Well lets get down to it, what did Sony show us that will actually convince people to hand over their hard earned cash, or in the case of us students our food budget for the next few months. Well as far as i am concerned Sony did a pretty impressive job of revealing lots of information about very few actual points, in short what they actually announced was.
- Confirmation of the design of the new controller ( we will get into the meat of that later ).
- A vague description/conformation of the new system specs.
- New online functionality an gimmicks.
- A partnership with Blizzard games.
- A ridiculously small section with Bungie.
- New game footage for Watch Dogs.
- New game Killzone: Shadow Fall unveiled
- New game footage for Infamous: Second Son.
- New game Drive club unveiled.
- New game Knack unveiled.
- Square Enix say a whole lot of nothing, thanks for that.
- Media Molecule and Quantic Dream show off some concepts and footage for their new projects.
So all in all Sony themselves didn't really give us that greater deal of information, the press conference as a whole was actually really great and i'm excited for ps4 a great deal now it appears to be shaping up to be market leader over the new Xbox unless Microsoft show us something truly amazing my money is on Sony this time around.
Okay, so whats this new Dualshock 4 then, well it looks rather a lot like the Dualshock 3; this is a good thing, because there were internet rumors floating around that Sony were considering scrapping the Dualshock design in favor of a new design, the whole idea of that happening in my mind is unfathomable, I mean why would you create and develop your brand over two decades just to scrap its iconic design. That would be like owner of Nike shoes suddenly saying "you know what guys i'm sick of that tick logo, lets change it" it is not gonna happen. I mean what would Sony have replaced it with anyway, ( oh god please anything but the boomerang, good greif that thing was hideous.... )
Anyway that's beside the point, the new controller has some very intuitive design features as well as being chunkier and the analog sticks are con-caved for grip further apart and for those of us with large hands who always bump thumbs on FPS games this is good to here, such as the light bar on the top which allows your PS4 to gauge where the player is within a given space, almost like an inbuilt move feature perhaps, they didn't really specify so I can only speculate but it seems like viable guess. It also features a PsVita style touch pad and most interesting of all is the new share button.
Now this magical new button allows you to do many things, its all based around the idea of sharing surprisingly enough, ( no way really? ) for instance one example they showed off was the ability to screenshot and record snippets of ur game using a playback feature and then upload them to a social hub while you continue your game, cool right? Well i actually love the idea, I remember the first time I played Halo 3 online, i managed to pull off an amazing feat of Luck/Skill and kill around 6 people if i recall correctly all in one huge combo, I was then like oh damn nobody saw me do that, they'll never believe me. But wait Halo 3 had theater mode where player can watch old games and clip them into vids, this feature was a huge success and even spawned it's own mini series Red Vs Blue, Bungie understood the importance of creating an online community and now Sony seem to have realised the same thing, this is great and i cant wait to see more.
The Hardware news that was provided basically said the PS4 will use a new Graphics card, and it will be DDR5. On top of this they announced the system has two separate x86 framework CPU's and 8 GB of RAM, allowing for multiple features such as streaming, Ps store or even two games to run simultaneously, thats cool, all im gonna say on that, oh and its going to have cross-play and remote play with the vita, also it can even be a Wii U if you want an you can instantly swap from one to the other and so on.
Now onto non-Sony news, and out of all the news their partnership with Blizzard appears to be the most substantial, I was genuinely shocked when this was announced, but all that Blizzard have said so far is that the PS4 is getting a heavily modified version of Diablo 3, but the word partnership comes with a promise of things to come so i'm eagerly anticipating more on this alliance of giants.
New Killzone, whats there to say, its Killzone but looks really pretty, next...
Infamous: Second son is also looking to be pretty good but as with killzone, you don't need me to tell you what it is so, next.
Ubisoft's Watch Dogs got some new game-play revealed and oh boy its good, i'm excited for this one, If the in-game functionality and fluidity is reflective of this demo then were in for a great game, especially if most of the worlds buildings are accessible like the one they show him running through. I don't want to say anything about it here for those of you reading this who haven't yet seen the footage so you should check this one out.
New game Drive Club was announced, its a team based racing game that pits you and your buddies against other peoples teams around the world, it looks gorgeous and the idea is again veering towards Sony push on community and connectivity in gaming, you can check up on your times and boarder via your vita and smart phone, browse races and challenge teams to duels while on the bus home so their ready and waiting when u arrive home, sounds pretty sweet if you ask me.
Knack is another new game that was unveiled it seems to be some sort of fantasy Sci-Fi game where you play as a small robot who can manipulate the world to change size and strength, become invisible and so on, the genre wasn't really obvious although it looks like a brawler with puzzle elements.
Square Enix ramble for a few minutes while showing us old already revealed footage, Hmm yeah.
Capcom show off their new game engine the "Panta Rhei" in a sort tech demo featuring a new IP Deep Down which is a what appears to be a Medieval fantasy game featuring dragon type creatures, the new footage looks astounding though i have to say, the molten slag like drips from the dragons mouth whenever it breathes fire impressed me, it's the little details that always win me over you see, anyway.
Bungie come on stage and say Destiny is coming to PS4 then leave, that was rather funny, epic trolling or what, most people at that point were probably jumping up and down with excitement for more destiny news.
Quantic Dream show off their idea for their new puzzle game whic is a open world puzzle where you solve the puzzles in any order you like, which is a refreshing idea compared to Valves Brilliant Portal where you are led through one by one, don't misinterpret my previous statement as me attacking portal though, because i'm not i bloody love that game its so good, i'm just saying its nice to see a Dev not following whats been done before because its the safer option.
Media Molecule's new game appears to be a blend between the Mighty Minecraft, and there own Little Big Planet, its got the charm and vibes of LBP but with the build anything, go anywhere design of Minecraft, I have a feeling this one is going to be very popular just because people love to make stuff with their friends, its good honest fun, it also fits in again with Sony's big push on community gaming.
Well that's me done for this entry, thanks for reading.
