PS4 Officially Announced!

        During Sony’s ‘special announcement’ last night, as speculated, the PlayStation 4 console has been officially announced!

       

       In a conversation with a friend yesterday afternoon he suggested that they might not call it the ‘PS4’ – balls to that! Of course they will – and they did! There are many new technical features (which you can find out about later) but if you just want to see the games being developed take a look at this trailer roundup below (and remember to go full screen for maximum effect)!

Killzone 4

        Always a regular PlayStation exclusive release since the PS2 was launched, the Killzone franchise always manages to get people excited.

       Despite the initial footage of Killzone 2 for the launch of PS3 being more of a tech demo and not entirely representative of what the game would actually end up looking like, Killzone 4's footage looks to be in game. Take a look below:

inFamous: Second Son
       Developer Suckerpunch returns to the inFamous franchise with this entry. Whilst this doesn't have any in-game footage, the animation is impressive to say the least. Check out the protagonist's face at the end!

Witness
        From Braid creator Jonathan Blow comes this mysterious first person puzzle game Witness. It makes a nice change from all the guns and explosions of some of the other announced games and certainly looks very different and intriguing.
       Braid proved to be not only mind-bending in its puzzles, but also had a genuine emotional touch as well. Witness is definitely one I am intrigued by.

Watchdogs
       Now this one is really going to impress. Previously touted as being developed for PS3, you can now see why they would need the next gen to do this. The level of detail is incredible, not only in visual terms but the fact it appears you can hack into everything and anything in the living breathing world around you.
    At one point during watching this footage, I caught myself accidentally saying 'wow, this movie looks pretty good'... oops! Who needs Grand Theft Auto V when you can have this!

Knack
       This one looks like an animated film come to life and is aimed at a more decidedly younger player. Although some of the character and animations do look similar to the current gen, what sets this apart is the amazing particle effects.

DriveClub
       Here's a racing game for you. Although very brief, this trailer shows off some nice shiny graphics. It looks real?! Hopefully the end game will be similar to this.

 

Deep Down
     Capcom's new IP looks amazing. The graphics for a fantasy world are truly impressive - although it is not certain whether these are in-game or not. They look like prerenderings but a weapon select HUD seems to suggest that this is the look that they are going for in-game. Could this be the next gen's Dragon's Dogma? Deep Down = DD = Dragon's Dogma... coincidence perhaps or a hint? (note: Deep Down is only a working title). Anyway, if the graphics end up being anywhere near this good... wow!


 

Destiny
      Finally, from Halo developers Bungie comes this game entitled Destiny. As well as the truly impressive scope of the world presented here, much is made of the social and online aspect of this game. I was never a Halo fan, but this looks interesting. Take a look:

Features....
       So apart from the games, a lot has been said of the PS4's new features. Take a look at this video for some of them:

 

       So there you have it.

       Although games sometimes don't quite live up to the original promise (as seen from the PS3 comparison of its pre-launch hype to its actual games), there is still plenty here to be excited about! We could be playing PS4 by the end of this year or possibly in early 2014.

21 Feb 2013