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Gaming Thread (wall of text edition) 11/10/2013

There is some other stuff (BUSY week on news) but for the most part its all about the PS4 launch.

After a long console cycyle of 2553 days, Sony releases the PS4. If you really only want a pure gaming machine, this is the console for you. The day 1 patch isn't "mandatory" but yeah, it's kinda mandatory to get most features to work. This is a run down of stuff.

UI

This is about all we have for a look at the UI so...yeah

Non-Multiplat games

Killzone: Shadow Fall - Over the last 9 years, this is the sixth entry in the series with this being a reboot of sorts as it takes place 30 years after Killzone 3 (FU Rico). If there is one thing to say about Guerrilla Games is that they know how to make pretty console games, gameplay on the other hand is....eh. That being said, of their launch lineup, this was the obvious choice for Sony to focus on marketing wise for their sizzle game.

Knack - Well, it's a new platformer IP which isn't really something you see much any more but eh, there is a reason why Sony is more or less marketing it as a game you pick up in the bargin bin (or more likely when it becomes free in a month or two) as it really isn't doing much.

Resogun - New voxel based shooter by fun in small doses game developer, Housemarque. Game looks fun as a pseudo update to Defender with Gradius style boss fights. It's one of the first free games on PSN for the first 2 weeks.

Flower - It's a 1080/60 HD remaster of the award winning Flower, the game you played 4 years ago. Not much else to add.

Sound Shapes - It's an HD remaster of one of the few reasons to actually own a Vita. It's a music based platformer. Never really found it hard, more of a game to wind down to.

DC Universe Online - Well, it's F2P and it works well with a controller so there are some positives but eh. Always found this game as a completely missed opportunity as IMO, it amounted to a lackluster City of Heroes clone.

Blacklight Retribution - Yep, just keep on moving along folks, nothing to see here outside of a mediocre at best F2P first person shooter.

Super Motherload - It's a fleshed out version of a Flash favorite on the internet. Of course over the years, this type of game has been cloned to all hell but it's a new version so I don't know, it still amounts to drill, upgrade and drill again.

Warframe - As long as you don't play this game in big chunks (you realize it's a bit shallow and one map blurs into the next) , this game is quite a bit of fun and frankly, the only F2P game at launch to bother with as it's a competent four person squad based hack and slash game with enough borrowed aspects of the reboot of Syndicate to keep it interesting.

Remote Playing
If you're a sucker like me and bought or is buying a Vita, you can remote play PS4 games on the handheld. You can stream directly from the console, from your console to your router to your handheld or you can stream from your console to your router through the internet and to a public or private router and then to your handheld. They didn't say if you can or can't play if you bought the 3G version for some reason but I don't see why it can't be done. Of course you will hit your monthly data cap after 5 minutes of playing but you would think it would be possible. Of course this all comes down to the amount of lag that you can tolerate. You should be okay if you're sitting on top your PS4 but anything else and I would personally stick to turn based games.

Required Reading
I posted this last week but this FAQ needs to be read if you're buying one.

Launch Day Apps
Amazon Instant Video
Crackle
Crunchyroll
EPIX
Hulu Plus
NBA Game Time (aka NBA League Pass)
NHL GameCenter Live (aka NHL Season Pass)
Netflix
Redbox Instant
Vudu
YuppTV (TV from India)
Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited

Accessories to keep an eye on

Dualshock 4 Controller - Unless you bought a bundle, you only get one so you might want another. New features are better grips (ie bigger dongers to hold), laptop style touchpad, speaker in the controller, L2/R2 triggers that don't suck, sticks that are concave and a move light that you can't turn off but gives you context hints (think along the line of health level). Run you $60.

Playstation 4 Camera - Umm you can use it for the pack in software, Playroom which builds onto stuff like EyePet. The camera can keep track of the light on your controller as a cheap Move wand. And you're supposed to be able to sign into the console by facial recognition. That's about all that they've said about the thing and what they did show off wasn't in depth so who knows. Run ya $60.

2.5mm Laptop Hard drives - You may not need one at launch but with the pack in HDD only 500Gb so you're probably only going to have 425 actual gigs of usable space, and with games more than likely being 40-50 gig as the norm, you should keep an eye on Newegg for deals during the Holiday season. On the breakdown of the dev unit, it looks like you could fit a 12.5mm height drive but Sony said that is incorrect and that only 9.5mm ones will actually fit so you really won't know till next week if you can or not use bigger drives (aka pay attention to the height size when buying).

Required Viewing
If you're not going to a midnight launch, Game Trailers is having a launch special on Spike. It's an hour long with what is supposed to be world premiers trailers for some games. And when you're done with that, you just need to load up Giant Bomb for their launch day stream where if we're lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it), we'll get some Wii U launch stream type hijinks where they stare at the camera wondering why the stuff isn't working.

That's about it

NEWS

• We finally get some hands on video of Xbox Fitness aka free Tracy Anderson jerking material. Wish it was tougher on form

• MS also released a dashboard walk through for the Xbox One

• The beautiful PC game, Project Cars is coming to the Wii U, PS4 and XONE next fall.

• Wired gets a break down of the PS4

• New feature for Gran Turismo 6 was announced. You can create a course using a mobile app that reads your driving GPS data

• Battle of the racing game trailers

Gran Turismo 6

Forza 5 (last 5 seconds of gameplay is boner material)

• This year's Extra Life telethon raised a record $3.7 million for the Children's Network last week. Some people are going again this week with another 25 hours of streaming to raise money.

• Activision's Q3 profits are down to $691 million compared to last year's $841 million. (PDF file)

• To make up for it, they channel stuffed the hell out of COD: Ghosts to the tune of $1 billion of product

• The new expansion for World of Warcaft was one of the announcements at Blizzcon, it's titled Warlords of Draenor

• Blizzard still knows how to make kick ass cinematic trailers, this time for their MOBA now called Heroes of the Storm

&bull We finally get the first real trailer of the live action cutscenes for LocoCycle (PC police not happy at the last scene)

• Metal Gear Solid Prologue gets a price. Current Gen is $20 for download, $30 for retail. Next gen is download only for $30.

• Still can't believe this game is being made

• Reviews of the R9 290
AnandTech
Tech Power Up
HardOCP

• Reviews of the 780 TI
Anandtech
Tech Power Up
HardOCP

New Releases

Most I've already covered but there are a few other new notable games being released.

Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (PS3) - New entry in the series which goes back to the original game play. Been awhile since I've played a game in this series

X-Comm: Enemy Within (PS3, 360, PC) - I can't read a damn calender.

X Rebirth (PC) - Far and away my most anticipated game of this time of the year. They've supposedly made it noob friendly and they added a gamepad control method but I'll have to see it to believe it. Can only fly one ship though which kinda sucks.

Senran Kagura Burst (3DS) - This game isn't great but it's a decent little beatem up. Titties jiggle in 3D

There is more news from this past week (big Xbox One game shindig that hit everything and more from Blizzcon) but this wall is already big enough

The Dude