DISPATCHES JULY

After using my trusty magnifying glass to read your 'hidden' bit in Edge 423, it got me thinking about what I have really got out of my PS5 since buying it.

- Patrick Harris

That difficult fifth console

I got the machine at launch, so I am not one of the people who rushed to beat the price increase, but it has been interesting to think about what I might have missed if I had stuck with my PS4 all this time. First of all, I wouldn’t have played the Demon's Souls remake, which I think is still probably the best-looking PS5 game, even now. More importantly, there is Returnal, which has to be the best PS5 exclusive overall. Thinking about it, though, this is a game in particular that could have been produced as a PS4 release, albeit with reduced visual effects. What does it actually do with gameplay that couldn't have been done with older hardware?

Then there's the game which I've played the most on my PS5, Elden Ring. I haven’t played the PS4 version, but some online research seems to show that it's a great version of the game that does not involve much of a downgrade.

Then we get to the console itself. First of all, I definitely needed more space for the PS5 hardware in my console setup. I am very used to it now but I remember being shocked at how big the console was when I first got it out of the box, and people in my family who don’t really know about games always mention how massive it is. If I was in the burglary business, it would definitely be a lot easier to find in someone’s house than a PS4 or even an Xbox Series X.

On a more daily level, the DualSense controller follows in the good old Sony tradition of fine-tuning what went before rather than completely changing it. To be honest, though, whilst I can appreciate the upgraded rumble effects in something like Astro Bot, I don’t think I would massively miss it if it was taken away. Also, I usually just switch off any effects in the adaptive triggers because it always makes it feel like it is slightly slowing down my actions.