I am lucky enough to have both a PS4 and an Xbox One, which means I got to try out the Star Wars Battlefront Beta twice last night. I didn’t have a ton of time last night to devote to it, so I just did the single-player mission on Tattooine. My intention had always been to get this game for the Xbox One, since I know more people on that system who might potentially play it, but I figured I might as well compare the two systems just to see what’s what.
And, um. The PS4 version kicks the shit out of the Xbox One version. It’s a direct hit from a laser blaster to the nuts. Digital Foundry will give you a more thorough examination of this if you’d like the hard data, but even my untrained eye could see drastic differences in image quality; the XB1 is jaggy all over the place, has an inconsistent frame rate, and makes far-off enemies much harder to spot since everything that’s far-off is somewhat jumbled together. The PS4, on the other hand, is buttery smooth and looks absolutely gorgeous. And I think I actually prefer the PS4’s controller over the XB1, which is not something I’m used to saying out loud. So, there it is. I’ll be playing Battlefront on the PS4.
I also got the new Xbox One dashboard last night, and, well… I kinda hate it? It took me several minutes to figure out where my actual games are located, which is the whole point of the device – and when I finally found their location (which is below the main homepage stuff), I felt a bit stupid. The rest of the redesign just seems unnecessary. I’ve never really minded previous Xbox dashboard updates, because they at least made some sense. This one seems to be there for the sake of being there, and it doesn’t have any coherent purpose as far as I can tell. It’s also a bit sluggish, especially if you click the left menu from the main homepage; hopefully that will get fixed soon.
In other news, I’ve completed my 2015 Goodreads challenge, which was to read 30 books. And it’s only the beginning of October! Hell, at this rate, I might very well get past 40, unless I decide to only read gigantic stuff (like the forthcoming City on Fire and any further volumes of Karl Ove Knausgard’s My Struggle memoirs). I finished Nick Harkaway’s Tigerman, which I liked very much; he’s a hell of a writer, and his dialogue is so good it makes me want to start acting again just so that I can adapt his books into screenplays and then say this stuff out loud. I’m now about halfway through Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook, which I can’t recall buying, but which is pretty good – sort of a supernatural James Bond sort of thing. Apparently it’s book one of a larger series; the second one comes out in January, I think.
This weekend is primarily about recuperating from this relentless headcold/stomach thing I’ve had all week. There may be some Uncharted, and there really ought to be some serious music stuff happening; I’ve got 5 songs that are, like, this close to being finished, and my buddy and I really want to get this stuff out before too long. So that’s the plan. Lay low, get healthy, get busy.
Shouts From The Couch 
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