Bloodborne
Look, we really don't want to start this by saying Bloodborne is difficult because you already know it's difficult, and everyone else is going to say the same thing. But it is difficult. Damn difficult. This is for the "hardcore" players. This is one for the no-mercy, no-hand-holding, no-checkpoints-allowed gamers.
Or maybe we're just a bit crap.
But however challenging Bloodborne may be, this is one extremely gruesome, and damn pretty, gothic nightmare. Those good looks don't stop at the resolution and framerate either; in everything from the weather effects to the finely-crafted designs of your cockney enemies, Bloodborne feels like a proper next-gen game.
But from what we've played and seen so far, Bloodborne's Victorian world seems a lot more interesting than Dark Souls' rather dreary environs. It's still bleak as hell, mind, just more varied. And you have a gun this time.
The combat mechanics are slightly different this time too, with more of a focus on offense. It's not as simple as charging your enemies Dynasty Warrior-style, attacking takes thought and attention to timing, especially when you're facing off with a crowd.
Those points aside, Bloodborne looks and feels just like Dark Souls, from the on-screen status bars down to the fact you're inevitably going to spend a lot of your time dead. It's pretty much the antithesis of Tearaway.
But Bloodborne feels like the most accessible game of the franchise so far. This is a Dark Souls game as we know it, but faster, better-looking, and, so far, promising to be a tad more forgiving to those who didn't have the patience for the last two. Just a tad.
Release date: March 24, 2015 (US), March 27 (UK)
How it'll define the PS4: by being the first truly hardcore game to grace the platform.
The Order: 1886
Bloodborne may be beautiful, but it's The Order: 1886 that walks away with the award for best looking PS4 game right now. And we're glad, because when Ready at Dawn first revealed The Order we worried we had been fooled by the smoke and mirrors of yet another over-promising demo, not to mention how concerned we became when the game was delayed.
The reason for that delay is still unclear, but with next-gen mustaches that look this good we doubt it could have anything to do with the graphics, so could it have been a matter of gameplay? Early criticism from gamers was targeted at The Order's heavy cinematic elements, but we felt there was a good balance in the section we played.
The demo took place on a zeppelin - an aircraft that didn't actually take flight until 1900, but then the game is also filled with monsters, so we'll cut it some slack - from which our protagonist Galahad hopes to smoke out some nefarious rebels. Of course it's not long before things go haywire, bullets start flying, smoke grenades begin exploding, and people start yelling "bloody" a lot.
The demo started with a lot of stealth, with us sneaking around enemies who have a habit of announcing exactly what they plan to do, but these moments soon opened up into full-scale shootouts with a cover-based action system that felt fairly conventional.
In fact, the game encourages you to use the cover system quite a lot. As we discovered, running into a battle guns blazing ends up getting you killed most of the time. While these action scenes played out like any other, what was more noticeable was how well the frame rate held during moments of intense combat. Even at 30fps (which has, naturally, attracted a lot of criticism from the gaming community) there was no obvious drop in quality.
There were more than a couple of moments where the transition from cutscene to gameplay was so seamless that it took us a few seconds to realise we were in control again. Where the developers probably have more of a challenge is in balancing the cinematic moments with gameplay throughout the rest of The Order. Games like Resident Evil 4 and Uncharted (one of Ready at Dawn's big inspirations) have proven it can be done, but with so many massive set pieces in The Order we just hope that we're given enough freedom. Our demo was very linear, but then it did all take place on a zeppelin, so it's hard to predict how much this reflects the rest of the rest of the game.
What we do know for sure right now is that The Order: 1886 looks wonderful, basking in its gothic Victorian loveliness. GTA 5 for next-gen might have had jaws dropping, but The Order was built from the ground up on the PS4 and it shows. The lighting and materials, the performance-capture character animations, the effects of elements like smoke... if nothing else, this is the game you'll buy to show off just how good the PS4 can look.
Release date: February 20, 2015
How it'll define the PS4: by being one of, if not the, best-looking game on the platform. If games can look this good at this point in the PS4's lifecycle, imagine how things will be in five years time.
