The UnionVGF PS4 general impressions thread! Got a PS4? Share your impressions.

I picked up my PS4 tonight, huge crowd at the Gamestop I went to (over 200) and even bigger crowd at the best buy around the corner. Got home and hooked it up and everything went smoothly, already downloaded resogun (beautiful fun little game) and contrast but haven't played it yet, also played a little AC4 and now I'm downloading DCU online. So far so good :)

Was kind of funny, the manager at GS was at the door as I was waiting my turn and we usually talk a bit when I go in there. I asked him if he was ready for this all over again next week and he said "if this were next week we'd have been done 10 minutes ago" and I was only in group 3 which wasn't even close to the half way point yet. It looks like at least at that store the demand was much much higher for the PS4 than the X1.
 
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First Impressions:

GOOD:
- Box is slimmer then I'd expect.
- After configuring my wifi connection, I'm pretty sure the update began to download in the background, because after poking around in the UI for just a couple minutes, I went to sign-in, and I was prompted to update, and when I did, over 100megs had already downloaded. Nice.
- The update downloaded quickly, and installed relatively quickly.

BAD:
- Quality of materials is questionable:
-- The HDMI cable is really cheap. I tried to use it, but it didn't fit well, so I actually just switched to my Xbox One HDMI cable which is significantly higher quality in terms of quality of materials.
-- The "headset" it comes with is nothing of the sort. It's an ear piece with a dangling mic.
- Trying to create a PSN account, I soft-locked with "please wait". Twice. Then my console wouldn't connect to the internet (error NW-31484-0)
- Really annoying that I entered in all my info to create an account, and then it locked up on me, and I had to go through the process again. And again... but I finally got through it successfully.
- I now have three accounts on my box, due to the failed attempts to set up my profile, so it doesn't default to the right account at boot. This isn't a major problem, but I'm just so used to having Kinect just notice me and sign-me in, it just feels old-school...

All in all, it took me just about 30 minutes to get the box updated, my account signed in and activated.
 
System Noise level:

While the system is quiet when you first boot up, do anything on it and it starts getting louder. Play a game like Killzone on it, and it gets really loud - easily louder than current slim 360's... and it's definitely louder than Xbox One on all levels. I was actually surprised at how loud it got.
 
That's funny Flynn I don't even notice the sound coming from my PS4 and I've played a few different games on it. It's not as loud as the 360 slim I have which isn't really all that loud either IMO but mine is the 1st gen slim not the current ugly one. I guess I'm just not someone who complains about that crap anyway, the OG 360 noise never bothered me even though some people complained about it.
 
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Killzone:

GOOD:
- The game started up faster than I expected after I popped in the disk. I was expecting it to take longer before I'd be able to play. Good job, devs, on getting the user into the game quickly.
- It looks great

BAD:
- As I suspected, the absolutely best visual moments are all pre-rendered. They're not real-time. For example:

This moment:
KillzoneshadowfallFeatured.png


Not real time. It's pre-rendered/FMV. The REAL game is streaming into memory during this scene, and pretty much all the scenes when you're not directly controlling the camera. There's a noticeable difference between the pre-rendered footage and the in-game footage.

- Not a fan of the non-locked frame rate. It seems to fluctuate frequently. It doesn't dip below 30fps very often, but it spikes to FPS probably in the 50's, and it's weird. I'd prefer a locked 30fps.

- Tried to share a video... didn't work. It spun for over 10 minutes, so I decided to back out. When I did, I then tried to preview the recording I have saved... but there was only 5 seconds of it. Seems like this feature wasn't well tested.

It also seems as though the videos can only be shared on facebook... and there's no way to edit them.
 
That's funny Flynn I don't even notice the sound coming from my PS4 and I've played a few different games on it. It's not as loud as the 360 slim I have which isn't really all that loud either IMO but mine is the 1st gen slim not the current ugly one. I guess I'm just not someone who complains about that crap anyway, the OG 360 noise never bothered me even though some people complained about it.

Have you tried listening to it while in different states?

It's definitely, and demonstrably louder than the X360 slims, when playing something like Killzone.
 
I picked up my PS4 tonight, huge crowd at the Gamestop I went to (over 200) and even bigger crowd at the best buy around the corner. Got home and hooked it up and everything went smoothly, already downloaded resogun (beautiful fun little game) and contrast but haven't played it yet, also played a little AC4 and now I'm downloading DCU online. So far so good :)

Was kind of funny, the manager at GS was at the door as I was waiting my turn and we usually talk a bit when I go in there. I asked him if he was ready for this all over again next week and he said "if this were next week we'd have been done 10 minutes ago" and I was only in group 3. It looks like at least at that store the demand was much much higher for the PS4 than the X1.

Must really depend on the city.

My local gamestop was nearly empty at 11:15pm.
There was NO ONE in line at the local Target.
There were only 3-5 people in line at the local Fred Meyer at around 10:30pm. At midnight, they didn't sell through all of the units. A person came by around 12:15am, and snagged the last one (they only had 20-25 units).

No crowds anywhere.
 
Resogun:

Seems like a fun game. It's worth free, for sure. :-)

The speaker on the controller being used seemed incredibly frivolous and pointless. There was no need for it. Plus, it was weird that even though the audio was turned down on my system (so my wife could sleep), the speaker volume on the controller was surprisingly loud... and annoying. Why would I want some dinky sound coming out of my controller when I've spent literally thousands on my surround sound 7.2 system? Makes no sense to me.. and it was just a hassle/annoyance.
 
In the options of the game, you can turn the volume down all the way, effectively disabling it.

It's just weird, though. It doesn't add anything, and it bothers me that I can't have the voice audio for that game come out of my nice speakers... I HAVE to use that little dinky thing, if I want to hear the voice of that character in this game.
 
Does anyone know if you can listen to game audio through the controller via 3.5 mm ear buds? I've read that you can, and if so, this is huge for me. So basically no sound coming from the TV when you have earphones on?
 
Does anyone know if you can listen to game audio through the controller via 3.5 mm ear buds? I've read that you can, and if so, this is huge for me. So basically no sound coming from the TV when you have earphones on?

It doesn't seem to. I plugged some ear buds in, and I don't hear anything... and I didn't see any settings for it, so I don't think that's possible.
 
Ps4 is not supposed to be that loud Flynn, I think there is something wrong with your ps4's fans. I saw a vid on youtube of the same problem.


I don't know if mine's quite that bad, but it's definitely similar... and it's definitely worse than X1, X360 slims, etc... but I'm not so sure it's a problem with my unit... it gets 'loud' 100% consistently during certain segments of the game...

In any case, either Sony sucks because they're selling units with broken fans, or Sony's design isn't as elegant as ours, because it's one loud fan, given certain situations...
 
I don't know if mine's quite that bad, but it's definitely similar... and it's definitely worse than X1, X360 slims, etc... but I'm not so sure it's a problem with my unit... it gets 'loud' 100% consistently during certain segments of the game...

In any case, either Sony sucks because they're selling units with broken fans, or Sony's design isn't as elegant as ours, because it's one loud fan, given certain situations...
Mate I would so return that, why risk the hassle of sending off the Sony, go back to the store with it boxed and your proof of purchase and swap it out if I were you.
 
So guys that got a PS4. You've had it for a few hours now. How are you liking it? How are the games, how is the system? Lets get some more impressions going.
I'll ask a few specific questions:
1. Any one play Contrast? If so, are the reviews spot on are misguided? Same for Knack.
2. How does the controller feel in comparison to the ps3 dualshock? Better/worse/indifferent?
 
For anyone who's played, has the actual "shooting" been moved to the triggers in all FPS games on PS4? There's a thread on the BF forums of a ton of people bitching about the move from the old R1 / L1 shoulder buttons to the actual triggers. Guess people hadn't paid much attention to info on the new controller. Assuming it won't be much of a change at all for anyone used to 360 / Xbox controllers, but I can see how it would be a pretty jarring switch for people who've only gamed on PS systems the last however many years.
 
Hearing there are some log-in issues, but you just gotta have patience folks.

Still waiting for UPS to deliver mine. About to sit by the window and stare out it all day until it arrives.
 
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