Playstation Phwoar!

Just finished watching the live announcement for PS4 and it nearly killed me. I've always a massive Sony fan, ever since my Dad bought a PS1 and I played a demo for a game called Crash Bandicoot. Since then I've owned every generation of PlayStation and I fully intend to dive straight into this newest installment.

I wont go into heavy detail right now, but here's what I think about the key aspects:

The new controller


It's.... new.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just used to the classic design. I remember the first game I played with a dualshock, Ape Escape. Using the analogue sicks was such a huge change from the old four button movement and I loved it. Hopefully adding a touchpad will make things even better.

The A-Team

The lead system architect is Mark Cerny. Now to most people that's not gonna mean an awful lot, so I'll translate. A man who was involved in titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank has a lot to do with how this console turns out. Also he walked on to the theme music from Crash Bandicoot, I don't think I could have more faith in him.

Backseat gaming

Now I'm no expert on this, but from what I gather they're adding a feature where one of your friends can start playing your game for you if/when you get stuck. I'm in love with this feature, mainly because one of the things I love is seeming wise about a game. Now I can do it all the time! Meddling ftw!

Developer input

The presentations from developers were... phenomenal. Square Enix, Capcom, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Bungie.... wait what!?!
That's right; Blizzard, the creators of the wildly successful online game World of Warcraft and Bungie, the chaps behind the Halo franchise. Personally I never got into either of these, but I can't deny their successes.
Bungie have announced they're bringing their new title Destiny to the system. From what I've seen it looks very nice. An MMOFPS of this caliber could be not only a COD killer, but may raise the bar for first-person shooters.
And what, you may be asking yourself, is Blizzard bringing to the table? Well, for PS3&4 they're porting over a little game called Diablo III! It was also said the new partnership between Sony and Blizzard will inevitably end in, and I quote, "world domination"
A new world order based around games? I can live with that.

The games

Sweet merciful lord the games! A quick run through as we don't know all that much yet:

Infamous: Second Son
As soon as I heard Sucker Punch were showing something I got so excited and got EXACTLY what I wanted! Hopefully it continues to deliver the first-class gameplay and storytelling we've come to expect.
Killzone: Shadow Fall 
Looks beautiful... Gameplay looks fluid... It's Killzone... yep. A very solid prospect.
Watch Dogs
Was seen at E3, and looks like a whole mess of fun. You can commit identity theft in under 30 seconds then hijack a train. What more do you want?
Knack
Naughty Dog making a game with an adorable but powerful main character?!? Yeah the wee guy looks like crash, but I love everything about this game that I've seen so far.

There's also a few others, a lovely looking puzzle game called The Witness and an impressive looking Beyond: Two Souls but there was another project by the nut-jobs who unleashed LittleBig Planet upon the world, Media Molecule, which took my breath away.

3D designing made easy apparently, shown off with a fully choreographed music number performed by digital sculptures made and controlled by PlayStation Move. Finally, a reason to use one...



On a side note, Skyrim DLC is finally being released on PS3! It started with dragonborn last week, hearthfire this week and finally dawnguard next week. Each installment being half price for it's first week!
Now I just need to wait till next week to get the last few trophies.

The Joys of Terror

I will openly admit right now, to the vast audience of the internet, there is nothing in this world I find funnier than scaring my flatmate.

Keep your Sitcoms or Rom-coms or even Zom-Rom-Coms, the hilarity brought on by his terrified exclamations is greater than I can describe. Therefore if you know him, scare him!


On a slightly less cruel note, Pokémon X & Y

Announced several days ago, the trailer has caused no small deal of madness amongst Nintendo's sizable fanbase. With speculation causing hope, conflict and yet more speculation.

Personally, I'd like to stick to the one thing we all know:

There's no going back this time.


Sure, we all thought this before. With the release of Colosseum in late 2003 critics and fans alike were heralding this as "The new dawn of Pokémon!" "The new direction for the series!" "The end of the top-down adventure games!"

Hindsight's a bitch isn't it?

But this time there's more of a solid foundation beneath the expansion into 3D. For starters, they're keeping the winning formula. In my opinion, the reason the GameCube versions never got the same recognition as the classics was that they changed too much at once. No gyms, no wild pokémon, no catching except "shadow" pokémon.... It was too much all at once.
Then there was the issue with the new map, rather than exploring and training on your way from town to town, you just hop in your bike and you're there. Personally I found this the biggest letdown. The areas themselves weren't that bad, just far more barren than anything seen before.
On the topic of shadow pokémon.... just no.

But this new journey into a 3D world of Pokémon has one major advantage. It's a new generation.

This isn't some side point that could be quite happily ignored without missing much (worth mentioning that Colosseum held the record for highest selling rpg on GameCube, so it's not all bad)

This is where the series is going now. This isn't a tangent they can drop to go back to the original line of games. They've evolved the series, you can't undo that.

This isn't F**king digimon