How are novelty features being used (eg. Kinect, Touchpad)

[Shifty Geezer]

Now that there are some games out, what's the current state with actual use in game for the fancy features of the new consoles? Is the touchpad on PS4 making a difference? The light bar (okay, I already know the answer to that one!)? Gyros? Controller speaker? And what about rumble triggers and voice control in games or gestures to compliment controller input?

In short, has anything actually changed, or is it still 100% button pushing and all these new features are so far virtually worthless?

 

[Jogi]

Now that there are some games out, what's the current state with actual use in game for the fancy features of the new consoles? Is the touchpad on PS4 making a difference? The light bar (okay, I already know the answer to that one!)? Gyros? Controller speaker? And what about rumble triggers and voice control in games or gestures to compliment controller input?

In short, has anything actually changed, or is it still 100% button pushing and all these new features are so far virtually worthless?

Well with my limited experience with ps4 (just got it) I like gyros, it is new to me and gives little bit fun extra for controller use.(like some special case aiming and it works well for typing with virtual keyboard)
Touchpad works ok but how games utilize it is still bit miss.
Controller speaker is fine too...it really brings also "that little bit" addition to gaming soundfield. As an additional controller features I give Ps4 controller 9+, Add rumble or FFB to triggers and it would be solid 10

For x1, rumble triggers worked fine with forza5 and in some other cases too...personally force feedback for triggers would be even nicer but I guess someone holds patents and ms do not want to pay..

Voice control could work but my experience with x1 kinect was horrible...kinect motion gestures/features did not got me excited either..

 

[Cjail]

I don't have many PS4 games right now but IMO the touchpad did make a difference in Shadow Fall (control the OWL) or inFAMOUS Second Son (various interactions, drain power sources, etc...)
In both cases it was implemented very fluidly and it's surprisingly reactive so it was not a pain to use it, at least for me.
I now actuality prefer to have some controls mapped on the touchpad so for me it's a worthy addition.
As for the gyros so far no truly interesting implementation IMO. Second Son use them to make graffiti but I found it nice and nothing more.
I would have liked to use the gyros to stabilize aim while sniping in SF, like in KZ 2, but GG didn't do it
The DS4 speaker in Shadow Fall is used well; when audio is played through it felt like I was holding one of the recorders you just found or a walkie-talkie.
In Second Son when you drain a power source a sound comes out of the speaker but the effect it's less interesting IMO.

The Lightbar was not implemented in a meaningful way in any of the games I have played.
In SF GG would have made so that the lightbar flashes more intensely when you get close to a collectible, as it was some sort of "detector", and it would have served a purpuse, they didn't do it.
To me the lightbar is there to work in combo with the PS Camera but I can think of several uses for the lightbar in-game...but that's another story.

So to me the DS4 extra features do add to the experience but must be exploited more creatively and aggressively.
"Good" can come out of them but it's up to the devs...which is probably a self evident truth.

 

[DrJay24]

The touchpad is great as a extra button that is easy to hit, i.e. click to open map in AC4/Lego Marvel or drain power in Infamous.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is there any direct x,y control in games via the touchpad, such as, say, waving a levitated car around in Infamous, or switching switches on a panel in KZ? The way it's used in PlayRoom, only in a conventional game?

 

[deathindustrial]

The touchpad is flat out retarded.

It's is far too insensitive and coarse to act as a pseudo mousepad or even for reliably tracking gestures. Games that use it end up using it as a big stupid button which is not a good use of controller real estate. Due to its size we now have an options button that is a tiny and finicky control to use. Unless it's a driver problem that will be fixed by Sony, the DS4 is going to be cursed with a huge gimmicky barely functional pad control and a tiny frustrating options button for it's lifetime which is sad.

Cheers

 

[DrJay24]

Is there any direct x,y control in games via the touchpad, such as, say, waving a levitated car around in Infamous, or switching switches on a panel in KZ? The way it's used in PlayRoom, only in a conventional game?

You can move around the map in AC4 like a mouse. Also you swipe in the four orthogonal directions in KZ to direct the Owl.

 

[Shortbread]

The shaking of the PS4 gamepad like a paint can in Infamous Second Son is quite gimmicky, but not bad. Believe it or not, the most useful feature that I like about the PS4 gamepad is the speaker built into it. It's interesting effect (sound positioning) of hearing the spray can in ISS as being right near you, or having a cell phone close by and it's very useful in Killzone as well.

 

[deathindustrial]

Is there any direct x,y control in games via the touchpad, such as, say, waving a levitated car around in Infamous, or switching switches on a panel in KZ? The way it's used in PlayRoom, only in a conventional game?

You can "scratch" a ticket in Rayman Legends but it shows off how coarse the position tracking actually is (probably 8x8 max but feels like 4x4).

Cheers

 

[BoardBonobo]

I'll second the use of the speaker, it's being used to pretty good effect in KZ and inFamous. The touchpad is probably the part showing the most promise though, and since it's already being used in third party games - in a thought out way not just chucked in - I can see it being very useful in the future. All the 3d positioning and use of the camera etc seems to be pretty standard to last gen - with the exception of a few voice commands and gestures. Nothing really exciting appearing on that front.

 

[Nesh]

I find it interesting that so far nobody mentioned Kinect yet but everyone talks about the touchpad and the speaker, two features that are not at all anything new. At the same time it shows how important it is to have functions implemented at the fingertips of the player, in other words the main means of control which is the controller, the first thing a player is expecting to use to play. Having the functions on the controller as standard it gives more incentive to develop for it an the player has more incentive to use it, even if most functions are gimmicks, or half arsed implementations

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I find it interesting that so far nobody mentioned Kinect yet but everyone talks about the touchpad and the speaker, two features that are not at all anything new.

People can only talk about their own experiences, for which pretty much everyone either everyone has exclusives access to XB1 or PS4. A touchpad in a console is new AFAIK. The speaker was used in Wii so didn't see a lot of action in the core AAA gamers experiences. And whether a feature is new or not is besides the point. The question is whether devs are using these new-to-PS4/XB1 features in an interesting/worthwhile fashion.

At the same time it shows how important it is to have functions implemented at the fingertips of the player, in other words the main means of control which is the controller, the first thing a player is expecting to use to play. Having the functions on the controller as standard it gives more incentive to develop for it an the player has more incentive to use it, even if most functions are gimmicks, or half arsed implementations

I disagree. It just needs ot work and be comfortable. Gesture based input might be great - it depends on how it's implemented as to whether a test is a valid assessment of its intrinsic value. I don't know that gesture input is a part of any mainstream Kinect game yet (eg. open doors and press buttons and throw stuff in an adventure game like Elder Scrolls) for us to determine whether gamers want it or refuse to use it as it isn't a control at the fingertips.

 

[betan]

The Lightbar was not implemented in a meaningful way in any of the games I have played.
In SF GG would have made so that the lightbar flashes more intensely when you get close to a collectible, as it was some sort of "detector", and it would have served a purpuse, they didn't do it.
To me the lightbar is there to work in combo with the PS Camera but I can think of several uses for the lightbar in-game...but that's another story.

I really like the lightbar especially for local MP. Apart from controller differentiation, it's pretty cool to see lightbar color match some visual cue on screen. We played Fifa 14 and Dead Nation PS4 over the weekend. They both use different colors for each controller, matching the highlight on screen, but in Dead Nation it's especially nice since flashlight color matches the lightbar (red or blue). Light is a scarce resource in that game, making flashlight vital and controller lightbar is pretty strong, somewhat like a flashlight.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I just love the little speaker on the DS4. Also love how Shadow Fall uses the touchpad to control the owl. The thing may not be big and/or precise enough to emulate something like a mouse, but it seems perfectly capable of handling basic gesture recognition both reliably and quickly.

 

[Nesh]

People can only talk about their own experiences, for which pretty much everyone either everyone has exclusives access to XB1 or PS4. A touchpad in a console is new AFAIK. The speaker was used in Wii so didn't see a lot of action in the core AAA gamers experiences. And whether a feature is new or not is besides the point. The question is whether devs are using these new-to-PS4/XB1 features in an interesting/worthwhile fashion.

Yep touchpad in a console is new. It is quite common though in electronics. It was probably a good idea to add it since people are used to touch inputs more than ever. The Wii unfortunately didnt have the right library of games. AAA games were more common for the traditional consoles. It didnt have the right content to make people talk about the speaker.The point is you dont have to be totally new and innovate from scratch. Sony added touch and a speaker into a familiar experience. The risk is less, all its left is to adapt control schemes and sound in a way that improve the experience

I disagree. It just needs ot work and be comfortable. Gesture based input might be great - it depends on how it's implemented as to whether a test is a valid assessment of its intrinsic value. I don't know that gesture input is a part of any mainstream Kinect game yet (eg. open doors and press buttons and throw stuff in an adventure game like Elder Scrolls) for us to determine whether gamers want it or refuse to use it as it isn't a control at the fingertips.

But I agree that it needs to work and be comfortable. I didnt imply it doesnt need to. At this stage devs are testing the waters. It doesnt mean its comfortable yet. I didnt say the value is proven yet.
My point is since touchpad and speaker are part of the controller, the most common method of controlling a game, consumers are closer to try them. Kinect is almost like a new idea and in most cases its optional unless we are talking about games designed with complete gesture in mind. Hence in most cases people forget about it. Devs dont want to risk too much with it with their "traditional" games and gamers arent accustomed to using it yet and hence there are less people experiencing it within games. For comparison we can check a) how many games have Kinect features on the XB1 vs how many have the speaker and touchpad on the PS4 b)how many gamers use those Kinect features for games on the XB1 vs how many gamers experience the speaker and touchpad on the PS4. This is why I believe there are more people currently talking about their experience with the touchpad and speaker in the games, regardless if their experience is positive or not. Since there are more people trying them out due to being "on" by default, and devs worry less about alienating the "traditional" experience much, it is very likely that these uses will improve. Touch controls and sound are very familiar and common experiences. This is at a much better situation than the motion controls in the DS 3 where devs had to guess pointless uses for it

 

[JPT]

In Infamous I find the use of the speaker advantageous to the game, while in Resogun I find it annoying.
Context of its use is important...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

As others have said, the trackpad on the DualShock4 is a handy extra button. I found it's use in Killzone Shadow Fall (KZSF) decent and using it in inFamous Second Son (ISS) to suck up powers, frees the more accessible buttons for better control schemes. I also liked the speaker usage in KZSF, Tomb Raider and ISS.

None of this is ground-breaking but a good experience is often made up of a lot of smaller things and the speaker is one of those small things that can contribute to an overall good presentation.

 

[McHuj]

IMO, the touchpad and lightbar suck on the DS4. Neither has added anything useful to gameplay. The speaker is fine, but most of my gaming is with headphones so it's kind of useless there as well.

 

[HTupolev]

Well, I haven't played all that many games on PS4 yet, but:

My perception of the PS4 touchpad thus far is that it's not terribly precise, and so far I've only experienced it as a large, slow, clumsy dpad. I'm definitely not sold on it just yet.

The speaker is kind of neat, I guess, though most of the implementations I've experienced made me wish they'd just played the audio normally. After the initial surprise factor I've been leaning more and more toward "this is actually sort of dumb", though I'd imagine a local multiplayer game could do some silly fun stuff with it.

The color-changing light bar is a really cool idea, though I'm definitely in camp "what we're they thinking when they shipped it with high default intensity." The first time I tried watching a movie on my PS4 I wound up wedging the controller between some seat cushions, hehe.

 

[Arwin]

You can "scratch" a ticket in Rayman Legends but it shows off how coarse the position tracking actually is (probably 8x8 max but feels like 4x4).

Cheers

This says nothing. All you're seeing is the translation of an interface that is designed to work well with the DualShock Analog sticks as with touch (we play a lot of Legends on PS3).

There's a better test of the analog pad in the Robots demo that comes with the PS4 and is available if you've got the PS Eye installed, and where you can flick out robots in exactly the direction you stroke over the touchpad. Also, in Infamous you had to position your finger quite precisely in a certain location for a finger recognition. And it works fine for quick selecting in Killzone too.

There's lots of little things in there, but I'm still most impressed by the precision of using the motion controls for pointing, to be honest (and it was great fun in Infamous as well, wish that were built out a bit more so you could get really creative and people could share their work). With how easy it is to put out little apps, I'm still disappointed we don't get much more of those little things. Sony should have something like Kinect labs for the DS4.

I would have liked the typing interface to include support for the touchpad as well, just so I could compare it. But it definitely also works fine as an extra, hard to miss button.

The internal speaker is also quite good - I like that at least it has very good high-frequency sound and volume for such a small speaker. The slight lag between that and my stereo gives a strange bit of environmental effect, that doesn't work quite well in Tomb Raider, but fine in most other games - I actually like it in Resogun (having sound through my TV to my receiver is proving a bit laggier than when I had it through my stereo to my TV, but this setup is much more user friendly - now we only need the TV remote for everything but the sound volume).

IMO, the touchpad and lightbar suck on the DS4. Neither has added anything useful to gameplay. The speaker is fine, but most of my gaming is with headphones so it's kind of useless there as well.

Do you plug those into your controller or into your stereo? Or bluetooth? It's not just that the DS4 has an extra speaker, but of course it's an extra sound channel as well (center-middle, so to speak ) ...