Wow, Where did time go???
Greatness Arrived back in November 2013, and I have been steadily running ye ole PlayStation 4 through its paces. So far so good, with a few system patches under its belt, it has worked like a charm.
And even though the games have been a bit slim (got a few for Christmas, mind you), the overall experience has been of a little bit of a roller coaster.
Sony was gracious enough to put out a few freebies for signing up with PlayStation Plus, including Resogun (3D Defender on crack!); and Contrast (good puzzle game).. But the main attraction(s) were the triple A titles, including Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14, Need for Speed: Rivals, Assassin’s Creed 4, just to name a few.
Though Battlefield 4 and COD: Ghosts led the pack in “what game people really wanted”; Battlefield 4’s rollout has been a bit of a blight on all systems, with gamers saying that Battlefield 4 was having ALL sorts of problems on the PS4. Single Player Save games getting constantly getting corrupted, forcing users to start their campaign all over again; Attempting to even play a Multiplayer match online resulted in the game crashing out or not even connecting; Gameplay within Multiplayer was glitchy, allowing some players to cause 4x the normal amount of damage to another player. The list goes on, and of course EA (publisher for the Battlefield series) began with blaming Sony and the PS4 as being the culprit. EA soon thereafter reversed its statement, and began to issue out Hotfixes / Stability Patches / New Servers for BF4.
I have been a big fan of Battlefield and its iterations all the way from Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The level of sheer environment destructibility, the vehicles, and crazy things that folks actually do in that game (Yeah go check out Youtube for the fun…); no two rounds of Multiplayer in that game are the same… yet in this release of Battlefield 4, it is almost the game left the oven half baked.. with the developer (DICE) scrambling to release it before COD: Ghosts came out..
And as I truly understand the notion that competition is a good thing to have, it also can damage your end result. EA should definitely note this release as a disaster, and promise the public that this will never happen again. I really can’t blame DICE for this, due to the simple fact that EA (as their publisher) caused this whole ruckus by trying to compete against Activision and COD.
One other time steal-er has been Assassin’s Creed 4, where this time around.. you get to sail the Caribbean as a swashbuckling pirate / assassin, destroying whatever you want, and being a general menace while you sail the seas. Graphically the game bleeds off your screen, with vibrant colors and vistas that will make you take pause and enjoy the sight.
I got to admit, i was a little hesitant with AC4, as its predecessor (AC3) lacked the gameplay that I have enjoyed through out the entire Assassin Creed series. The story, general gameplay and side quests in AC3 were very bland, and didn’t give that intensity or drive that I had previously experienced within AC. Developer Ubisoft must have realized this, and retooled AC4 with better gameplay mechanics, naval combat (which AC3 did have, just not enough of), smarter AI, and another puzzle in the story line (who is this mysterious guy at Abstergo Entertainment??)
Another roll-out that just recently with Watch Dogs. This one was a highly anticipated game, but “stripped” from the Next Gen Roll-out back in November, due to “polishing” by the developer (whether or not that was the case or not, who knows..) and bumped to a release this past May.
Watch Dogs follows the “Anti Hero” Aiden Pierce, who’s niece is killed in a “hit style” accident. Aiden begins his quest to bring his own kind of justice to the Chicago area, hunting down those who hurt his family via hacking the all encompassing ctOS, which runs everything in Chicago. From ATMs, Cell Phones, Traffic Lights.. Aiden can use them to his advantage to find the people responsible for his nieces’ death.
Watch Dogs has is pro’s and con’s, most notably with the game being considered as a “Grand Theft Auto” clone. Regardless, I have been enjoying it for quite a while, mixing it up with the Cops, the gangs in the city, and other side missions that involve hacking the network.
Even with the few games that rolled out, Sony did have another bang up job this past E3, showing off even more tech & games that the PlayStation 4 had in store: Showing off their own Virtual Reality headset “Project Morpheus”, giving players first crack at the Alpha build of “Destiny”, and even giving folks a taste of the new Battlefield series “Battlefield: Hardline”. Sony was even successful in getting Micro$oft to finally drop out the Kinect bundle with the Xbone.
Well done Sony. Looking forward to see what is going to come out next.
