PlayStation 4: A Great Game Console For Early Adopters

A Great Game Console for Early Adopters 

Now that we're more than two months out from the mid-November release date of the PS4 and Xbox One, it's a good time to take a second look at both consoles with fresh eyes.

And right now, the PS4 is looking pretty good.

The Sony console has the edge on value -- it delivers a better value. And some recently announced gaming and entertainment features due later this year have the potential to make the investment in a PS4 pay off in 2015 and beyond.

The affordability appeal is twofold. The PS4 is available for $100 less than the Xbox One -- $399 versus $499 for the Microsoft console -- so you're saving money right off the bat. But the Xbox One also requires one to maintain an Xbox Live Gold account to do nearly anything interesting, right down to watching Netflix. By contrast, Sony's PlayStation Plus online service ($50/year) is required only to play online multiplayer games -- and that membership includes access to several downloadable digital games, available at no extra charge.

Meanwhile, Sony announced two big PlayStation initiatives in January: PlayStation Now and a Sony online TV service, both due before the end of year. PlayStation Now aims to deliver real-time game streaming to the the PS4 and other Sony game consoles. Details are more vague on the online TV service, but it looks to be a cable-like video streaming app -- think Netflix or Hulu, but with live TV channels.

To be sure, game lineups on the PS4 and Xbox One are both still small, but they'll continue to expand as months and years progress. And if there's a must-have title on your list that's exclusive to one platform or the other -- well, that pretty much makes the decision easy.

We're not ready to count the Xbox One out by a longshot -- it's still an ambitious console with a lot to offer. As always, a software update or two could totally shift the balance of power. (And the Xbox has two such updates on deck for February and March.)

And -- to be clear -- there's still no urgency to purchase a new game console, especially if you're happy with the PS3 or Xbox 360 you probably already own.

• Why the PlayStation 5 could be the cheapest games console ever

The differences between the PS4 and Xbox One are actually evident before you even switch them on. Despite the two consoles both sporting similar half-matte half-gloss finishes and containing very similar internal components, they really couldn't be more different.

For a start, the PS4 is small and sleek in comparison to the enormous VCR-like square cuboid of the Xbox One. And this means that the PS4's box is half the size and weight of the Xbox One. The Sony console can be extracted from its packaging and plugged in and booted up in a couple of minutes.

The new DualShock4 pad is an improvement but it's not perfect

Xbox One on the other hand comes in a huge, hulking box. It's fiddly to open and unpack, and it's full of little compartments, carboard and plastic to get in the way and make a mess with. The environment was not a concern for Microsoft when it designed the Xbox packaging, clearly.

This is the kind of streamlining that typifies the PlayStation experience with PS4. It's a console designed for gamers to play games and in this respect it could be described as more of spiritual successor to the PlayStation 2 – still the best selling games console the universe has ever known.

Design

One look at the PS4 and you know you're seeing Sony hardware. It's slim, sleek and jet black, roughly the size of a second generation PS3 Slim. The full measurements are 275 x 53 x 305 mm. It's a lot more compact than an Xbox One, which is longer, taller and squarer.

Half matte, half gloss - just like the Xbox One

In a feat of engineering worth tipping your hat to, and in spite of the PS4's slim stature, Sony has tucked the power supply inside the system, leaving no external power brick to trip over. The Xbox One on the other hand retains the power brick of the Xbox 360.

PS4 sports a sloped, asymmetrical design. That's its largest departure from PlayStations past. It lies flat on its belly by default, but can go up on its tiptoes with the help of a plastic stand, sold separately for £16.99.

On its face is a slit of a mouth, a slot loading Blu-ray disc drive. To its right are two powered USB 3.0 ports, which can charge your DualShock 4 controllers when the system is turned off, a feature the PS3 sorely lacked.

Along the top, or the side if you've opted for the stand, is a light, which glows blue when you boot it up. It breathes some life into the otherwise cold industrial design of the system. Turn it on and it blinks a yawning hello.

It's smaller than the PS3 Slim - some achievement given the internal power supply

 

PS4 specifications

Inside, the PS4 is all business. It has a custom single-chip processor that combines an eight core x86-64 AMD "Jaguar" CPU with a 1.84 teraflop GPU based on AMD's Radeon tech. That's backed by 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a 500GB mechanical hard drive.

Sony claims that the PS4's overall performance is ten times that of the PS3. You can also remove that 500GB drive and replace it with a larger drive, or an SSD for better performance. Sony says these do it yourself upgrades will not void the system's warranty.

Those two USB ports are the PS4's only front facing connections. In the rear you'll find HDMI, Ethernet, a digital optical audio out and a proprietary auxiliary connection for the PlayStation Camera.

For wireless connections, the PS4 uses 802.11 b/g/n for WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 for its wireless DualShock 4 controllers.

Features

The PlayStation 4 is a living room computer, more so than the PS3 ever was. Not just because of its specs and AMD-based architecture, but because of its robust feature set.

It's capable of bringing games and movies quickly into your home, as well as connecting you to your friends and other online gamers through the PlayStation Network as well as Twitter and Facebook to share brag-worthy gaming moments.

The PS4 is hassle-free to extract and set up

What's in the box?

You're bringing home more than a just a stylish asymmetrical black console. In addition to the actual system you get a power cord (not a big power brick), an HDMI cable, an earbud microphone combo, one DualShock 4 controller and its charging cable (we charged our DualShock 4 pad using the Xbox One and the world did not end).

Extra controllers don't come with another charging cable, so don't lose that one. Also, note that we said earbud singular, not earbuds, as in just for one ear. It's cheap but serviceable, but you can actually plug any old headset or pair of buds you already own into the controller's headphone jack, so it's not much of an issue.

HDMI and power cables are supplied but you can use your PS3 wires if you like

Included inside every PlayStation 4 box is the console, power cord, a 6-foot HDMI cable (finally!), a DualShock 4 controller, a Micro-USB cable (to charge the DualShock 4), and a monoaural earbud for online chat. (The earbud plugs directly into the DualShock controller; you can alternately use any pair of headphones with a standard 3.5mm plug.)

Unlike the PlayStation 3, the PS4 won't be sold in multiple configurations: There's only one version, a 500GB model that retails for $400. This is $100 less than an Xbox One, though the latter ships with its camera and voice/motion-sensing peripheral, Kinect, in the box. It'll cost you $60 extra to pick up the PlayStation Camera for the PS4 -- which I'll get to a little later. That model provides some of the same features as the Kinect, but it's less sophisticated than Microsoft's, and isn't as tightly integrated into the system.

For early adopters, Sony is also throwing in a free month of PlayStation Network Plus and a free month of the Sony Music Unlimited music-streaming service, as well as a $10 credit for the PlayStation Store. Current free PS4 downloadable games for PlayStation Plus include Resogun and Contrast -- though the list of included games continues to grow each month. (Owners of some PS3 titles can upgrade to the PS4 version for just $10 each, for a limited time.)

Setup

Setting up the PlayStation 4 is very easy, especially if you have a PS3. You can actually use the same cables from Sony's last system, making for a very easy swap.

As mentioned on page 1, the PS4 is super easy to extract from its box and set up, leaving minimal mess and very little environment-killing packaging.

Once it's all plugged in and booted up, your new PS4 will ask to connect to internet. It wants that 300MB day-one patch, but it doesn't need it for offline play. You are able to skip WiFi or ethernet altogether and just pop in a game. Unlike the Xbox One, you can get to the homescreen without initially connecting to the web and patching.

Once you do connect to the internet, you'll need to let the PS4 update before you can make purchases from the store or play online.

PlayStation Store games are expensive - physical copies are better value for the time being

PlayStation Store

Sony won the popularity contest at E3 by promising not to fiddle with used game trade-ins, but gamers will still have the option to purchase any and all games on the day of release digitally through the PlayStation Store.

While opting out of a physical copy means no disc to resell down the road, a digital copy brings a level of convenience to your purchase that's reminiscent of Steam. It means no disc to lose, scratch or even bother inserting when you want to play. You won't have anything to sell to GameStop though, nor will you be able to lend out the game.

Games can even be played before a download completes. When purchasing a game like Killzone: Shadow Fall, you'll be asked which portion of the game should be prioritized, single player or multiplayer, essentially letting you choose which part of the game you want to hop into first.

In a little less than an hour, you'll be able to start playing a title. It may seem like something only the truly impatient would enjoy, but when you consider that many releases weigh in excess of 35GB, it's real luxury feature, and another impressive bit of engineering.

Then there's the PlayStation app for iOS and Android. With just the stroke of a touchscreen, you can remotely purchase games, and get the download going on your PS4 so it's ready and waiting when you get home (the console will turn on, download and switch off on its own).

Finally, PlayStation Plus is offering a bit of financial amnesty for customers who've bought copies of games like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag or Call of Duty: Ghosts for PS3, and other titles that are available on next and current-gen. For a small fee, you can get the next-gen version, providing you insert your PS3 copy as a sort of proof of purchase.

You'll have to continue to do so, meaning that every time you want to play the PS4 Call of Duty you bought through this offer, you'll need to pop in the PS3 version. That last-gen copy will still work on your PS3 though, requiring the disc seems like a way to make sure customers can't use both simultaneously.

Using the Vita you can play remotely or use it as an extra control pad

PS Vita Remote Play

When Remote Play for the PS Vita was announced, everyone chirped that the PS4 would be the best thing ever to happen to Sony's struggling handheld. While it may not sell many Vitas, considering customers have already spent a lot on a PS4, it'll certainly get current owners to dust off the system.

Basically, a WiFi connected PS4 can stream gameplay to a Vita, much like a gaming PC streaming Borderlands 2 to an Nvidia Shield, or the proposed Windows to Linux streaming of Valve's Steam Box.

We used the PS4 and Vita over our home WiFi, provided by a three-year-old Apple AirPort. The connection to the PS4 was lag free, to the point where you could actually use the handheld as a controller.

And you can use it as a control pad, as well as a second screen, Smartglass style. It's a great way to avoid using the on screen keyboard, if nothing else.

Outside of the same WiFi network as your PS4, Remote Play is not an option. At the office we couldn't get it to connect to our PS4 at home, and it simply isn't an available over a 3G data connection. In regards to this, Sony's official statement is:

"We strongly recommend that Remote Play be used within the same WiFi network where the PS4 system is connected. Remote Play may or may not work over a wide area network. For Remote Play to function over a wide area network, a robust and stable WiFi connection and broadband Internet connection is required, and the local area network where the PS4 system is connected must be configured to permit the PS Vita system to access the PS4 system."

Sony's statement holds true, so Vita Remote Play is really more like a Wii U Gamepad, letting you play in bed or get a game in while someone else is using the TV. It's not a strong reason to go out and buy a Vita, but if you already own, it's an impressive novelty at the very least.

Recording gameplay is super easy but sharing it is less so

Sharing Gameplay Videos

When Sony pulled the PS4 out of the shadows and started rattling off features, it mentioned one truly original and intriguing feature: saving and sharing gameplay videos with the press of the Share button on the DualShock 4.

At all times when playing a game, your last fifteen minutes of action is being recorded. This can be disabled, if you find it creepy or want to save on hard drive space, but it's switched on by default. There are also places where recording or screen grabs are locked out by developers. It's usually during cinematics or in certain menus.

Right on the console you can manipulate the video to a limited degree, more like trimming than true editing, and then share it to Facebook or on the PSN. You can also take a screenshot by holding the Share button, and then attach it to a PSN message, Facebook or tweet it.

Sharing videos and screens is limited to social networks and the PSN. There's no way to get them to YouTube or Flickr, or create a private link to the video. That's a real disappointment, especially since the Xbox One offers you a lot more freedom with your clips, like uploading them YouTube. In a perfect world we'd be able to plug in a thumb drive and grab the raw video, but that's not allowed.

However, you can stream live gameplay for others to watch over Twitch and Ustream, something PC gamers have enjoyed for a while now. It's quite painless to set up, especially compared to the third-party mechanics needed to employ this on a last-gen system.

The PlayStation 4 is one hot combination of industrial design and gaming hardware, but what about those accessories? How are they for interacting with the system?

Out of the box you've got one DualShock 4 controller and its charging cable. Sold separately, a spare will cost you £49.00, with no extra charging cable included.

Then there's the PlayStation Camera. It's available online for £45, and while it lacks the robust feature set of its new Kinect rival, the fact that it's sold separately is likely why the PS4 was able to undercut the Xbox One by $100/£80. So thank it for that, at the very least.

An improved controller is still second best to the new Xbox One pad

DualShock 4 controller

The PlayStation and its DualShock 4 pad have been peas in the proverbial pod since the brand's inception. Ever since the introduction of the twin analog stick design in 1997, Sony has changed little about its signature gamepad.

The DualShock 4, the current controller model that ships with the PlayStation 4, is the most refined iteration yet, but Sony has not thrown the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, DualShock fans will find it immediately familiar, and those that disliked Sony's design will find that some, but not all, of their gripes have been addressed.

The DualShock 4 might look an awful lot like a DualShock 3, but it's far from the same old controller from the past seven years. It's built on a series of tweaks, rather than an overhaul, of the last Sony controller. Even though the new DualShock is even PS3 compatible, a lot has changed from one generation to the next, and mostly for better.

A speaker in the controller can be used for comms or additional game sounds

Most alterations made to the DualShock seem based on user feedback, targeting a specific annoyance gamers had with last gen's model. For example, the twin analog sticks are now spaced a little bit further apart, so it's no longer possible to smack your thumbs together when pulling both sticks towards each other.

The tops of the sticks are now dimpled. They also have an extra grippy rubber texture, making them very easy to manipulate. Shooter fans especially should appreciate these tweaks.

Over long gaming sessions we still found its symmetrical stick layout to be more fatiguing than Xbox's asymmetrical design. The DualShock 4 is the best DualShock yet, but die hard fans of Microsoft's gamepad, or long time DualShock haters, won't be won over. We would certainly say that the new Xbox One pad is a lot nicer to use, but this is all about personal preference.

A Vita-like touchpad adds extra control options to PS4 games

The L2 and R2 shoulder buttons, which commonly function as triggers, have been extended. They're a lot easier to catch and grip, and it's more comfortable to rest a finger on one, ready for that quick reaction shot.

Sony has also stepped away from the classic DualShock design by shifting from Start and Select buttons to Share and Options. Not only are they labeled in a way that better fits their functions, they're no longer rubber. They're very flush, making them hard to hit by accident, and they feel closer to a mouse click then the spongy button we were used to.

Speaking of a mouse, the DualShock 4 also sports a touchpad. It's metal construction feels great to the touch. Fingers glide smoothly and it can be clicked, just like on a laptop. In fact, it feels a lot like what you'd find on a MacBook; the overall construction is excellent.

Controls are similar to DualShock 3 but with a new arrangement and some new buttons

While it's underused by the current crop of games, the touchpad is a smart addition. It's fabulously intuitive, and will certainly be a boon for both menu navigation and casual gaming.

Borrowing a feature from the Wii Remote, the DualShock 4 has a little speaker. It leaves us wondering if Sony will best Nintendo here by figuring out something useful to do with it. Right now the best we've encountered is the way Resogun pipes important bits of narration through it, leaving us free to mute the game and blast our own music.

There's a 3.5mm headphone jack too, so you can plug any old headphones or headset right into the controller. It's extremely convenient, and a great money saver since you can use earbuds or whatever else you already own. The sound outputs in stereo, so it's a bit of a waste to use a fancy 5.1 cans this way, but the sound options in settings let you choose between piping chat or game audio into your ears.

Multiplayer

Sony has also streamlined the whole "who's player one?" question. Each controller has a light bar that glows one of four colors: blue, red, green or purple. Players are now identified by color, rather than a number.

It's now much easier to know who's who at a glance, but these glowing controllers can get obnoxious when you're trying watch a movie in a darkened room. There's really no reason why they should be lit up when you're using Netflix, or when there's only one controller turned on, for that matter. The only solution is to turn the controller off, which means having to wake it when you want to pause your movie.

The DualShock 4 also has less battery life than the previous model. A day of moderate gaming, or leaving the controller on when you watch a film, puts a serious drain on its charge. Our controller frequently ran dry before the end of the day, to the point where we seriously suggest owning at least two, especially if your TV is too far from the couch to play while plugged in.

Triggers are improved and the pad in general feels nicer in the hand

Basically, you need to remember to keep a controller plugged into the PS4 whenever it's not in use. Thankfully the system can charge a DualShock when it's off or on standby, something the PS3 shockingly could not do, so at least Sony has addressed that major last-gen oversight.

The PlayStation Camera is an optional extra at about £45

PlayStation Camera

Nothing says next-gen like voice and face recognition technology, hence the PlayStation Camera. While it's a shadow of its rival the new Xbox One Kinect, it's a massive step up from the PlayStation Eye Camera, thanks to controller tracking and a built-in microphone.

It's still a rather unnecessary accessory, at least at this point in the system's life. There are hardly any games that use it and the interface doesn't depend on it in any meaningful ways.

At login, the PS4 can use the camera to recognize your face. It actually needs you to hold up a DualShock, where it uses the light bar's color to figure out who's player one and so forth. It's amusing and futuristic, but doesn't really speed up the sign in process, which is already as simple as clicking on your name.

It's smaller than you think but has little use for the time being

The PlayStation Camera has a microphone, which can pick up simple spoken commands. The PS4's voice controls are limited, especially compared to the Xbox One. It can be used to launch games, put the system in standby or capture a screenshot. However, voice functions can also work through a microphone, either by plugging the ear bud that comes with the system into your controller or through a fancy third-party headset.

As far as games go, only one title truly requires it: Just Dance 2014. For gamers, this should be the deciding factor: do you want to spend an extra $59.99/£54.99 to play just one game? Personally, we'd recommend waiting until there's another title or two.

There's also the Playroom, a sort of tech demo that comes with the PS4. It's a showroom feature, the kind of thing that gets otherwise uninterested people engaging with the console.

Augmented reality is an impressive novelty

The closest thing it has to a game is air hockey, but the most engaging feature is AR Robots. Here, AR stands for augmented reality.

The camera puts you and your living room on the screen, surrounding you with little squealing robots. You can interact with them in limited ways, knocking them around or vacuuming them up with the controller.

Since there's no goal and limited gameplay it's a really just a tech demo. It's amusing and terribly cute, until you run out of friends to show it to. After that, you'll quickly stop visiting the Playroom.

Basically, the PlayStation Camera works well and has some amusing features, but it's entirely inessential. While these camera probably won't fly off the shelves, we're happy that Sony chose not make it essential.

The PlayStation 3, with its with its 256MB of XDR Main RAM and 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM made it seven years, and managed to support visual feasts like The Last of Us and God of War: Ascension during its final days.

So it's pleasing to see a whole 8GB of super-fast GDDR5 memory sitting at the heart of the PS4. That's future-proofing right there.

The new interface is similar to that of the PS3 but it's streamlined

Interface

The PlayStation 4's interface has been streamlined considerably. Now known as the Dynamic Menu, it's composed of two horizontal feeds. The primary menu serves up games and apps, the one above it hosts your trophies, friends list, your PSN profile and system settings.

Coming out of a cold boot, you're on the homescreen in less than thirty seconds. The same goes for coming out of standby. There's still some icon pop in, meaning the menu needs a few extra second to populate. None of that is terribly impressive, performance will undoubtedly be better for those who upgrade to an SSD.

Games are placed front and centre in the menu

As far as responding to player inputs goes, it's very fast. You can drill through menus almost immediately, and everything moves in the blink of an eye.

This homescreen is never far away, just pressing the PlayStation button summons it and pauses your current game. Also, if you get lost in an avalanche of menus, the PS button will bring back to the primary feed, a simple alternative to spamming the back button.

Switching from one game to another will end your current session; the PlayStation warns you of this and asks you to confirm the shutdown of whatever title you have paused in the background. Better make sure you've reached a checkpoint, as the title will boot fresh the next time you play it; it does not pick up right where you left off.

There are limited streaming options on launch - BBC iPlayer is incoming

We said the interface is streamlined and it is, practically to a fault. That primary feed constantly reorders itself, putting the recently accessed applications first. That's fine if you're only playing a game or two, but getting at something on your back burner means scrolling to the end of an ever growing list. Icons towards the back also need a second or two to appear.

The Dynamic Menu also lumps all your streaming apps into one icon. Everything from Netflix to Amazon to whatever else is found under TV & Video. Only Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited are allowed to hang out on the homescreen.

The only icon that never moves is What's New, basically the PSN's news feed. It's always at the front of the line and clicking into is to enter a jumbled nightmare that would make Mark Zuckerberg cry or laugh, we can't decide which.

Navigation is easy but it could do with some refinement

It's an asymmetrical mishmash of icons representing everything your PSN friends have done, from play games to earn achievements to share gameplay videos and screenshots. It's a total mess, especially compared to the neatly laid out Dynamic Menu.

The biggest problem with What's New is not the eye gouging layout, but the fact that there's not much to be done with 80% of the information there.

Suppose there's an icon saying Joe played Battlefield 4 for three hours last night. Clicking on the icon just provides a description from the PSN Store and a link to buy the game. And you can "like" the activity, adding yet another icon to everyone's jumbled feed.

What's New is in desperate need of a filtration system. There needs to be a way to reduce the trophy spam and see just the things you can actually interact with. Being able to see gameplay videos posted by friends is cool, but not so cool that that you'll dig through this feed to find them.

From a design perspective, the Dynamic Menu needs work. It alternates between too stripped down or absolutely cluttered. The saving grace is that it's fast and pleasant looking, minus the pop in.

Graphics are superb but will vastly improve as developers get to grips with the new hardware

Games

Alright, the stuff that truly matters. The PlayStation 4 is indeed a graphical step up from the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The games look very good, and everything loads quite quickly. Beyond the speedy, one time install when you first pop in a new game, it's hard to even notice the loading times. There's nothing that even comes close to the disconcertingly long load up of the PS3's The Last of Us.

The graphics are good, but not mind blowing. If you've played on a PC that costs two or three times what a PS4 goes for, you've seen as good, if not slightly better.

It's the fact that you're getting it for so much cheaper, and on your HDTV, that's worth something. Just don't expect your head to explode and your eyes to melt like it's the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

32 times more system memory means larger gaming worlds

There's an impressive level of detail on display in Knack's character models. Killzone shows off some vistas with a draw distance that would have melted a last-gen system. The most muscle being flexed on the PS4 comes in subtle ways from the performance side. The fact that Battlefield 4 can manage 64 players with just a brief load before a match is the kind of stuff worth noting.

The third-party titles on the PlayStation 4 have one foot in next generation and the other in the last. Games Call of Duty: Ghosts and Madden 25 look better than their last-gen counterparts, and they certainly perform better, but they're not on par with Sony's private stable of titles.

The one exception to that is NBA 2K14, which is truly striking. The animations, the renderings of famous players, the detail of the crowd and the accuracy of its animations make it something to write home about. It stands among the first-party titles as one of the best looking games on the system.

With more memory, sports game visuals are improved by more realistic crowds

We're being harsh but only because we know that better games will come. If you rush out and buy a PS4 now, you'll be wanting for titles to show you what this system can truly do. There's a reason Sony made such a big deal out of confirming a new Uncharted game, the best is truly yet to come.

Games

The PlayStation 4 looks slick and it's chocked full of gigabytes, but what exactly can you play on it? That's the question gamers should be asking before lining up at the local electronics store.

The PS4's library isn't large, some standouts have already emerged. For more, we turn to our sister siteGamesRadar. If you still need something to play after reading this, check out their list of the best PS4 games.

Infamous: Second Son

The new Infamous is the first game that looks like it's actually putting all that fancy hardware to work. An open world game with an incredible amount of detail, it boasts excellent production values and a dark, comic book-style story.

From GamesRadar's review:

"If you're looking for a next-gen showpiece to demonstrate the power of PlayStation 4, inFamous: Second Son will definitely do the trick--it looks great, plays well, and gives you a dozen or so hours of city to explore. The gameplay itself isn't all that revolutionary, but the stellar presentation and enjoyable characters assure you'll enjoy your trip to Seattle--even if you'll wish there was more to do there."

• Read the full Infamous: Second Son review on GamesRadar

Battlefield 4

If you've been gaming for more than a year or so, you're surely familiar with EA's Battlefield series, and its intense rivalry with Activision's Call of Duty. We'll leave it to you to decide which is the better shooter, but going from Battlefield 4 on a last gen console to the PS4 is nothing short of a graphical revelation. And it's fun to play, too.

From GamesRadar's review:

"Multiplayer shooters don't get better than Battlefield 4. Incredible destruction, smart map design, and solid tech combine to produce a true showcase for PS4 and PC. While solo play still lags behind, it's a big step up from BF3."

• Read the full Battlefield 4 review on GamesRadar

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Yes, it came out last year, but if you didn't play it and you have a PS4, well then lucky you. This next gen re-release truly deserves the title "definitive." It gives Lara's adventure the best graphics and overall performance this side of a $1,500 gaming PC.

From GamesRadar's review:

"One of the best adventure games on console, with a fantastic blend of action and exploration. The Definitive Edition really is definitive, but isn't worth a repeat buy for those who've already experienced Lara's story."

• Read the full Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition review on GamesRadar

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

A pirate's life for ye? Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag takes the naval aspects of the series and turns them up to 11, crafting a sea faring, sword fighting, treasure taking adventure that's at once a return to form and a departure for Ubisoft's time-traveling series.

From GamesRadar's review:

"An ambitious start for Assassin's Creed on next-gen. The vibrant Caribbean world and bloody piracy shine brightest, while the only sour notes come from contrived series story beats and repetitive missions--both need rethinking for AC5."

• Read the full Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag review on GamesRadar

Resogun

Resogun is a fast-paced, addictive 2D-ish shooter. Beyond the simple fun of a neon gun show, it's a major selling point for PS Plus. Subscribe and you'll get it with your monthly payment. If Plus keeps stacking up games like this, it'll really have Xbox Live Gold looking bad.

From GamesRadar's review:

"Resogun looks incredible and provides plenty of arcade fun. It's only held back by sudden difficulty spikes and some frustrating point-scoring mechanics."

Source

CNET PlayStation 4 Reviews (CNET Editor's Rating 3.5/5, Average User Rating 4/5) -Feb 6,2014

The Good The PlayStation 4 serves up dazzling graphics, runs on a simplified and logical interface, and boasts a fantastic controller. It's $100 cheaper than rival Xbox One and has the upper hand on indie and digital-only games. It also doubles as a great Blu-ray player and has plenty of streaming entertainment apps.

The Bad There are few must-buy triple-A titles in these early days, and existing PS3 games aren't compatible. The PS4 lacks the robust DLNA compatibility or media playback support which made its predecessor such a great all-around content player. And the promising PlayStation Now and streaming TV services won't be available until later this year.

The Bottom Line The PlayStation 4's beautiful graphics, blazing interface, near-perfect controller, and lower price give it a slight edge on the Xbox One -- for now.

Techradar PlayStation 4 Reviews (Design 4/5, Features 3.5/5, Usability 4/5, Performance 4.5/5, Value 4.5/5) -Apr 7, 2014

Engadget PlayStation 4 Reviews (Critic Review 8.1/10, User Review 8.7/10) 

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Where to Buy

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$399.00 Amazon PlayStation 4 Console*free shipping

$576.00 Walmart PS4 Ultimate Family Bundle with Extra Controller and Choice of 2 Games

$391.99 Newegg Sony PlayStation 4 / PS4 Consol* +$8.90 Shipping

$399.99 Toysrus Sony Playstation 4 Gaming System