PS4: Reviews!

Knack always looked like a page torn straight out of a PS1/PS2 character platformer, and those don't really fly in this day and age. Sure, bandicoot was wicked-awesome, but it was a product of its time. It's silly to even try and bring that back for the launch of a new console.

I'm not sure what to do anymore. Paid off the system when I pre-ordered it, but I know as soon as the xbox one is out a week later, the PS4 wont get much attention. Resogun is not enough. Yes, I know the whole multiplatform scenario, but most of my friends are getting the xbox.

Maybe ebay would be worth the hassle if there is a shortage and people are going crazy around Christmas, but there are tons of PS4s on there already.

It's too hard to get a new toy and not open it. Might have to stash it away in a closet and try to forget about it.

@bitcloud said:

It's probably considered bad if it's unreasonably hard on average difficulty levels. I think a lot of modern games have moved to have "challenge" be an option in it's higher difficulty settings. And if a game comes out the gate and is overly hard on Normal, I think it's fair to criticize that.

The games I'm getting at launch (BF4, NfS Rivals, Killzone, Resogun (PS+), Contrast (PS+) are somewhere between amazing (BF4, Resogun and likely NfS Rivals) and solid (Killzone, Contrast). Killzone sure will serve me well as my first contact game - in one thing all reviews agree, it looks stunning.

Contrast is at 67 on metacritic. It's fine for free but that's not exactly "solid"

Resogun seems like the standout. Getting it with Plus was a great move.

LolPolygon. Love their articles, reviews have never made sense, and assigning a CONSOLE a review score? that's just fucking Retarded (oh - sorry arthur, R-word.org) and not even gonna get into Geise.

Sounds like Resogun is as good as everyone expected - knack was as lukewarm/disappointing as was expected depending on how much nostalgia you have for simple but challenging platformers - And killzone looks hella pretty (as with previous games) doesn't make the most story wise which is disappointing because arguably they have one of the more creative fps universes created to tell stories in (like with the previous games) and that the score is basically down to who you believe and what they paid attention to (weird how some reviews are citing too much animation in environments and visual noise making the game hard, others saying everything is lifeless and non interactive? surely that shit is one or the other?!)

Little gutted nobody is talking about the multiplayer in killzone though, killzone 2+3's multiplayer was some of the most fun from last gen - and the actual mission switching mode NEEDS TO BE STOLEN BY EVERYONE! seriously, it's fucking rad. Not pulling the "but CoD and Battlefields campaigns suck and they get good scores so why not focus on the mp and give a good score ffs!" angle, but considering the campaigns in KZ have always been secondary to the Multiplayer and the universe, i'm surprised people are scalding the campaign for story so hard.

And yeah, Kotakus review is pretty fucking funny too xD

wow Ps4 games getting savaged. Well hopefully resogun is fun.

I liked Polygon when they first launched, but they keep getting weirder. A number for the console itself? Strange. All the garbage "next gen" articles made me lose faith in the direction they are going. I still like some of their developer pieces even if they are a bit lofty

Killzone's negativity seems mostly based on "oh it's just another shooter that's really pretty." Well I like shooters. Hell, I love shooters. So I figure I should add some significant points to all those reviews in my brain. Also I laughed at Polygon finding the morally grey story a downside, sounds great to me to have moral grey tones.

Knack... disappointing. I got it as my free game in the Amazon deal because I wanted something different. Guess I should have gotten Ghosts or Need for Speed. Oh well, it didn't cost me anything.

Giving the console itself a rating is super dumb.

Whatever you think of Polygon giving consoles review scores at launch, you can't deny that site's got a cool art style.

There is some Microsoft seedmoney in Polygon, isn't there? I remember reading something along these lines. That's something they should disclose. Also - Arthur Gies is insufferable.

Well, the Knack reviews were disappointing, but kinda what I expected. I agree with everyone who said that Polygon rating the console itself is real stupid. Honestly though, is anyone really surprised by any of this? It's the launch lineup. I'm still really excited for the new consoles to come out, but with new consoles I find it's best to wait 6 months to a year before actually committing to anything. Who knows? Maybe the "power of the cloud" will be the way to go. Too soon to know anything yet.

Not surprised to see the general lackluster scores. Seems like the best stuff on this new hardware right now is better looking versions of current games (Assassin's Creed IV, Flower, NBA 2K14, etc.) so that's cool I guess. The loss of Watch Dogs really took the wind out of a lot of peoples' sails.

It has been disclosed plenty of times. It wasn't seed money, their documentary which was part of the initial promotion was all funded and sponsored by Internet Explorer (i.e. Microsoft).

The cries of bias fly in the face of a lot of positive PS exclusive scores which I linked to on previous pages. A truly baseless claim.

First Party exclusives for both systems doesn't seem great. At least, for me it's Killzone on PS4 that stands out, game seems fine from everything I see, just because it's average doesn't make it bad in my eyes. And Forza on Xbox One should be the launch game for that, at least to me. The reason for me to get the PS4 was I'm tired to these dated systems, third party games seem to be much better on them, and I like Killzone, this seems fine to me.

Also, Resogun seems pretty damn good.

Comparing Destructoid's Killzone review to others' brings up some interesting aspects. For example Destructoid talks a lot about it being more stealthy and special ops focused, while most other reviews never mention this and complain about difficulty. Also Destructoid mentions the objective marker is optional and toggled with the d-pad, while other reviews never mention it and complain about not knowing what to do.

I get the impression some of these reviews were rushed and nuances missed, or perhaps that people wanted a CoD and didn't know what to do when they got a Goldeneye? Just some thoughts.

I'm getting the PS4 for the best versions of multiplatform games, so in the end Killzone being amazing or average means very little to me. It's interesting comparing the reviews though, for sure.

The whole bias thing is for children who can't accept that maybe the thing they are assuming is the best thing ever, isn't.

It's ridiculous that people resort to that as their first response to any criticism. Knack scored poorly across the board and Killzone reviews aren't great either. It might warrant discussion if all other reviews were positive and Polygon's were contradictory, but that's not the case.

Oh wait? The game you thought would be amazing and already ordered is getting average or poor reviews? You haven't even played that game, but somehow you know that reviewers are biased? Ok.

The Sony guys call out Gies left and right, but have nothing to say about someone like Colin Moriarty from IGN. That guy has a history of overrating just about every Sony exclusive. He's been doing it for years. Somehow that is fine because the reviews are what you want them to be. I know someone mentioned him before, but these things work both ways. You think Gies is biased and shouldn't be listened to? That's fine, but Moriarty is much worse and has been at it a lot longer.

I had been very excited about these new machines, but the reality of these launches is now setting in.

Sure I can. And I do!

I really dislike all of the images that scroll and break up the text in some of their larger articles. It may just be that I'm older and therefore more used to things like physical magazine layout, but I think it's gimmicky and distracting.

Launch lineups are never that great though, let's be honest. A sexy version of Assassin's Creed 4 and a decent sci-fi special ops shooter in Killzone SF are probably about as good as I could hope for. Similarly on Xbox a great racer in Forza and a fun if flawed zombie hack n' slash in Dead Rising 3 are probably better than most other console launches.

We need to check back in a year's time to see how these machines are really starting off.

Can I just chime in with how brilliant MSFT's embargo on Xbox One reviews is looking?. We're getting 4 reviews today for the launch of the PS4 (because they allowed early reviews for multi-plats) - which really makes the console feel a bit lackluster. Because of the embargoes, when the Xbox One drops next week, not only we get more reviews because there are more games, it'll feel like a TON more games because all the multi-plat reviews for the Xbox One versions will drop that day as well. It's going to be hard to get a word in edge-wise for Sony amidst all that content.

Thats why you dont buy consoles on launch just based on forum and Twitter hype. Give it a year and the ps4 and Xbox one will start living to their potential, besides they are going to last at least 7 years. Unlike the wii u that has 6 months to prove it can coexist with Super hd twins.

Yeah, you're right. I'm getting Forza, Dead Rising and Battlefield (friends on xbox). Will just ebay the PS4 and see what happens. Maybe I'll get it again in a few months.

Brad just tweeted about some system level features being poorly designed. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.

Unless of course he's biased...

Yeah if you're big on multiplayer that decision probably makes sense. Note very few reviews have actually addressed Killzone multiplayer though... you never know!

I'm a singleplayer only guy though, so most of that stuff matters little to me. The PS4 will have the better looking versions of multiplatform games, and the controller is awesome, and that's pretty much all I need. I'll get the One as soon as I can though, when it has some more exclusives.

Likable people can also make shitty games

I find it really sad that Knack is getting such crap reviews. That game actually looked kinda decent in my opinion. Oh well, I guess.

I think I also want to wait and see how this all plays out. People reporting the rubber on the analog sticks is falling apart, and several faulty units already being reported.

Let's see.

@syed117: Several faulty units now? I had only read about the one on Kotaku, there've been others?

Apparently Neogaf is where this shit hits first. Or Reddit. Two different people with consoles they got from the Taco Bell promotion. Not many people have the console yet and while hardware faults are common, it's not great when there have been three reported already.

Why are the reviews under spoiler bracket? Is anyone going "Noooooo I don't want the review scores for Killzone to be spoiled for me. I want to experience it 1st hand"?

@syed117: that would be my concern too, that while the number is low, so is the number of actual units in the wild. Friday gun be good...*insert Xibit.GIF*

Poor Knack

@syed117: Seriously... I hate to be the guy to call you out, but we all know you have been one of the strongest Xbox n*thuggers on this website. You typically, and conveniently point out all the negative press the PS4 console has been receiving, but failed to mention the almost universal acclaim the system and it's controller have been receiving from almost everyone. Ya Brad mentioned some "bonheaded" design features to the system-level stuff but that was as an aside to how he loves the jack feature on the controller and Resogun. Just saying dude, you hate it when people dump all over the Xbox One, yet you seem to do the same thing.

They can not adress it much because the only time they played MP was at events. Doing anything MP related is not a good idea for such a game. That is why people also say these are rushed out reviews. Gamespot for example is doing a long livestream and there is no one playing any game online right now. You really can not test MP yet.

Here is a pretty good one for the system however. It is very long though.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/does-playstation-4-live-up-to-its-hype-usgamers-in-depth-hardware-review

Also some stuff for Power consumption and how loud the actual system is:

Oh they reviewed Killzone? Well thanks a fucking much, jesus people throwing out these spoilers everywhere these days...

Absolutely. I don't exactly hide that I've preferred the xbox platform this past generation. I want things to be fixed, not taken to a half step. Brad has also criticized PS3 system level features for being poor when the competition got those things right 8 years ago. So when he tweets that there are things that still haven't been fixed, or some other system feature that is "boneheaded", that's reason for concern.

I don't know how the Xbox one will perform in terms of features, but I will in about a week or when coverage starts appearing. You think people like Brad won't call out dumb decisions that Microsoft has made? Of course they will.

If Sony hasn't learned from their own mistakes, it's a problem. If their launch lineup isn't as strong, that's a problem as well.

I prefer Xbox, but I put my money where my mouth is and that's why both consoles have been paid off since they were announced. This is a product that I am paying for and I have every right to be critical of it. So over the last few months after the initial hype died and it turned out that Sony promised a lot more than they are delivering at launch, I'm wondering what I'm going to do.

For clarification, why the hell would I excited about passing audio through the controller? Cool feature? Sure. However, it doesn't mean much to someone who uses a surround headset that comes from a decoder. Stereo audio over bluetooth isn't exactly a revelation. Say you do decide to go that route. How would you chat if you have headphones plugged into that port? Exactly.

Edit : There are now three reports where new PS4s were faulty out of the box. They all need to be sent back to sony for service. I'm sure the percentage is small, but the system isn't out yet.

Polygon giving a system a 7.5 reminds me of this article from The Onion: Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8

@syed117: I am not going to get into a laundry list of PS4 OS system perks (that isn't really the point)...if you need first hand accounts of how great and snappy the OS is go check out Adam Sessler's video review of the OS....or any other non-Brad twitter related blurp about the OS. I am just saying your reaction to said Brad twitter is over-exaggeration to say the very least, especially considering that other sources say the OS is great (not perfect, but great). It is the same type of over exaggerated B.S. you get pissed about when others crap on Xbox One's resolution "problem", if not more so.

Now I am super glad that the Canadian Target stores aren't running that 3 for 2 deal on PS4 games because I was totally going to pick up Knack.

I don't think he's talking about how snappy the OS is. I have no doubt it's fast, it should be. If anything it's the way things are implemented. How exactly is trophy syncing still a thing? Why does it boot slower than the Xbox One and even the PS3? It's so much more powerful which leads me to think that it's just poor OS design or optimization. Those kinds of things.

He said they would go over it on the Friday show. That will be interesting.

@leftie68: @syed117: Also, MS and Sony have both been pretty up front about the fact that their OS and system level features aren't going to be 100% complete on launch day. It's likely that both are going to see pretty frequent updates over the course of the next few months.

@winternet said:

Just to conserve space, I didn't want to take up the whole of the front page with reviews.

@darji:

I've followed Arthur for awhile now (all the way back when he hasn't even started working at IGN) and while you might see him as a guy who is biased towards Microsoft, he himself has criticized them for a lot of stuff as well. He was one of the people along with a few other games press people who were quite critical of MS decision of holding back the date of MS reviews among a few other things. All these things your accusing him and the site in general of being incredibly biased towards MS as well as accusing the entire site of it because they had documentary that was also sponsored by MS (not even the Xbox division but it was Internet Explorer) is incredibly unfounded.

Remember, this was the same site that gave an Xbox Kinect exclusive game, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, a 1/10. If they were in the pockets of Microsoft, would you think they would give an exclusively Microsoft funded and published game a ONE out of TEN after they were sponsored by a service owned by Microsoft? Also about the Call of Duty: Ghost review, Russ Frushtrick wasn't the only one that pointed out that the PS4 version had framerate issues, even Jeff said it in his PS4 preview and Scott Lowe even mentioned that in his review as well. Heck even the Xbox 360 version (and PS3 version) of the Batman: Arkham Origins review score was updated from a 7/10 to a 4/10 due to a bug that made the game unplayable. Really, if their operations are being influenced by a bigger corporation then they wouldn't be doing any of these things. At this point you would just be nit-picking every reason you could find for them to appear that way. Sure we can be skeptical and take reviews with a grain of salt, etc. but accusing of them of being in the pockets of a mega-corporation is not how you do it.

EDIT: Even though I am defending Arthur and Polygon here, it also doesn't mean I entirely agree with their review scores or with Arthur's views or opinions all the time but I never go as far to call him or Polygon MS shills or something to that effect because of that.

@gaspower You're arguing with someone who is an admitted fanboy. I pointed out all the great review scores for PS exclusive games Polygon has given out in the last few months and he refused to respond. Waste of time.

Are the multiplayer servers for Killzone even up yet? Multiplayer has always been the thing I enjoyed about Killzone, with it's fast COD style action but with more depth and strategy due to the TF2 style class system in an environment of ever changing objectives. I couldn't care less about the single player, and I don't see how you can review a game like that so quickly when the main draw is multiplayer.

They are up but Gamespot just tried to play and 4 people were online. On a side not voice recognition seems to work fine with the headset but not very well with the PS4 camera^^

Well they gave the WiiU a 6.5 so I'm not sure why people are surprised they'd review a console.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/18/3660470/wii-u-review

I guess what's surprising to me is that they barely like the PS4 better than they the WiiU

So if no one is playing online, one would assume that the reviews are based mostly on the single player, which seems like an utterly worthless way to review a game that is primarily about multiplayer.

I guess I can't be that surprised that people are saying the PS4 UI is clunky and unresponsive at times, more reason to sit on the fence and watch these things grow over the course of a year

7/10 is average.