Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation) is kicking off a new initiative called Play At Home for their PlayStation community. The new initiative comes in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing number of countries going into lockdown to curb the spread of the disease. Play At Home is an initiative from the company to reward their players for staying indoors and also to ensure the sustainability of a vibrant, growing indie gaming development.
The first part of the new initiative is to keep gamers entertained indoors – in the most literal way, to encourage gamers to Play At Home. To this end, PlayStation is making Unchartered: The Nathan Drake Collection and Journey available for free on the PlayStation Store.
Unchartered: The Nathan Drake Collection collects three entries from the acclaimed Unchartered series from Naughty Dog – Unchartered: Drake’s Fortune, Unchartered 2: Among Thieves and Unchartered 3: Drake’s Deception which have been remastered for the PlayStation 4. Journey, on the other hand, is an indie adventure game by Thatgamecompany which conveys a simple, yet profound message as gamers travel towards a mountain in the distance. The critically acclaimed game brought a new dimension to game play with players able to interact with each other but without words.
The games will be available to download for free starting 15 April, 2020 at 8PM (PDT) until May 5, 2020 at 8PM (PDT). Once redeemed the games will become part of the players game library.
However, Sony Interactive Entertainment isn’t just stopping there. Play At Home is also the company’s commitment to Indie Gaming. As such, Sony is earmarking USD$10 million to support its indie developers. The fund looks to help indie developers in a time when a lot of the world’s economy is being disrupted. The company is looking to use the earmarked fund to help maintain and support indie studios who may be more affected by the disruptions. The company will make more details for the fund available soon.
Sony has unveiled the final design for the upcoming PlayStation 5 controllers. The first thing to take note of: it’s not the DualShock 5. Sony is renaming its controllers to DualSense; and for good reason. The new controllers are pioneering new features we’ve not seen in any DualShock controller of the past. In fact, we may have not even seen them on any XBox or Nintendo controller to date.
The aesthetics of PlayStation controller of the past is also out the window with DualSense. The new DualSense controllers will now come with a two tone finish. A change that we are excited about. The new two tone finish puts a rather futuristic finish on what was once a drab single tone coloured design. However, we’ve seen Sony toy around with this idea in some of the later editions of the DualShock 4 controllers.
“DualSense marks a radical departure from our previous controller offerings and captures just how strongly we feel about making a generational leap with PS5. The new controller, along with the many innovative features in PS5, will be transformative for games – continuing our mission at PlayStation to push the boundaries of play, now and in the future. To the PlayStation community, I truly want to thank you for sharing this exciting journey with us as we head toward PS5’s launch in Holiday 2020. We look forward to sharing more information about PS5, including the console design, in the coming months.”
Jim Ryan, President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment
Of course, aesthetics aside, we know that Sony is focusing on the gamer experience when it comes to the PlayStation 5. In fact, the company explained, at length, the technology in the PS5 which includes a new focus on audio called Tempest 3D AudtioTech. The same considerations for immersive gaming came into play with designing the PS5’s DualSense controllers. The new controllers will be the first from Sony to feature haptic feedback. The adoption of haptic feedback technology will allow developers to enhance the gaming experience by increasing the level of detail when it comes to touch. Sony touts the grittiness of driving a car through mud as one of the examples.
In addition, Sony has also brought some change to the design of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controllers. The L2 and R2 buttons will also have adaptive technology. Sony’s new adaptive triggers will allow developers to program finer details into the triggers. Resistance and perhaps multi stop functionality will probably come with the adaptive triggers. The angle of the triggers have also been adjusted for better ergonomics and to make space for the many components of the controller.
Sony has also replaced the Share button with a “Create” button. Sony claims that they are “…once again pioneering new ways for players to create epic gameplay content to share with the world..”. However, they didn’t elaborate on what they meant – yet. Sony has also included a built in mic array to make it easier for gamers to communicate. That said, the company said that the feature shouldn’t replace a proper gaming headset in the long term.
The new DualSense controller also features a redesign which takes the traditional DualShock design and throws it out the window. Gone are the rounded tops with conical protrusions. Instead, Sony has opted to go with a more boomerang like design that looks more ergonomic than previous designs. The company also reassures us that the controller is smaller than it looks. Another major change is the placement of the lightbar. Instead of being front and centre like the DualShock 4, the lightbar is now flanking the touchpad on either side. Smaller details such as the analogue control design has also been changed. According to PushSquare Sony has changed the analogue sticks to have a textured outer rim with a smoothed center section.
Overall, the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller builds upon the successful base of the DualShock 4. It also holds Sony’s intention of pushing “the boundaries of play” when it comes to their new console. The PS5 is set to launch later this year. To be specific – during Holiday 2020.
The war between gaming consoles are about to start again. It
is the new generation of consoles that are going to be involved in the fight. Microsoft’s
new Xbox Series X, and Sony’ brand new PlayStation 5 that was just about teased
last night (in Malaysia’s time).
We would elaborate specifically on the Microsoft Xbox Series
X, but they are not actually available officially in Malaysia. So, we would do
a hard pass on that and focus on the Sony PlayStation 5, which will be
available in Malaysia and most parts of the world. We are also PlayStation
users, currently on the PlayStation 4 Pro; needless to say, we are quite
excited about PlayStation 5 (PS5) launching at the end of 2020.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The announcement last night was called ‘The Road to PS5’. That
is Sony’s way of saying also that this is not technically an unveiling of the new
hardware, rather a glimpse of what we can expect the new hardware to pack. We
have seen renders here and there of the PS5, but there is no definite shape of
it just yet. Sony is doing a good job in keeping mums about it too. All we know
though; we can expect it to look quite different from Xbox’s boxy tower design
language.
Despite not talking about design, we can sort of understand
the challenges when it comes to designing a console. They’ve elaborated on the
main challenge of designing a gaming console with ultra-powerful processors too
– cooling and powering them. If you really think about it, this was also an
issue in the early days of the PS4. This issue is not even native to Sony’s console,
it is a concern for almost any powerful gaming rigs. We will get to cooling and
power supply a little later though.
For now, we get to the meat of this content – the specs of
the PS5. Here it is; It is packing a lot of power from a AMD Ryzen Zen 2 architecture
CPU. That AMD processor will come with 8 cores, 16 threads, and will clock at up
to 3.5GHz. Sony says that the processor will run at about 3.5GHz most of the
time by default. At this point you might start looking up at the Xbox and find
that the Xbox runs faster at 3.8GHz. They are running on the same CPU, so why
is the one on Xbox more powerful? All I can say for now is ‘power supply’ and ‘cooling’.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Then there is the GPU, the graphics processor. It clocks at up to 2.23GHz with 36 CUs and is based on AMD’s Radeon RDNA-2 engine. It is supposed to be able to have Ray Tracing Acceleration, and the combination is also supposed to process at 10.3 teraFLOPS. Wait a minute, that is not as powerful as the Xbox with the same RDNA-2 based engine with 52 CUs at 1.825GHz that can do 12 teraFLOPS.
You are absolutely correct in that comparison. From a
hardware standpoint then, the PS5 is quite shorthanded in the fight. They have
the shorter stick compared to the Xbox at this point. We can only speculate as
to why that is, and we are suspecting cooling and power supply to be an issue
too.
On the Sony PS5 you are also getting a larger RAM compared
to before, faster too. It is a 16GB DDR6 RAM that is said to be better
optimised to deliver better game experiences. GDDR6 is of course known for its
speed and the one on the PS5 can go at 448GBps. The PS5 also comes with an
upgraded 825GB drive. It is not a traditional HDD though, it is an SSD this
time that can read at up to 5.5GBps. Also smaller than Xbox’s 1TB SSD.
There is an upside to all these numbers though. For one, it is still a big leap from the PS4; heck even the PS4 Pro. All the hardware means that it can now easily support 120Hz 4K gaming, push itself on 8K TVs (if you can afford one), and they say that it is about 10x faster than the previous generation console. In that, we believe. It is also backward compatible with Sony’s previous PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro; what a delight.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
There is more, if you can believe it. Where they skim down
in graphics and process handling, they put into something called “Tempest”. For
you Mass Effect fans, calm down. It is not the “Tempest” spaceship we see in Mass
Effect 4: Andromeda (not that great of a game, by the way). It is their latest
3D Audio processing chip; their AudioTech.
In its basic form, it is just another processor that is
lodged inside the PS5, making the new upcoming Sony gaming console effectively
a three-processor system. Its core design is very similar to that of a GPU. Within
the presentation though, Sony seems to give a very big emphasis on audio. They
say that while harnessing processing power for graphics is hard, processing an
audio can be quite complex too. That is the reason they are transforming a GPU
to an APU (Audio Processing Unit).
The idea of using “Tempest” is to create a 3D audio experience
on any platform. To be very fair, PlayStation users would be using the console
in almost all kinds of conditions. The most common would be plugging them to a
generic TV and rely on the TV speakers as their means of audio. There are those
who might spend a little bit more and buy headphones for their console. Then
there are those who has a theatre grade system with 3 or more speakers placed
around them. Sony recognises all of that and wants all of us to get the same
treatment and experience.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
We have said before that audio is a very big part of any
gaming, or even movie watching experience. It is not just music. Sound designs
do play a big role in bringing us closer to the whatever intended experience
there may be. Sony knows this too, being one of the big players in high-end
audio. That is why the “Tempest” is born. They utilise something called Head Related
Transfer Function (HRTF) for audio reproduction. You can, of course Google that
term because it is a whole complex audio science in itself. All you need to know
is that the Sony PS5 is going to give you 3D audio wherever you go. We are thinking
of having an editorial specifically on sounds and sound engineering; do comment
and let us know if you are interested.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The presentation ends there though. There are no new renders on the hardware, nor even the controller. We sort of have an idea of how they might look like, but all of us could be wrong. Still, we are optimistic. The slightly less powerful hardware may make the Sony look a like a worse deal than the Xbox, especially when they are rumoured to be about the same price. Still, in Malaysia we are only going to be able to touch the Sony PS5 when they are launched. So we will see. Both are expected to launch sometime later in the year 2020. You can watch the whole announcement after the break.
One of my favourite game franchise is coming on April 10th 2020. It is the Final Fantasy VII that came out in 1997. Before you get confused; no, the one coming on the 10th of April 2020 is not the original pixelated 8 bit thing that is the Final Fantasy VII of 1997. Rather, it is the remade version: re-imagined with new modern graphics, and new gameplay mechanics.
The Demo dropped on the 2nd of March 2020 and we downloaded it the very next day. The demo only gave us 20 minutes in gameplay. The demo only gave us the very first mission of the game. If you have not played Final Fantasy VII yet, I am not going to spoil it for you.
Before I go on about the game though, keep in mind that this is not a full review of the game, so you might not want to treat it as one. Keep in mind also that I only had a brief 20 minutes with the game, not 20 hours. While I cannot comment on the entirety of the game then, I can only come up with its first impression. That is what you are going to treat it as; first impression.
Visuals
First of all, you cannot compare graphics today to graphics over 20 years ago. You can, however, compare it with other modern games. You can compare it to the modern Final Fantasy XV.
Source: Square Enix
On initial visual inspection, it looks like both of the games use the same graphics engine. That is not to say that it is a bad thing though. Final Fantasy XV is a gorgeous game, same goes to Final Fantasy VII Remake.
While Final Fantasy XV focuses on bright colours, with complex colour schemes, and plenty of complex textures, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a stark contrast to that. Final Fantasy VII Remake focuses on hard, flat surfaces. At least on the demo itself, you see plenty of metallic environments. Cloud’s big sword is a big metal surface anyway.
Source: Square Enix
The colour tones are more flat compared to plenty of modern games understandably. While that might mean that the engine should easily cope with it, there are plenty of details still within the surfaces projected on the screen. The character models are plenty more complex than you can ever imagine Final Fantasy VII characters can be.
So far in the demo, we only saw Barret, Cloud, Aries, and a few supporting characters. Those characters really come alive with the remake. To think that 23 years ago, we only managed to see miniaturised character models unless you go into the turn based battle. Overall, that is a great experience, impressive at first impressions.
Gameplay
We spoke about turn based gameplay previously. That is the biggest difference between this new remake and the original game from 1997. Because of more complex processing power, battle is now in real-time like Final Fantasy XV. While that is the case, there are major differences in terms of look and feel though.
Source: Square Enix
The battle mechanics does not change that much from XV to VII Remake. They are both real-time and in Classic mode, Final Fantasy VII is a button masher game that looks good. It does not feel as messy and as complex as Final Fantasy XV though. That could also be because I was playing it in Classic Mode. Still, real-time melee battles can be quite jarring especially when you have no sense of control on your right joystick. It can get quite harrowing and frustrating in any other mode that Classic Mode.
Still, all the right visual cues are there. The other overlay graphics that tells you your health, MP, your action options, and others do help with the nostalgic feel of the game. They use the exact same colour palettes here. The also use the same sort of fonts in different sizes and sort of the same placements on your screen. Played out on a big screen though, I wish that those information HUD was slightly bigger.
The controls feels as simple as it can be though. That also means that you get to enjoy the gameplay more than you think. You also get to play the game more than getting frustrated over the controls, that is nice. The only difference with Final Fantasy VII from 1997, is that you can manipulate your camera angles on your own now. No more fixed camera angle from the late 90s to mid 2000s.
Is It Worth MYR 243?
I guess? To be fair, I am a cheapskate. I tend to buy games only during massive sales. The last game that I bought at full price was Death Stranding, that is after thinking about it hard for three whole days.
This is one of those games that actually shaped my childhood though. It is, I think, also the game that got me into gaming. The Final Fantasy VII from 1997 was my favourite Final Fantasy game. It was not my first, that has to go to the Final Fantasy VIII.
The Remake demo has brought back plenty of memories of that old PlayStation that I shared with my brother. It introduced a whole facet of world to me and I wanted to get lost in that world. The Remake, although just a demo, brought back some of those memories.
In that sense then, the heart that so loves the Final Fantasy VII really wants to spend that MYR 243 on this game; a physical copy with the disc and everything. My logical mind though disagrees. Logically, the gameplay is nothing new. While it looks good, there are plenty of games that might be better in terms of enjoyment out there too. Take the Star Wars: Fallen Jedi game for example. Logically then, it might be better for me to wait for the game to drop in price before spending my hard earned money on it.
Source: Square Enix
In truth then, I really cannot tell you whether or not to buy it. 20 minutes, to be very honest, is too short to judge a game. MYR 243 is not a small amount of money for a game, really. If you are feeling nostalgic and you have that much extra money to play with, I say; go ahead. If not, maybe you want to hold it off first. For me? This is the third time I’m asking myself; “am I willing to spend MYR 243 on a game?” I still do not know the answer to that.
