Gaming PlayStation 4 Review

'IF', If a feature like that... That's one of the main points I don't understand about PC gamers complaining about using PCs to game in the front room. These features are not available on consoles, maybe one day but not now. Most PC games (every one I've played in the last 10 years) has an 'auto-detect' feature to test what hardware you have and to then set up the settings accordingly. Yes you can go in to the settings and fine tune them to get even better results but you don't have to and you can't do this on a console either.
I just find it strange to read so many complaints about the 'living room gaming experience' when using PCs from people who willingly spend £1000's on PC parts and spend months modding, customising or even fabricating scratch builds for their main PCs.

 

Yes and no. I personally find 'tinkering' with settings to be hassle and an unenjoyable experience. PCs are great when everything works, and an absolute pain in the rear when they don't. I mean, searching the depths of the internet to find a patch/registry hack/workaround because something isn't working isn't exactly a good thing for anybody to be doing, and consoles offer a "plug and play" experience.

 

Can I ask what all these 'patch/registry hack/workarounds' are and why they are needed? I build my PCs, install the OS and drivers and anything else I need and then the games last. My PC just works. Patches are available for both PC games and Console games and with systems like Steam they are also automatic much like they are for consoles, but I have never ever had to 'search the depths of the internet' for anything to make my PC 'just work'. Unless I can be told otherwise, all these difficulties arise when you are trying to do specific things that a basic PC doesn't 'require' and wouldn't be available through console use in the first place.

 

Tinkering with mods isn't exactly the most fun. Playing the game is.

If all games on the new consoles would allow for native USB keyboard and mouse support, like UT3/Dust514 on the PS3 did then alot more people would move from the PC to the console.
For me personally the controls and the gamepad are the only reason, why I don't play more games on my PS3 instead the PC.
Especially multiplayer FPS-titles would profit alot from keyboard-mouse support on the coonsoles, as cheating and hacking is basically nonexistant on the consoles and everyone has the same graphics-settings, which would make the whole thing alot more fair and fun.

 

No one is forces people to use mods, isn't the point of an open system that you have a choice ?

 

Choices are all nice and dandy, but you don't modify boardgames or sports either.

Improving graphics is one thing, but changing the gameplay is something totally different.

The biggest problem with modding is the cheats and hacks and these things are basically nonexistant on a console, which is why I'd actually prefer to play games on the console, if it wasn't for the controls.

 

I presume you're just talking about multiplayer games then? Since obviously for single player games you just choose not to if you don't want to change the gameplay (you can do the same in multiplayer as well obviously)

 

If the changes to the sport or the boardgame are sanctioned by everyone playing or the governing body they are, when you play monopoly do you have a auction if you land on an unowned space that you can either not afford or choose not to buy ? do you use the Railway Service rule ? Do you think all sports have remained unchanged since their inception ?

If you think hacking on consoles is basically nonexistent you need to do a search on Google for "aimbot xbox" or any other multiplayer related hacks for consoles.

 

Nope, I'm talking games in general. How else could we compare each other, if everyone plays a different version of Tomb Raider or whatever?

It's the highscores that count, and they only count if everyone plays the same game. Even in singleplayer-games... remember those Pac-Man, Space Invaders or pinball-machines where you were proud if your initials were on top of the list.

I'm playing any game like I would play a game of soccer in the premier league... allways competitive and not just for the fun of it. I wan't to win, that's the sole point of gaming for me.

And yes, there's some hacks for the consoles, but if you get caught, then you get your hardware banned, and not just your account.

 

Professional gamers aren't representative of the majority of gamers, who rather surprisingly play for fun. So there's no need for everyone to be playing the exact same version of the game - rather, it's better for each gamer to play the version of the game that they want to play, if that increases the fun they experience.

Not knocking your approach to gaming, but I'd suggest that it's not an approach shared by the overwhelmingly vast majority of gamers.

In short, a level playing field may be essential for professional competition, but professional competition isn't the be all and end all of gaming by any means.

 

Err, building a PC properly doesn't make it not convert electrical energy into heat energy, unless by some amazing quirk of fate you can make it run at 100% efficiency in building it 'correctly'.

Chips, by their very nature, require cooling because they get hot. PC or games console? It's the same. Games console manufacturers may not provide sufficient heat dissipation, granted, but whatever happens it'll get hot...

 

So if you want to play it for the competitiveness then surely playing about with settings is something you must do a lot of? Tweaking things to try and get the best performance possible etc?

A lot of people play games for the fun of playing them, they don't care how they compare to others in single player games.

Edit:
Out of interest, how would you compare different players on Tomb Raider?

 

Tomb raider has XP and trophies, like that I suppose.

I always check my scores against people in my friends list, surely that is the point of scores/times, it is annoying when people exploit hacks/glitches.

 

I can't agree with your argument there. You know a PC or Console needs a processor to run so you factor that in to the design. You should also know that these things get hot and therefore you should factor in cooling to the design to. So I agree that should you design and build a PC or Console correctly then they should not be overheating. Components produce heat as a by product of their functions but they will only get hot if there is not adequate cooling methods to dissipate that heat.

 

I didn't once mention overheating. I just mentioned heating. Management thereof is imperative, but will not mitigate the heat entirely, by the very nature of processors!

Things being 'hot' is entirely subjective. Things being 'overhot' is also subjective, to a lesser degree. If something is overhot, the heat level is detrimental to the performance and may cause damage.

 

Ever tried running a game from, say, 2005 on a widescreen? There's an entire website dedicated to 'hacking' games in to working correctly (http://www.wsgf.org/). SLI and Crossfire equally cause issues that can be either impossible or an absolute nightmare to fix.

Yes, my PC 'just works' most of the time...especially when I'm using Steam. If I'm not using Steam, then patches might have to be manually installed, or there might not even be a patch to get a game working on your OS. A good example is The Sims: Medieval. This isn't an old game, but when my wife wanted to play it on her Windows 8 system I discovered that the game isn't supported, there is no official patch, and you have to trawl forums to find workarounds that are 80% effective at best.

 

I agree with bits of what you say there Cei but not regarding widescreen gaming. This time in 2005 the Xbox 360 was just launching and the PS3 was still 18 months away for Europe. Good luck playing your PS2 games on the PS4, let alone the screen issues. Most people don't try to play games that old on new machines and again that is something you often haven't been able to do at all with consoles as they are not often backwards compatible. So yes, you may need to edit things to get it to work but at least you can. I have personal experience of this as I still regularly play LOTR - BFME II which was released March 2006. So with a tiny, 2 min edit to a .txt file I can still play this game.
As for the Windows 8 issue I was unaware of this particular issue. My personal feeling there is to find fault with the particular publisher (need we say EA is rubbish once again when it comes to PCs?) rather than the PC format itself but it all amounts to the same negative experience doesn't it?
However, lets be honest here, console gaming is rapidly becoming just as (if not more so) inconsistent as PC gaming might be. Network failures, hacked accounts, update bugs, game crashes... etc are all issues that are becoming more and more frequent. So console gaming is becoming less and less 'plug in and play' as people think.

 

Is it wrong that out of all this debate, I really want to pick up a PS3 and get The Last Of Us, just so I can play this title that everyone says is so great! Port it to PC, please!

 

Why has this thread descended into PS4 vs PC? They're two completely different platforms, offering some shared functionality.

But when playing time's up and I need to work on that costing spreadsheet, I'll take the PS4 every time.

 

Football manager is still one of the few pc only titles that i play come to think of it. If i did not play that it would be difficult to win a cost argument agaist any console.

As ive said before its close to imposible to match the ps4 specs for the same price, As once you factor in a monitor mouse keyboard and windows your left with basically nothing. ( most people buying a gaming pc need these things if they are not already invested in it)

The amount of builds ive done recently where a tv has ended up as the monitor to save cash is not a rare thing anymore.

So you can not just say you can build a pc for the same cost as its simply not true for 99% of users. Sure users on this forum and others like it might get close but im not sure I could make a pc perform better for less than a ps4.

7870 gpu is half your budget ( Which is the equivelent of whats in the ps4) Does not leave alot of room for cpu motherboard memory case psu and hard drive does it.

Whats classed as plug and play ? If I got my Zone of enders hd edition disk and plugged it into my ps3 im pretty sure I could play less than 1min later. If I got my football manager disk out id have to wait at least 15mins for it to install then another 5mins on patches.

If it was pre installed start time is similar to most ps3 / 4 games. both single player games so similar start up times.

Online can not really be compared. BF4 is 64 player maps only as far as im concerned and the overheads on a server are pretty large. BF4 pc launch has hardly been great as anyone who has played it will tell you. Sim City and Rome 2 both had rather poor launches and these are pc only.

Advantage of a console really is you dont get alot of horror style launch stories as most of the games are tested by sony and Microsoft before they are allowed to launch. Does not prevent bad games but does prevent alot of broken games. ( BF 4 and rome 2 were both broken on launch, The recent X game was broken on launch)

The whole launch it and patch it started with the pcs after all.