PlayStation 5 Review
And yeah it's big but it's also a big deal every big console refresh has improvements in graphics and we're going to talk about all of that but you can get incredible graphics on a pc the point of a console isn't just to be a pc that's attached to your tv it should give you a unified experience something that runs from the games to the hardware to the interface it should all feel like one cohesive thing and it should have an incredible controller that's what sony is aiming for here to make the best console .
It needs to live up to the playstation name 26 years ago the first playstation took the best trends in gaming and put them in a box under your tv let's see if the playstation 5 can do the same . I play some games a bit okay more than a bit and i love consoles because they give me that unified simple but technically excellent gaming experience that's what i'm bringing to the playstation 5 review.
What sony has brought this year is a console that is well let's address the elephant in the room it's it's big standing 15.4 inches tall and 10.24 inches deep the ps5 looks absolutely massive next to a big tv it seems smaller but i'm still shocked every single time i glanced over at it despite that i do really like this design sony needed to make it big to fit all the components it wanted in there and if it's going to be huge i guess they figured they'd make it interesting is this design polarizing yeah but like any design once you get used to seeing it.
You get used to seeing it and appreciating it just a little the ps5 can sit vertically and horizontally but the stand that lets you do both feels a little cheap and figuring out how to use it takes a minute there's a hidden screw and a weird rotating bits and i'm just glad you only had to mess with it once . I still wish this wasn't part of the setup at all another thing you won't know until you actually unbox the ps5 is that the plastic the blastic the black plastic finish that's on the console has a very shiny finish to it but it's the kind you'll want to keep your hands away from it's a real fingerprint and dust magnet seriously you'll notice in some of the b-roll .
what you'd expect with the addition of two extra usb ports in the back there's one usb c port and one usb a port that you can use to charge your brand new dual sense controller and of course hdmi which you plug into your tv so you can play games right games enough about hardware let's talk about the gaming experience okay the games they look sick the graphics are really good but that ought to be a given on a new console generation we'll get into it more in a minute.
I just needed to mention right at the top but just as much as the graphics what impresses me on the ps5 compared to the four is how quickly games load loading this ancient game called gta 5 from an ssd on a ps5 took about 58 seconds and it took 2 minutes 45 seconds on the ps4 pro loading spider-man miles morales only took 18 seconds yep 18 and it took minute 30 on the ps4 pro also it's worth pointing out that the console is really quiet finally.
I know every brand new console is going to sound just fine at first but we'll have to see how it holds up after a few months of use since, i already mentioned some of the ps4 titles good news is that most games will be compatible sony says 99 of titles will be available and that sounds about right but not every ps4 game will be optimized for the ps5.
So you won't really notice an uptick in loading times or graphical performance and as far as new titles there will be plenty at launch from assassin's creed 2k and the one, i'm extremely excited about demon souls here we go again anyhow during my first two weeks with the ps5. I played spider-man miles morales and astros playroom both great examples of showing off new tech in the ps5 let's start with astro, because i think it's the more interesting of the two and it does a great job of demoing this thing the dual sense controller this right here is one of the best controllers.
I've ever used at least the best sony controller i've ever used it's bigger and more ergonomic than the dualshock 4 but i will say i think i have to hold my thumbs a little bit lower to get a right grip on it it's different, but what makes this a truly next-gen console controller are the haptics and adaptive triggers so haptics they feel great and developers have ridiculous amounts of control over them my first eureka moment was when i realized that the controller's haptics match with astrobot space. You take a step with your left foot your left side of your controller vibrates you take a step with your right foot and your right side of the controller vibrates it's very subtle and non-intrusive my second eureka moment was when i realized the haptics are just slightly depending on the surface .
But it works actually you can even hear the difference in the motors glass feels more classy and sandy beaches feel more sandy and there are many other subtle examples the wind blows from the left side you feel the left side rumble or so far my favorite raindrops landing on your umbrella the controller vibrates ever, so slightly it's a really nice new addition that you might not notice all the time but when you do it'll undoubtedly put a smile on your face.
However once i started playing spiderman miles morales the haptics started to feel less deliberate when there's a cutscene involving some general marvelous mayhem as every marvel game does the rumble just feel less intentional every now and then you do get that oh that's clever moment .
Those are few and far in between i really do hope other developers take advantage of the haptics because they really aren't that good and the same goes for the adaptive triggers which are also really good when the triggers are not adapting or rather when they're in their normal state they feel like regular old triggers but when the adaptive triggers kick in so to speak you sort of feel a little friction. I don't know how else to describe it other than there's some real resistance there classic example is when using a bow and arrow the triggers increase resistance and once you're ready to shoot you just release the trigger my only wish was that the resistance was even stronger at the very end of my draw .
My favorite moment was when i grabbed onto this launcher thingy and both of the triggers just kind of start vibrating like crazy, it's just little things that make this gaming experience feel very new oh last thing the battery on the dual sensor is rated exactly the same as the dualshock 4 which is 4 to 8 hours which is also a very broad range and that sounds about right based on the two weeks that i had with it you can charge it with a usbc or magnetically.
If you buy the stock okay sorry i made you wait long enough but let's talk graphics specifically ray tracing to get into this i wanted to talk to our senior editor and my mortal enemy tom warren who also has a playstation 5.
How's it going hey not too bad you enjoying the ps5 so i wanted to call you and talk graphics and specifically ray tracing so what's ray tracing yeah so ray tracing is like it's basically the beyond it's the golden thing that you want in games right now um essentially it's better light shadows and reflections just more accurate ones . They've been using it in cinema for years now um and it's basically the holy grail of next-gen gaming and we're hoping to see a bunch like better reflections in puddles and windows and just shadows and can you show us some of the examples.
I think you have a few yeah sure so if i switch over we are in spider-man now that's now this is the perform uh the visual quality mode um which means ray tracing is enabled at 30 frames per second and, what you'll notice is you get these crazy reflections of spider-man off of this building here and these reflections are pretty much all the way along all of the streets and all the blocks as you're swinging around .
You also get if you if you look at some of the puddles here you can see the people's like reflections they're crossing and the sort of light that's coming off the headlights um all that sort of stuff is retracing now obviously you give up 60 frames for this but look look . I'm running along you see the reflections now if i switch over to the performance mode this will give us 60 frames a second.
What i can do is show you how it sort of compares so if i jump back down we look at some of the so we go back to that window we started off with the reflections have basically disappeared. I can't even see spider-man now um and as i walk down the street this the reflections on some of the um sort of puddles here look pretty good and the headlights don't look too bad . I feel like the realism just goes a slight bit uh you do get 60 frames but obviously you miss out on like when you're shooting down the street you miss out on all the window reflections and stuff so, yeah that's basically a sort of small example of ray tracing on the ps5 okay so that's the 500 playstation console.
You have also a custom pc what do you get with that this is watchdogs running on the 3090 here um and for this this is obviously a three thousand dollar pc so the comparison is pretty it's pretty big um look at the reflections. I get in piccadilly circus here i run around you can see this underground sign just slowly fades away into the sort of sidewalk there it's pretty crazy like looking at all this stuff this is obviously the top level of what's possible right now. I don't think we're going to see quite this good on next gen consoles but if we can get any close to this i think that'd be pretty impressive.
I'm a little bummed you have to like pick between ray tracing or 60 fps on the ps5 it'll depend on the game obviously. I'll go with ray tracing either way it's a bit disappointing yeah that's all hey boom did you see the uh the arsenal game at the weekend man united . I think albin yang was in ray tracing. There is a very clear reason why spider-man miles morales takes place during winter in new york city there's lots of ice the streets are constantly wet and everything is super reflective perfect raid tracing environment.
The ps5 tech brilliantly the last piece of this console puzzle is the user interface and sony rebuilt it from the ground up while retaining some of the core elements from the cross media bar that was introduced two generations ago fonts are the same the setting menu looks very similar the basic principle is the same. A lot more organized and a whole lot faster there's one long strip of smaller app icons near the top of the screen which instantly load as you cycle through them apps like the ps store library the new explorer tab, they're all part of the home screen you never exit out of it you never feel like you're opening up a separate app to go and use it the only apps that, do act app-like are the games themselves of course and the streaming apps which now live in a separate tab called media during gameplay.
You can access these so called cards by pressing the ps button once cards give you access to retry some of the missions find challenges or side missions it's basically like a fast travel feature that's built into the system instead of into the game, there are cards that show you walk-through clips which you can put into picture-in-picture mode you can see related news or you can see friends who are online if you have one of those and a bunch more interactive cards around trophies medias .
So forth and there are many other smaller changes which modernize this console spoiler alert filters customizable control center ability to save 4k clips there's even a do not disturb mode and an easier way of transferring save data from your previous system. I do wish the ps5 had something similar to xbox's quick resume feature which lets you jump freely between games with very little loading time. it's pretty good if the game is supported also there are bugs both me and tom had our units crash a few times or just not boot up it happened to us during the initial setup on day one and it happened to me twice since when the console went into risk mode afterwards, i was greeted with a repairing console rebuilding database error message our games editor andrew webster didn't have those issues.
He did lose his save data for spider-man i know this is early software but early production units tend to ship with some inconsistencies, it's nothing too alarming but it's something to keep an eye out for all in all the whole interface is a lot easier to get around due to both processing power and the redesign in my time with the ps5. I can't say i took full advantage of all the features like the cards or the walkthrough heads, there just wasn't a lot of opportunity to do so .
I do think it's something people will genuinely find useful well there you have it the playstation 5 and that all sounds great right it's bigger better bolder faster bigger and comes with a super good controller what's not to love and honestly not much at all if you're a console gamer you'll have everything that's new with the playstation 5.
Almost every next-gen console is very promising in launch though, i'll be curious to see what the mid cycle looks like and whether the ps5 can be a platform that stands the test of time and that test seems more unpredictable now than ever before what will the games look like by the end of this cycle what will the mid-cycle upgrades look like will we need consoles at all or is streaming going to take off. I don't know but once these next-gen consoles get released they become the now generation consoles .
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