Liam has been a member of the G4A team now for a couple of years and is as keen a gamer as we have on the team.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIAM FROM ALL AT G4A!!

The question on all of our lips is “Really, that’s it?” Well firstly we were expecting something a little bit more… well more. The previews of the games look pretty enough for sure but is there any real wow factor? You know that feeling you got when you saw the leap forward between the 16-bit machines and Sony’s original Playstation. Okay so we are more-than-aware we are unlikely to ever see that kind of leap from the 2D into the 3D era in the early 90′s but still… The PS4 has been in development for 6-odd years and what do we get? Probably a machine that will rival the high-end PC’s for six months. There has been little or no talk of custom graphic chips or proprietary hardware.

So what does this mean? Well it means that games companies will have greatly reduced development costs for one. When the PS3 was released the biggest gripe was how difficult the platform was to program for. Now it seems that Sony have opted for little more than a powerful PC based system. It means that if Microsoft follow suit then the Next Gen consoles will be easier to program for and to cross-platform games for. What it means for gamers is… well very little in fact. We are seeing no major developments in terms of technology, so far it appears to be more of the same only more of it.

We were hoping for more, much more. I don’t know how many of you out there agree but we didn’t want something that can transmit videos to Youtube. We didn’t want something that means we can use Facebook whilst playing games. We couldn’t give a shit about browsing the net, I can count on one finger the amount of times I used the PS3′s web browser. All we want is something that plays the best games possible and looks so good it makes you weep sexy tears from places we shouldn’t mention.

We want innovation but most importantly we want something to make us say “HOLY SHIT, Look at that!” So far what we have seen of PS4 is nice but after 6 years we want more than nice we want WOW.

Perhaps we want something like this video shows from Microsoft developments.

It looks impressive and moves the game beyond the screen, whether this will be part of the new Xbox is anyone’s guess, but we reckon no if we are honest.

Or perhaps if we were really honest we would really want this…

Whatever this upcoming generation holds we know as well as you that we will be buying into it regardless. We are as sad and as insatiable when it comes to games and tech as we have always been and we love it.

Right so about the PS5….

Now rumours are flying around that Microsoft is going to reveal its successor to the Xbox at a press event in April. This comes on the back of news that they have registered the domain name Xboxevent.com.

Games mag CVG claims that it has word from developers that Microsoft were caught off-guard when Sony held their event to unleash PS4 on the world. If the April date is correct then it is a strange move that will see Microsoft hold off the new Xbox until after the GDC in March where Sony are bound to be larging it up with PS4.

G4A suspects we will see the new Xbox make a tentative appearance at GDC but then a full-on all-American extravaganza at their show in April.

Whilst nobody yet knows what the next Xbox will actually be called, it seems the popular consensus is on Xbox 720. Also whether it looks like the mock-up shown in Xbox World (Seen above) we need only wait to April or possibly March to find out.

The Specs

A lot of time at the event was spent telling us what the console was capable of and how they had made it “developer friendly”. First up, there’s been a big change in the processor and architecture of the system; the PS4 will use an 8-core 64-bit x86 AMD CPU named the ‘Jaguar’, similar to that of high-quality gaming PC’s. Accompanying that will be a Radeon GPU capable of data speeds at 1.84 TFLOPS, basically its fast… very fast. A Blu-Ray player running at x6 and an 8 speed DVD. 8GB of unified GDDR5 RAM, USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11n Wi-Fi capability. Connections wise we of course have an HDMI port and joining that are ports for optical audio out and even analogue AV. If all that means nothing to you, well here’s a summary; it’s fast and powerful, and a huge improvement over the PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation Network

With the new console, we expected there to be huge improvements to the PSN and we haven’t been let down. The big news, which wasn’t exactly a huge surprise, the PlayStation cloud; powered by Gaikai, an online video game streaming service which Sony purchased last year. On the PlayStation 4, gamers will be able to stream the latest PlayStation 4 games, as well as download them or buy them on Blu-Ray disk. That brings one very cool feature; want to demo a game? You can do that instantly, you don’t even need to download it first and when you decide to purchase the game, it will download in the background whilst you continue to play. One slightly annoying point of the PlayStation 4 is it lacks backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3 games; however Sony will make previous PS1, PS2 and PS3 games available on its cloud service so you can access them anytime. Sony is also betting big it seems on its new ‘Share’ feature, the button placed on its new Dualshock 4 controller. Hitting that button will instantly give you the option to record your gameplay, going back as far as the last 15 minutes you’ve played; you can then send that footage to YouTube or Facebook. There will be an ability to take screenshots too. A growing feature in the gaming community is streaming your game online, and Sony has done well to cater for those select few too, you can stream your game to online service ‘UStream’ and to your PSN friends. Finally party chat has come to the PlayStation and combine that with the online streaming; you shall get something very cool. Quite possibly my favourite standout feature on this next generation console is the ability for your friends to view you playing a game and chat to you whilst you do so. It goes further than that though, not only can your friend give you tips whilst you play and help you get past that specific level, they will be able to take over your game and complete that level for you.

PlayStation Vita, Eye and Move

If playing your PlayStation with just the standard controller isn’t enough, Sony once again with the PS4 has you covered. With the PlayStation Vita you will be able to remote play games from the console, and don’t worry, this time around it is far more advanced than the PS3 and PSP’s remote play. Similar to what we’ve seen on the Nintendo Wii U, the PS4 can send your game to the Vita, you can carry on from where you left off on the console and your game saves through the cloud. Lots of potential there for Sony and developers could easily do what they are doing with the Wii U on the PS4 too. Moving on to the Move (Excuse the pun); the controller hasn’t changed at all, so as far as we know, the minority of us who own the Move controller can continue to use (or not use them as the case may be) with the new system. However, looks like we’ll need that new Eye camera. The new Eye camera has clearly been inspired by the Kinect camera from Microsoft; it features two high-sensitive cameras with wide angle lens (good news for those of us with not much space in front of the telly) at a HD resolution and has four integrated microphones. Microsoft here is at real benefit though, if developers get on board with Sony and its Eye camera, it could mean we see more motion control games multi-platform.

The Dualshock 4

I won’t speak much of the Dualshock 4 controller as we have a more in-depth article herebut I will say it is quite an improvement over the Dualshock 3, keeping the familiar look and layout whilst adding a touchpad, microphone connection and that ‘Share’ button we spoke of earlier.

The Games

What would an announcement of a console be without any games… thankfully Sony did show us what its studios have been working on and brief tech demos showed off the potential of this thing. Killzone: Shadowfall, InFamous: Second Sun and Driveclub were 3 first-party titles revealed. Killzone continuing the franchise on to this next-gen console whilst InFamous returns but with an entirely new character and story. Driveclub is the first next generation racing game to be seen, it comes from Evolution Studios, the developers behind the popular PlayStation exclusive series Motorstorm. Square Enix were there with a tech demo showing what they were capable of doing and teased a new Final Fantasy game will be revealed at E3 in June. Capcom had a working title to show called Deep Down which looked very impressive. Knack is another first-party title from Sony Japan Studios and its being directed by Mark Cerny, a guy who also worked on Rachet & Clank and Crash Bandicoot. Media Molecule, famous for the LittleBigPlanet games, showed a slightly weird concept game about bringing your dreams to life; using the PlayStation Move controls you can sculpt objects and interact with them. A big shock to a lot of gaming fans; Bungie, the creator of the Xbox’s Halo series were there to present their new game Destiny, which will not only be available on the PS3 and PS4 but will also feature PlayStation exclusive content. The developers of popular indie game Braid revealed a new title called The Witness, which once again shall be a very unique puzzle game. Lastly, and quite possibly most importantly, David Cage from Quantic Dream turned up to talk about how the PlayStation system has evolved from its first iteration. Quantic Dream has become a bigger name in the industry since releasing Heavy Rain a couple of years ago and are currently at work on their next PS3 title Beyond: Two Souls to be released later this year. David didn’t have a new game to reveal unfortunately but did give us a tech demo of an old man’s face; the emotion and detail on the character was unbelievable, I would go as far as saying it is better than any CGI characters we have seen in the film industry and if this is what is in store for the future of gaming, well consider me very excited.

Summary

So in summary of the packed event, I can say the future does look bright for Sony and its certainly all eyes on Microsoft now to see what they can offer. The games visually impressed and the future does look very bright; it may not look like a huge improvement over the PS3’s graphics but thanks to the PS4’s new specs there doesn’t seem to be any limits here in what the developers can do. No graphical limits and a console designed with developers in mind means we could see some real innovation this generation in terms of storyline and characters. There are still a lot of questions to be answered about the PlayStation 4 and I’m sure we’ll hear more about it at E3, Gamescon and the Tokyo Game Show later this year.

The basics of the controller and it’s familiar layout is still there; the PlayStation famous X, Square, Circle and triangle buttons to the right hand side, a d-pad to the left and two analog sticks in the centre. New additions include a touchpad situated right in the middle, similar to that on the back of the PlayStation Vita system, a mono-speaker and a headphone slot. Along the back of the control we have a charging slot and a LED light strip, supposedly for the new Eye camera to see like it does with the ‘Move’ controller. Interestingly the ‘Start’ and ‘Select’ buttons have disappeared, though the ‘PS Button’ remains from the Dualshock 3 controller. Replacing those missing buttons however are the new ‘Share’ and ‘Options’ buttons sat either side of the touchpad; I’m guessing the ‘Options’ button will be similar to a start pop-up menu we’re used to. The ‘Share’ button will be used for Sony’s new online network features, giving the user the ability to let others watch them play, send clips to YouTube, take screenshots and even stream your game on UStream.

Six-axis returns, though Sony didn’t make a big deal about that this time round. The usual trigger buttons are round the back and Sony claim this latest version of the Dualshock packs more rumble vibration than ever. The battery within is double the size of the previous controller, and it need be with all those added features, and the controller is reportedly heavier than its predecessor.

Sony have clearly made some improvements here, some that users have wanted and some that could be risky but we’ll see how it pans out; It’s Sony’s attempt to reach out to a more casual audience whilst also catering to the hardcore gamers out there. Unfortunately the PlayStation 4 system won’t support the use of a Dualshock 3 controller, so if you don’t like this new controller, you’re either stuck with it or we’ll surely see some third-party controllers introduced at a later date. The controller will be included with the PlayStation 4 system when it launches later this year.

2: (Having never heard of it before) ‘I wonder if this is like that OTHER game I saw on Xbox…’

To clarify, Xbox owners have been here already with a similar game entitled Trials HD. It’s a very simple premise where you control a rider on a motocross bike, given the task of getting from one end of a course to the other (Remember BBC’s ‘Kickstart’?). You move over a 2D plane (amid nice, entertaining 3D visuals) from left to right over obstacle courses. Some of these require stunts to be pulled off while others need to be traversed in as quick a time as possible. In fact this so much like Trials HD it’s as if someone said what I’d been saying since 2009 (“We need a Sony version!!”), and finally made it happen. Plus they thought nothing of ripping it off. That being said, Urban Trials Freestyle is not as good as that which it steals from and as such I’ll continue here without further comparison!
In its’ own right, and for those of you who’ve never played that other game (sshhh), UTF is VERY addictive. Painfully so at times – and it’s my life’s mission to earn those stars and get that money. From the start, it’s about getting to grips with handling the bike, earning those aforementioned stars and finding bags of cash dotted throughout stages. The more stars earned, the more stages unlocked – although at times, previous ones are just brought up again for a second event type. Cash is needed to upgrade your bike, which allows for greater scores at record attempts.
Each of the stunt courses demands at least three tricks to be pulled off (flips, high jumps, long jumps, etc) whilst failure to do so, ie. falling off your bike, detracts from overall points collected during the run. Each track will also be available as a Time Trial event and in general, reaching the end of a track is made difficult thanks to goings-on in your environment. Whether it be exploding cars flying at you, or random onlookers throwing cardboard boxes at you, you suddenly realise that many of the dangers represented are overcome with nothing but luck. Getting to know a course can grant the use of skill in some places, but some hazards are just infuriating and demand perseverance.
Yet, despite them having me shout at the screen, I can’t stop playing. I have to reach the goal line. It’s very easy to get caught up trying for that perfect, sometimes seemingly-impossible, run. Urban Trial Freestyle can take up a lot of one’s time if not careful. Even after tearing myself away from it, I feel the urge to play it again. As I write, I am obsessively playing events out in my head, thinking of how to get to that one bag of money floating out of reach and hating myself for my need to reach it.
. Unlockable mini-games are in there, too – such as one where you must bounce your bike off of explosives, to fling yourself as far as possible, but I prefer sticking to the stunt/time trial events.  Overall, there’s little else to it. Short and sweet Don’t bother with music, as there’s maybe three tunes to listen to and you spend more time hearing the rider shout in pain and cheer or moan at trick attempts. Graphics are nice enough too and while they are dramatically different on the PS Vita, that’s not why you’re here and for under a tenner, you can’t complain, anyhow.

It took me a LONG time to get over Angry Birds and now, with Urban Trial Freestyle, I’m in trouble again. ‘Just one more go…’

Now like most people I was excited about Metal Gear Rising especially as it was coming from the creative team that brought us the incredible Bayonetta. Platinum games are renowned for their fast past and crazy action titles. They are intrinsically Japanese and this means their games generally make no sense whilst being a total joy to both look at and play.

Metal Gear Rising was supposed to be one of these titles and going by some of the reviews that have already been published then anyone would be lead to believe that it follows suit. To a point they would be right. Metal Gear Rising is an all new action/adventure spin off from the Metal Gear Solid series. Featuring as chief protagonist Raiden who has been popping up in MGS for a few years but has now been promoted to lead. For those of you that don’t know, Raiden is a Ninja Cyborg (what’s not to like?) and wields a pretty impressive sword.

Unlike previous Metal Gear games this is pure hack n’ slash craziness with a little bit of disjointed story thrown in for good measure. There is peace in Africa which of course is bad news for the Private Military Contractors (PMC’s). Of course no war means no profit so they decide to destabilise the region by killing the president and starting a war in his absence. Raiden happens to be guarding the president at the time and of course sets out on a tale of revenge.

To control Raiden you will need to use every part of the pad. You can run, jump, slide and slash. Or by pressing R1 you can do all of those things automatically by entering ‘ninja run’ mode. It’s kind of like street running only a little bit more stabby. At certain parts you can press the L1 button and this will focus your attack so you can hack and slash your way through armour in close up glory. There is a bar at the top of the screen that decreases as you use this. You can replenish this and your health by squashing the juices out of cyborg internal organs. I shit you not. Counter-attacking your enemy is also imperative and to do this you will need to point towards your opponent and press the square button at exactly the right moment. Once an attack is parried you can unleash some smack of your own.

Graphically the game is pretty impressive but nothing that we haven’t seen before although some of the mechs you need to fight are of some size. It all moves at a seizure-inducing pace and generally the game has a nice if slightly plastic-coated polish.

Now I simply loved Bayonetta and was expecting something similar to that but set in the Metal Gear universe. I mean, Ninja Cyborg right? What can go wrong. Well here is the thing. In a game this fast where you need to be able to face your opponent at all times to be able to point the stick towards them in order to block and counter their attacks, you need a camera that is rock solid. Unfortunately this camera feels like it is being controlled by an alcoholic on a boat that is resting on a bouncy castle on a jelly. Okay so it’s not quite that bad but you get what I mean. There is nothing I find more frustrating in games than the inability to vanquish a foe not by lack of skill but by broken gameplay mechanics and here we have the ultimate example. To get to the final part of a five  minute long battle only to get stuck facing the wrong way and no time to rotate the camera towards your opponent whilst he kicks the crap out of you is… well… bloody annoying and a fundamental issue with Metal Gear Rising. I find it hard to even play it for too long because of this, perhaps I am missing something but seriously, 9/10? For a game that has such a gameplay flaw? On top of that it has less than six hours of gameplay before it ends.

Metal Gear Rising isn’t a bad game but it sure isn’t the great game some have been saying.  9/10 you say? Bollocks I say.

Having worked with developers like Bethesda, Ubisoft, Konami, Atari and Activision, to name drop a few, Zombie Studios have come with gusto and placed the multi-player shooter gauntlet on the table. Even the most battle-hardened CoD, Battlefield and MoH players will find elements that match the other games, even though it is a 3rd person. Visually its a sight to behold with great colours and environments and using cell shaded graphics that are a reminiscent blend of Borderlands and the Playstation title XIII yet still remaining stylistically unique.

Up to twelve players can compete as two opposing teams of either two, three or four. You must shoot, frag and stab the enemy team of special forces gaining bonuses for sticking close-by your squad mates. Otherwise you receive the ‘Lone Wolf’ bonus in which you gain… nothing. You can have 2 weapon load outs as in BF3, CoD and MoH. ‘Type A’ and ‘Type B’ and both have their own skin type and colour schemes for extra customizable madness. There are stackloads and mods such as new scopes, bigger mag sizes and silencers, although you don’t find cool victory dances and sneaking behind people to snap their necks. What you do get is an unlockable arsenal The Punisher would be proud of. There is even a nod towards Doom in the shape of the formidable mini gun and… that’s right, a chainsaw. Cool perks like ‘attack dogs’, ‘resilience’ which gives you a defensive bonus and squad bonuses that can help your teams health regeneration, reload and fire rates also are present so you wont be loosing out on anything in other 3rd person shooters. Unfortunately there’s no local playability which could have been fun with smaller maps and system link for party play.

Before each match you’ll find a quirky and new way of choosing maps, instead of a rabble fighting over their favourite map you have a voting system seen in other games. Only here you vote for one of three segments of map. All three sections are blended into one map, giving this game map combinations of over one hundred, how many maps in MoH? Once in the match the controls of the game are easy to pick up and even easier if you ever played Tom Clancy’s Future Soldier as the characters interface with cover and even the characters motions are very similar. Running on the Unreal engine gives a quality we see in games such as Unreal:Tournament with large, well built and a feel of well placed familiarity.  Having the small squads per team mean you may need to stick to your guys like glue to rack up some points against more advanced players which is what makes this a brilliant co-op game. Special Forces Team X supports party play so 4 of your friends can buddy up into a squad and wreak lashing of tactical mayhem. And for 1200MS points it is worth getting all your mates on it.

Since we first saw the screenshots and trailer for this game our pants have been twitching like a rabbits nostril. Now we have gotten our hands on it, it has proved to be all we wanted and more. If you do not own this game then what are you waiting for?

So you move to a new hosting company, build a new site, create a new audience and everything seems to be going very nicely. Then the total tossers that used to host your site and still have control over the domain name totally fuck the renewal up AFTER taking your money. The result – G4A being offline for nearly 3 months whilst we struggled to get these total cocks to fix the problem.

After months of legal bullshit and complaints to various authorities we have finally moved G4A to a new company and we are back… again.

Hopefully this time we are back for good!

Is there anybody still there???

Anybody??

Luckily for me then that Konnet seem to have discovered something. They have discovered a thing called style. Many charging stations are functional and perhaps if you are around 16 wouldn’t look out of place in your bedroom. However being, well let’s just say ‘a little’ over 16 and with a wife to appease have a monstrous lump of plastic hanging around the place with PS3 pads hanging off it is going to be a total no go.

Enter the Power Pyramid, a stylish moulded black structure with clear plastic ports to hold your pads whilst they happily fill themselves with charge. It is a piece of design that has been well thought out and perhaps would not look out of place in a grown-ups front room. With four clear plastic ports evenly spaced on either side and its unique pyramid shape this is certainly a step away from the standard charges out there. Once a pad is inserted into one of the ports two light blue LED’s appear on the tip of the pyramid. The clear plastic of the port glows a subtle red whilst charging and changes to blue when the pad is fully charged. It really is a nice piece of kit and definitely the most mature charging station we have yet seen.

The Power Pyramid comes in three flavours, one that is dedicated to PS3, one for Xbox 360 and one that has two ports for each, meaning you can charge two PS3 and two 360 pads at the same time.

It charges four pads at once and it does that whilst looking cool, is there anything more we need to say?

Power Pyramid retails from £20-£40 online.

Also from Konnet in our box was another stylish piece of kit. This time for your smart phone. iCrado is a smart looking dock for your phone. Made out of brushed aluminium and curved into an attractive shape this dock is aesthetically rather nice. Linked to a USB lead it will connect to your computer from your desk. What would have been welcome would have been the ability to change the lead for a power lead. Also the USB lead itself could have done with being double the length. Still it is an attractive cradle for your phone.

iCrado is perhaps a little overpriced at £24.99