GameTech review: Everything you need to know about the PlayStation 5
The PS5 is released on November 19.
'Play has no limits.' After the year we’ve had, there’s something extra comforting about the PlayStation 5’s tagline.
During a time of such heavy restrictions, we need the freedom that gaming provides. The ability to go anywhere, explore anything, to be anyone.
That has always been the real beauty of games – living our dreams.
So, is the PlayStation 5 a dream come true?
Ahead of the launch on November 19, we dive into the good and bad about Sony’s next-generation beast.
Time is money. Which is why we use a 24-hour clock – double pay! One of the most frustrating things about gaming is load time. Everything from booting up a game, to loading new levels, or sometimes even entering an interior, can cause a loading screen.
With the PS5’s solid state hard-drive, some of that frustration will be gone. Games can stay ‘paused’ in the background, and you can switch between them easily. Level data can load quicker from the hard-drive, saves will boot quicker, games should be smoother in transition overall.
The PS5’s controller is so intelligent, it gives you honest feedback. Ok, so the feedback is through soundwaves in the design, but it’s definitely honest. When you skate over ice, you ‘feel’ it in the controllers. When you break rocks, the rumble is true to that action. When you show it a piece of art, it tells you not to quit the day-job.
Maybe not that last kind of feedback, but the haptic stuff is revolutionary.
There’s this guy, Ray Tracy. Very illuminating fellow. Fair enough, Ray doesn’t exist. But his computational equivalent does. Ray-tracing is the ability to throw ‘real time’ light on objects in a digital space, so that they then react as normal objects do to illumination.
It sounds very technical, but it ultimately means much more natural lighting in games, which is a big step forward for aesthetics. It’s so important (and so taxing to perform) that the PS5 has a dedicated hardware component just for doing it. Good man, Ray.
Make my day. Well, pulling a trigger might actually make a lot of people happier now, with the changes made to the PS5 iterations. The new triggers can provide resistance against your pull, giving ‘feedback’ during gameplay.
There are the obvious uses, such as pulling weapon triggers, but developers are bound to find more innovative ways to combine haptic feedback and resistance to make your actions come alive.
The PlayStation 5 is already exciting but, as always with a new generation of consoles, the real excitement is coming further down the line. With PS3, that process was notoriously slow and it even took PS4 some time to get going. We expect the PS5 to hit top speed much sooner.
Developers are reporting that the console is a joy to work on and easy to create for, which means better games coming sooner. We expect a really high-quality opening 12 months for the console.
Bigger isn’t always better. The PS5 is a bold shape and quite pleasing to look at. It also allows for very simple removal of the white faceplates on the side, which allows for custom design. But there’s no escaping it – this console could double as your lockdown workout.
It’s by far the biggest PlayStation console yet, heavy to lift, and that is rarely welcome in today’s technology landscape. Over time, smaller models will be released, and the digital-only model is slightly thinner due to a lack of disc drive.
Very few consoles launch with a blockbuster, and the PS5 is no different. Although we’re getting some promising, quality-looking games in Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the Demon Souls remake, Sony are missing the magic of a truly big title like Horizon Forbidden West or even a new IP to show what their new piece of hardware can really do. In that sense, even gaming was limited by lockdowns this year, as development slowed on certain games.
In spite of that, the PlayStation 5 is a welcome breath of real excitement and wonder for 2020. It’s a fantastic piece of new technology that opens doors to our imagination and our fantasies, during a time when too many doors in the real world are shut. Gaming is our plane ticket in lieu of holidays. It’s our football in lieu of training. It’s our party in lieu of pubs. Our lives may be limited, but play doesn’t have to be.
