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I won't be playing V 24/7 so I'm still up in the air on what to buy, unlike some here <_< I won't fanboy and make decisions until I see extensive reviews.

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eurogamer notes from a friend who was there

I went to Eurogamer yesterday and thought I'd share my thoughts with you guys.

Overall, the event was.... thoroughly underwhelming, to be honest.

Yes, it's for the public and yes, it's probably more geared to console gamers than PC gamers. And they're likely to enjoy queueing to see the latest games on the latest consoles. If you're a PC gamer, though, the wow of the graphics was nothing new. I guess it's good that PC and consoles can produce equally good games, but it does detract from the feeling that this is meant to be something better.

Most of the PS4 games were not running on PS4 - there were dummy consoles and the controller wires ran out to the back, presumably to a PC. War Thunder (running on such a PC) had horrible physics and my friend said it doesn't run anything like his Steam version. The only game we played on the PS4 itself (with the exception perhaps of a pointless Snake-like drawing demo) was DriveClub, a special 2 lap challenge version. For a game that's weeks away from release, it played horribly. It kept lagging (whenever an event happened like an on-screen message, it froze for a second). I got a fraction of a wheel off the track and span several times, as did my friend who is much more into his driving games. And somehow, I managed to get my car on two wheels, climbing up a wall, by merely going towards the wall! I was not impressed. That said, the controller felt like a vast improvement.

The Xbox One looked nice, quite bulky but nice. The controller was nice, quite comfortable. The sticks feel a bit looser than the 360 sticks. However, Forza was not an impressive title to demonstrate with. It looked like a 360 game - like the last Forza. I think the day one pack-in titles are terrible choices - FIFA I guess I can understand to tempt the sports fans, but it doesn't interest me in the slightest. Forza would have been my choice, but after seeing that, I'd rather save my money. Maybe I'll get one when the price has dropped but it's vastly overpriced at the moment. I'd rather put that money towards a nice PC. Incidentally, Gran Turismo 6 looked a lot like Forza. I wasn't overwhelmed, but it's probably a title I'd pick up when it comes down in price, as I like the series (well, I did the earlier titles, anyway).

A lot of the games were rehashes. It's depressing that the video games industry is leaning towards just churning out sequel after sequel. To be honest, I loved my GoldenEye, Counter:Strike, Unreal Tournament, Call of Duty etc. but I'm getting bored of the whole genre now. There's only so much shooting people that I can take before it gets boring. Oh look, new COD - it has somewhat different areas and some new guns! Yawn.

That said, some of the titles that impressed me the most were nothing new per se, but they were done well. The likes of Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and the Zelda titles looked good. My friend was trying to get me to pre-order the last Xbox One in his shop on the train up there. Another friend was trying to tempt me towards the PS4. After what I saw yesterday, I think I'll be leaning towards.... Wii U.

I saw Fable Anniversary, the Holiday 2013 build. It was very buggy, but it does show promise. Well hey, Fable was great anyway... remastering it can't be bad! It's somewhat surprising that they're releasing it on 360, though... although from one point of view, nice that all the games are on one platform. Maybe that'll lead to a re-remastering in future! :P

Ryse is supposed to be good, but I didn't get to see it as the queue was HUGE. Which brings me to another point - overall organization.

For anyone who has been to a trade-only show in the past, this was poorly executed. There could have been more stuff there. There certainly could have been more freebies. When it's actually a public show with people paying, you'd hope for freebies. And Gamestars Live was an EXCELLENT public show. This just seemed smaller and not as well organized. You had to queue for EVERYTHING. I'm pretty sure they geared it towards you having to buy a full weekend pass for more money.

Microsoft had a competition to win prizes, such as an Xbox One. You got a card given to you at whatever game you chose to preview, stamped. It has ten games on it, you can get a stamp for each game. The more stamps you get, the more chance you have of winning. Sounds good, right? Well, actually - no! Firstly, you have to queue a good hour to see each game, plus the time playing it. Yesterday was 10 hours long, although our tickets only got us in for the last five hours. Which makes it impossible to get many stamps in a day. Furthermore, the draws are made on the hour, every hour. And you have to have handed your card in to enter. So you have to decide whether to just enter, or try to build those points up. Plus you have to actually be there to hear the prize draw and redeem it. So basically, you have to spend two days on the Microsoft stands queueing to be able to enter the draw on the third day! Some of the Microsoft stands were open, so you could see the screens, but others (e.g. Ryse, Fable) were in a room.

Sony had a slightly better system, in that they made you queue to enter their area. There was a giant screen showing demos and behind the scenes stuff (including a video showing developers working on Little Big Planet) to keep you entertained in the queue, but it was a lot of standing around with nowhere to sit. I think possibly Microsoft had a line for those with disabilities, as some people in wheelchairs and crutches went ahead of us from a small adjacent line. I don't think Sony had that facility, but I could be wrong. The queue was in the usual snaking barriers. A nice feature was three PS Vita stations at each end, allowing you to try out some games. However, they were a bad choice of games for a moving queue as they had long load times... I didn't get to actually play anything! They then had a PS4 in a cabinet on the last corner to ooh and aah over. On the final straight, you got handed a lanyard and two tickets - each being redeemable for one game from a list. Sounded disappointing that we were being limited, but I think that may have been for the challenge games. There were still pods that you could play other titles on, so it was quite good. You had to re-queue for the 18+ area, though.

They really need to do something to cut down the queues - perhaps have more going on so there would be shorter queues, at least for some games. And, considering we don't really have trade events over here any more, they should have made one day dedicated to press and trade only. In fact, yesterday WAS originally press only, but I think they opened it up when tickets sold out. And, as I said, there really should have been more freebies. I came out with a Turtle Beach bracelet. I saw some people with posters. And a few had Fable t-shirts - God knows how they got those. I overheard a Microsoft representative on the Fable stand say "we've given out our quota for today" so maybe he was talking about t-shirts and they gave them out early.

Overall, I wasn't that impressed with the event, or the titles coming out. I was more impressed with the stuff coming out for the older consoles (Fable and the Nintendo stuff) than anything. Bit sad, really. Oh, and the Oculus Rift was very interesting... particularly in conjunction with the Virtuality-esque OMNI treadmill! I didn't get to see the VRX iMotion up close, but it looked good from the top floor!

should I X-post into the xbox 360 thread?

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I got a ps4 preorder, but im just trying to flip it.... If it dont work out i might just return it, im buying an ipad air and one 499 expense a quarter is more than enough.

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This is a really really nice feature:

http://www.officialp...death-says-shu/

That article shows a PS4 in a closed case with hardly any ventilation. What do they expect? Any electronic device put in that situation ( that emits heat ) would end up over-heating.

PS4-red-line-of-death.jpg

If anything I would expect the Xbone to overheat more regularly, and have major system failures like the Xbox 360 did ( with it's RRoD/ Red Ring of Death ). Here is an article full of paragraphs of information about the Xbox 360's Technical Problems ~ http://www.google.co...MripIPDhHxmrXxg

One of the interesting lines of information in there talks about Microsoft's shoddy workmanship.

Extract - "Most failures are the result of the use of the wrong type of lead-free solder. Microsoft used lead-free solder as a result of a European Union mandate,which critics say was imposed despite the fact that a small minority of people do not believe in the environmental benefits. But other players in the electronics industry have switched to lead-free solder as required by the same Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive without experiencing the problems that Microsoft has seen" - End Quote.

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I'm saying it's a nice feature, most people don't respond to "my console sounds like a jet engine, should i give it a rest maybe" so maybe a red line that says "please turn me off" might work a bit better.

the issue with leaded/unleaded solder doesn't stem from environmental issues, it comes from the people working in factories in China inhaling lead fumes 18 hours a day.

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I agree, about the whole Lead-Free Solder thing.

PlayStations are made in Taiwan, and the conditions for workers there are much higher than that of mainland China ( where the Xbox 360 and One are made ). Plus the products are usually of a higher quality as well.

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Noticed an article listing the launch titles as I was checking one of my dozen email addresses:

First-party

Flower

Killzone Shadow Fall

Knack

Resogun

Sound Shapes

Third-party

Angry Birds Star Wars

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Call of Duty: Ghosts

DC Universe Online

FIFA 14

Battlefield 4

Just Dance 2014

Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Madden NFL 25

NBA 2K14

Skylanders: Swap Force

Indie

Contrast

Pinball Arcade

Super Motherload

Tiny Brains

Warframe

http://games.yahoo.c...-190227025.html

Pretty mediocre, as expected for a launch. You've got your over-hyped shit with CoD, Battlefield, and Killzone, shit that's already out on current gen with Flower, AC4, and DC Universe Online (CoD or Battlefield might already be out, too), and shit that isn't even worth a mention (any sports game). Meh. I don't know what Xbox One's lineup is, but I doubt it's any better.

PS4 won't be worth touching until The Division and Infamous Second Son are out. Xbox One only has Dead Rising 3 thus far (assuming that turns out well). Going to be a while before next gen is worth acknowledgement.

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Infamous 2nd son is the only one I'm interested in. I'll probably wait for PS4 to play watchdogs too. the Division looks a little generic with a couple of gimmicks to make it look shiny. Also the Tom Clancy affiliation worries me. I hope it proves me wrong though.

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Xbox One can suck a

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