really want to play it again. Still, I must say, that if you have a Xbox One, and you want to show off the power of the system, Ryse can show off the power better than any other game I think. It really is a stunning looking game.

9. Trine 2 - (PS4) - There aren't a lot of demos available for these next gen systems. Trine 2 is one of the few demos available for the PS4. If memory serves me, this game came out like a year ago on the PC. I remember hearing about how it had really good 3D on PC. Sure enough, the PS4 version also has 3D. I tried out the 3D and it was actually very good. The game is extremely colorful. It can almost be a bit disorienting in it's visual splendor, when you're seeing it in 3D. The game is a puzzle platformer, where you switch between 3 characters. I like this game, and if it was $9.99 or something, I'd be tempted to snag it, but I think they want 20 bones for it. I can probably get this one a Steam sale for like 2 bucks for the PC.

10. Contrast - (PS4) - If you have PS+, you get this game for free, along with Resogun. I was hoping this would be a decent game, but it just seems a bit janky to me. The graphics are ok, and the concept of doing platforming off the shadows is interesting enough, but this is one of those Indie games that is pretty rough around the edges. My kids thought this game really sucked. They were asking me why I was continuing to play it. This is one of those games that you'll play when you get a bit bored of the other games and you just want a change of pace, but if this wasn't free I wouldn't have been interested in it.


Non Game Features of the two systems:


1. PS4 Streaming - This is one of the cool surprises about the PS4. The streaming feature is really cool. I haven't streamed myself. I don't have a proper headset, nor do I have a PS4 camera. It looks like it would be fun to broadcast some stuff. There is a lot of crazy shit going on with people broadcasting stuff via Playroom.

2. Speed of the UI - Both UI's are pretty fast to bounce around between stuff. I'm glad they are both quick to work with.

3. Voice Commands - The Kinect voice commands are a mixed bag. Sometimes they work great and seem almost futuristic, and sometimes it just doesn't seem to want to wok right. I need much more time with this to have a real opinion.

4. TV stuff on Xbox - When I was over at my friends house, he had this working and I saw TV working through his Xbox. The video quality seemed to be downgraded to a degree, going through the Xbox. My buddy would say the channel name, and it would go to it. It worked pretty good. Sometimes it wouldn't understand what he was saying though. I'm a cord cutter, so I'm not sure that I can do anything with the TV features. I think I would need an external TV tuner box that had a HDMI output to use with the Xbox 1. The HDMI input was more meant for cable boxes and satellite boxes, and I don't believe they will really help cord cutters too much in regards to OTA hdtv from an antenna. Too bad they didn't put a tuner inside the Xbox One, and also some basic DVR features for the OTA stuff. They could have had cord cutters totally in love with them.

5. Netflix comparison - The PS4 Netflix app and the Xbox One app are slightly different. I think I like the PS4 one a bit more, but they aren't that different. To be totally honest, the Netflix app that I have on this one Sony Blu Ray player that I have, is better than both of them. The one on my Blu Ray player can do Netflix 3D, and it can also do Netflix "Super HD", whatever that is. Netflix on PS4 and Xbox One both don't have 3D or Super HD.

[Neb6]

That's actually a pretty in-depth comparison -- especially considering how new the two systems are.

Thanks for posting this. It's nice to get an idea of how they're performing so far.

In general, do you notice a big graphical difference between these new consoles and the previous ones (360 vs XB1 and PS3 vs PS4)?

[WCP]

In general, do you notice a big graphical difference between these new consoles and the previous ones (360 vs XB1 and PS3 vs PS4)?


It depends on which games you are playing. NBA 2K14, Ryse and Killzone Shadow Fall are probably the 3 games that really jump out as being "next-gen", in the graphical department. Unfortunately, only one of those 3 that I just mentioned is really good. (NBA 2K14). One is mediocre (Killzone), and one is downright boring, short and repetitive (Ryse).

Forza 5 doesn't blow you away with next-gen graphics (imo), but there are many subtle touches in Forza that show off the next-gen goodness. It's just not something that immediately jumps out at you, but every once in a while you notice something really special about it, and it has this overall polish that really makes it stand out from the crop. I think NBA 2K14 and Forza 5 are the two best games on these next-gen machines. It's unfortunate that so many gamers could give a rats ass about sports games, and almost as many don't really care for racers, especially the more "sim-like" racers of Forza's ilk.

Dead Rising 3 doesn't look all that "next-gen', other than the sheer number of zombies on the screen. However, I think the ton of zombies in DR3 is more of a gimmick type thing that doesn't really add that much to the overall value of that game. Admittedly I'm super early in DR3, so maybe my opinions with it will change over time.

I've heard that COD Ghosts is pretty disappointing on these new machines, but I haven't played it myself. I've heard that Battlefield has nice graphics, but the online is borked on both systems right now, so can't really say much for that. I haven't played Need For Speed Rivals, but have heard plenty of good things about that game.


I will say this, if you have a pretty strong PC, you can probably get many of these games on there, and they might look very, very similar. For example, if you ran NFS: Rivals or Assassin's Creed 4 on a pretty good gaming PC, you wouldn't notice any improvement, and it might look a wee bit better on PC. Battlefield 4 definitely looks better on the PC.


The jump from 360 to XB1 and PS3 to PS4 is probably the least obvious jump in tech that we've seen in gaming. When we went from the original Xbox and PS2 to Xbox 360 and PS3, the jump was all about gaming in HD, and widescreen. All games were HD and widescreen, and that was a huge jump forward, especially, because widescreen HDTV's were starting to get more widespread and affordable at the time these systems started getting going. So it made perfect sense to want a 360 or PS3 to enter the High Def era of video gaming. When we move to XB1 and PS4 though, there isn't this obvious need to make the switch. These systems aren't doing 4K, and even if they were, 4K won't be affordable for a LONG time. It's a bit depressing to know that the law of diminishing returns is starting to catch up with us.

[Atarileaf]

It's a bit depressing to know that the law of diminishing returns is starting to catch up with us.

Actually it's liberating to know that there's no huge reason for consumers to "upgrade" their consoles to the next gen. I think it's fantastic that the leap from last gen to this gen isn't massive at all making the high price many paid for their systems and collections over the last few years still viable and fairly up to date.

I've heard many people sadly proclaim that the xbox one and ps4 isn't some huge leap in technology. That's a good thing for consumers. Maybe not the companies, but it is for us.

[Robocop2]

Great write up! Thanks for sharing your experience with us because this is something I've been looking for since they launched.

I tend to think this gen will be more about services and such at least if MS has its way. I'm sure that as time goes on well see more difference graphically or at least I hope so.
Does the kinect add anything to dead rising?

[swlovinist]

Thank you for your write up. It was very informative!

[WCP]

Does the kinect add anything to dead rising?


There are some things that you can do with Kinect and Dead Rising, but it's mostly just a few voice commands that you can say, that doesn't really add very much to the experience. It's not horrible or anything like that, but I don't think the Kinect part of it moves the needle at all.


On a side note, whenever I get these new systems, I typically will only get one of these systems, yet I want to be able to use the system in various rooms of my house. For example, in the living room I have a 50 inch 1080p plasma, and I like to hook my stuff up to that, to see the games running in 1080p (for the ones that are actually 1080p native). However, the wife of course uses this living room TV a lot to watch various TV programs, and if I really want to get my gaming on, sometimes I will have to move my system to another room in the house.

With the Xbox One, this can be pretty difficult to move the unit from room to room. Not because of the size of the XB1 (although it is pretty big), it's more because of the power brick and Kinect. Trying to move all that crap from room to room is a real pain in the arse. The PS4 not having an external power brick is a godsend for moving the system from room to room. As long as I have a power cord, Ethernet cord and hdmi cable hooked up in each room, I can quickly move the PS4 into that room and have it hooked up in under 1 minute time.

With the XB1, it's much more of a lengthy drawn out process to move that thing from room to room. First off, the power brick cord is too short. If you have an entertainment center that is built around your TV, and you want to have your XB1 on one of the higher shelves of your entertainment center (above the TV), the power brick cord isn't long enough to reach from the XB1 to where you have to plug it in. (assuming the power plug is near the floor) When I first tried hooking it up, my power brick was basically hanging from the back of the XB1 to have it reach all the way to the powerstrip to plug it in. Certainly, it's not a good idea to have a power brick hanging like that, because the gravity of the thing just hanging like that will eventually cause some serious problems. I had to hammer in a couple of nails into the side of the back of my entertainment center, to have a spot where the power brick could actually rest on it, without dangling in the wind.

The other thing is that the Kinect cord isn't very long either, and to add insult to injury, the Kinect cord is very thick. It's like a really thick Monster Cable type cable. This can make it difficult to try to run the wire through various entertainment centers and try to keep it hidden, but at the same time being long enough to reach the XB1 unit.

So, when I've had to move my XB1 to the other room, I've actually just been leaving the Kinect behind. It stays in the living room, because trying to get the cord wrapped around things to where it can reach the XB1 is too much of an issue to try to do it over and over, so I'm just leaving the thing in the living room. Now, it's possible to use the XB1 with no Kinect at all, which is nice, but there are certain features and things that you can't do if it isn't connected. This leads me back to Dead Rising 3. I was battling this crazy boss guy in DR3 last night, and at a certain point you're supposed to tell the guy "calm down" or something like that. My Kinect wasn't connected, so I obviously couldn't do that (although truth be told you should be able to use a headset for voice commands). Other than that, not having Kinect wasn't too big a deal, because I'm a cord-cutter anyways, so I don't have cable or satellite TV to control with the thing.

At some point, I'd like to buy an extra power brick, so that I don't have to move the power brick everytime I want to move the XB1 to a different room. I found one on Ebay that is from Hong Kong that I'm thinking about ordering (about $28 I think), but I want to investigate it a bit more to make sure that the voltages are the same and that I won't have any problems down the line. I've seen people selling their Kinect 2.0's on Ebay for about $150 ish. Having an extra one of those would be convenient, but I'm not spending another $150 to just have a bit of convenience. That is a bit much.