The PS4 thread

[neontropics]

Which modes are you all playing the most in Tetris Puyo Puyo? I'm trying to improve my 40 lines record (currently 2m 14s which needs to go under 2m soon), as well as some Tetris Marathon mode on like Level 12-15 to improve my speed in general. I should dig into story mode more, and multiplayer.

I've got Yakuza 0 arriving today though wooooo, it's the first Yakuza game I'm playing

[Immryr]

i play the mode which switches between puyo puyo and tetris 99.9% of the time.

[evil_ash_xero]

Nioh is doing surprisingly well with critics. Glad to see Team Ninja have pulled themselves together.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/nioh

[Necronopticous]

If all goes as planned I will be picking up an advance copy of Ni-oh tomorrow afternoon. I tried the alpha and didn't find it very intriguing but I have heard they took player feedback to heart and have made some pretty big strides since then. The trailers look cool at least. I will report back with some early impressions pretty soon!

[ZellSF]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/02/ ... -detailed/
Usually system software updates are interesting, but external HDD support is probably interesting to lots of people who want to upgrade their PS4. Personally I have lots of spare 500GB external drives, but that's not good for upgrading when I'm only limited to one drive and the internal PS4 drive is already at 500GB.

[Udderdude]

They're cleaning up the clusterfuck that was the original notifications screen .. that's good.

[ZellSF]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=314
hmm...

[evil_ash_xero]

Hmmm....Boost Mode, you say?

Well, it would be nice to have Evil Within running at a stable framerate. Maybe it will get rid of some of the drops in the From Software titles.

[ZellSF]

Hmmm....Boost Mode, you say?

Well, it would be nice to have Evil Within running at a stable framerate. Maybe it will get rid of some of the drops in the From Software titles.

Initial impressions says it definitely helps From Software titles. Until Dawn runs better too. Plus some games anyone who owns a PC shouldn't care about.

Guessing just about anything that ran at an unstable unlocked framerate will see improvements.

[Xyga]

Just as I thought. I bet they've delayed that 'feature' so the 'v1' hardware owners wouldn't immediately feel let down with an obsolete machine.

[ZellSF]

Boost mode also seems to benefit load times for some games, which I didn't expect, but sort of makes sense.

Still happy with waiting on a few more revisions before replacing my base PS4 with a Pro one though.

[evil_ash_xero]

Any word if it improves the load times on Doom?

Also, I got the "true" ending on Gravity Rush 2. That game is a lot more epic, than I thought it would be.

I have problems with it, but when it's good it's GOOD.

[reckon luck]

As someone who's never had a Playstation before now, there are so many games I would buy if Sony would fix their backwards compatibility problems. Nothing from PS1 or 3, and only ~40 PS2 titles since Nov 2015. I wonder how long it'll take for them to get to a smaller title like Gradius V.

edit
did my part: looked up how to vote for PS2 games, dug up my dusty twitter account and unleashed a massive #PS2PS4 tweet.

[Marc]

Sony can go fuck themselves with the entire back compatible saga. The PS2 games I bought on PS3 don't carry over? Fuck you Sony. You have a a fully functional PS2 emulator working on PS4, and instead of, I dunno, releasing it as a paid for App, with a disclaimer that it may not be 100%accurate with every title, you're trying to resell me my games for the THIRD time? Fuck 6ou Sony. Oh, and my 0reviously bought PS1 titles won't work on PS4 either? Fuck you Sony.

They're making MS look almost competent. MS are pushing out BC at a good speed now, including Outrun 2 - a game ALREADY DELISTED because of licencing issues. They're also working on BC with the original Xbox last I heard. If it wasn't for an alarming lack of exclusives (excepting Crackdown 3, which I'd be all over), they're pulling the Xbox brand together into something that feels really cohesive. A media/entertainment device that lets me play three gens worth of games with zero fucking about, FREE OF CHARGE? I can get behind that.

Yes, I imagine there are some niche 360 titles that will miss out, but the rate they're going about it I'm guessing it will be a very few indeed.

Sony? Fuck you guys. They will never get another penny from me for a digital game from any gen other than current.

[iconoclast]

Nioh

Got this yesterday and have been playing it ever since. I have no idea how many hours in I am, but my character is around level 50. My day 1 impressions:

It does several things better than any Souls game. Combat is faster, deeper, and more complex, and they did a good job with the way they have you revisit previous stages. There are (optional) Twilight missions (basically hard mode) and subquests that take you back to the stages you've already beaten. All of the ones I've done have had remixed enemy encounters, a different objective, and/or a different start point, so it doesn't feel like you're just replaying something you've already beaten. Plus they change the lighting so it looks a little different. This is the type of effort I'd like to see in the Souls games' NG+.

I'm not sure I like the way they handle loot. It's basically Diablo, I guess. You get tons of armor and weapons with random abilities, and you're supposed to take all of the stuff you don't want and disassemble them for forging materials, sell them for gold/amrita, or use them to upgrade a weapon's level. They really went all in with the blacksmithing, but this is the type of stuff that I don't like about RPGs. It's just another layer of annoying busywork. I like the Souls style more in every way, but I guess it's fine that Nioh does some things differently.

And as far as world building goes, every Souls game runs laps around this imo. The story is boring, the characters aren't interesting at all, and I just don't care about anything that's happening. I haven't even noticed the music either, so the OST probably isn't worth mentioning.

I'm enjoying the game though. It plays great.

[bigbadboaz]

Sony can go fuck themselves with the entire back compatible saga.

You're looking at the results of success, unfortunately. They have absolutely zero incentive to include any new functionality in a system that every mass-market consumer now looks at as the obvious choice in game consoles. Even with MS making huge strides in the last couple of years, they are in no danger of losing their position this generation.

I was in the PS4 camp from the start, but was incredibly disappointed there was no PS1 compatibility out of the box. This was the first gen they'd left it out, and MAN would it be simple for them to stick an emulator in the firmware. I kept thinking it would come along in an update - again, SO SIMPLE - but by now it's crystal clear.. they just don't care, nor have any pressure on them.

[reckon luck]

I understand, and yet don't understand 'we're number one, therefore we don't have to try'. Throwing in some emulators and games on PSN would let them take so much of my money. Why don't you want my money, Sony?

[BrianC]

Sony also confused me on their Vita stance. It actually led sales in Japan for a while, but Sony decided to do nothing to help promote it.

[bigbadboaz]

I think they're probably stretched thinner than we could imagine. They're not the SONY of the 80s or 90s anymore and they are working on lots of things at once, just not everything you or I might want.

Top of the head, something like PSVR has sucked up massive resources for years now. Personally, I wish that shit didn't even need to exist, but Sony obviously felt they needed a foothold there.

[reckon luck]

What you're saying seems plausible. The notion of trading BC for VR doesn't make me happy, though.

[gameoverDude]

Sony also confused me on their Vita stance. It actually led sales in Japan for a while, but Sony decided to do nothing to help promote it.

Shame. The Vita is a good portable and it deserves the same love that the PSP got. How sad that there is no plan for a Vita 2.
IMO they should have gotten the memory card prices lower. Vita's 64 GB card is a bit over $100. Micro SDHC & Micro SDXC cards of like size don't cost close to that.

Mobile games are probably going to kill the handheld system market someday, if they aren't doing it already.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nioh

Since reading about the game's multi-variable game tuning (lol), how did you play this? Original PS4 or Pro? Did you select resolution, balanced, or 60FPS stable? And finally, does anything look odd?

I don't know how much 360 developers utilized dynamic resolution for framerate so this is new to me.

There's some discussion of that here, don't ruin your gameplay experience for my curiosity though!

[ZellSF]

Sony? Fuck you guys. They will never get another penny from me for a digital game from any gen other than current.

I wouldn't trust Microsoft or Nintendo with maintaining your purchases either. If you care about playing your digital titles in the future, get them on PC where the community maintains them almost indefinitely.

Any word if it improves the load times on Doom?

I think I saw someone who said they were slightly improved.

IMO they should have gotten the memory card prices lower. Vita's 64 GB card is a bit over $100. Micro SDHC & Micro SDXC cards of like size don't cost close to that.

While they should have done that, it wouldn't help the Vita any, since they would have to recoup costs by making the Vita itself more expensive or the licensing prices for games higher.

People only see the console cost itself, not the price of console+everything you need, which is why they did it that way. The Vita was a premium console. It cost a lot. The memory cards didn't, it was just were marketing thought the consumers would object the least.

[Marc]

Sony? Fuck you guys. They will never get another penny from me for a digital game from any gen other than current.

I wouldn't trust Microsoft or Nintendo with maintaining your purchases either. If you care about playing your digital titles in the future, get them on PC where the community maintains them almost indefinitely.

Nah, that's not my issue man. The minute you start dealing in digital, you run the risk of not being able to access those titles further down the line with any of the major players. It isn't something I'll ever be comfortable with, but there is too much digital only stuff out there for me to boycott it, which is how I feel morally.

My issue is simply the number of times Sony have pulled the BC trickery. PS2 back compat. Cool. PS3 back compat until removed... not cool.
But, like an idiot, I buy a bunch of stuff digitally on PS3. Now buy a PS4 and find out they want me to rebuy my stuff, despite having a functional PS2 emu up and running. Not happening. I believe Nintendo has a similarly fractured approach, which is why I've never partaken in their online offerings, other than the 3D games for 3DS. Which broke. But I believe those game are tied to that console, and can't be re-downloaded should I buy a new one?

They can't emulate the PS3, I can believe and understand that. But to not offer PS2/1 emulation as a one-off purchase utterly stinks, therefore they can stick their PS2 ports where the sun don't shine. SImple as.

[Immryr]

No one is forcing you to buy anything again. Turn your PS3 on.

[iconoclast]

Nioh

Since reading about the game's multi-variable game tuning (lol), how did you play this? Original PS4 or Pro? Did you select resolution, balanced, or 60FPS stable? And finally, does anything look odd?

I don't know how much 360 developers utilized dynamic resolution for framerate so this is new to me.

There's some discussion of that here, don't ruin your gameplay experience for my curiosity though!

I've been playing in action mode on the standard PS4. It's mostly 60 fps but it does drop frames here and there. It hasn't been common or major enough to bother me, though. I think the game looks nice, but I'm not really bothered by sub-1080p or toned down effects, so I'm probably not someone to ask about that stuff. I'm just happy to play at a stable framerate.

I do like how they offer different presets, though. They basically equate to: high framerate, high resolution at 30 fps, and high resolution at a variable framerate. I hope this becomes more common with console games, especially since MS and Sony are releasing console upgrades like the Pro and Scorpio. It would be great if you could play everything at 60 fps.

[Marc]

No one is forcing you to buy anything again. Turn your PS3 on.

Dont have it anymore. Actually bought very few PS3 games, woukd 3v3ntuaoky have gotten around to picking up another for Demons and WipeOut, but as WipeOut has been announced for PS4, I'll live without Demons.

I'm just bemused that they have sold PS1/2 games to customers via an online service on PS3, then basically tell PS4 owners that 8f they want to play all that stuff one their new machine, it's totally possible - as long as you pay again. I'm at a point where having a ton of consoles plugged is a major hassle. Microsoft 8s making it easy, Sony are bending their customers over. I'd like to see one good justification as to why the PS2 emulatior shouldn't be rolled out and I'm surprised that you seem to be so unconcerned with their shitty business practices.

[ZellSF]

Some actual measurements on Boost mode framerates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftBB3ffc5A8
Maybe not the most interesting video, but I really like Digital Foundry.

[evil_ash_xero]

Yeah, they were really in depth with that vid. I can't wait to get that firmware for my Pro.

Oh, and Nioh is quite good. There's not much talk about it on here, which is surprising given how much Souls talk goes on here.

[Udderdude]

Some actual measurements on Boost mode framerates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftBB3ffc5A8

Welp, that's it, RIP launch PS4. PS4 Pro honestly seems like what the PS4 should've been at launch. But AMD's APU technology just wasn't there yet. So instead, we got several years of "Cinematic" 24 FPS ..