Getting handsy with the DualShock 4

As many of you know the Playstation 4 is out on Nov. 15th here in the states and retailers have begun selling/ shipping the comsole's accessories and, in some instances, even launch titles such as Killzone: Shadowfall. Well, I received my DualShock4 yesterday from Amazon and couldn't wait to give it a shot. I had read on various sites that you could run DualShock4 wired on the PS3 . This is mostly true, however, motion sensor, move compatibility, rumble, the PS button and the touch pad are non functional on PS3.

First off, the controller feels great in the hand the  handles have been elongated, their angle is more  shallow so the handle doesn't really come down any lower than the handles on the DualShock3. The handles are also rounder with more contour for the fingers  and it fills the palm more nicely, in my opinion, than the previous generations of PlayStation controller. There is stippling on the back of the DualShock4  for a  nonslip texture that isn't rubberized but has good grip quality.  I do have concerns about how frequently this texturing may need cleaning in the future since those little indents  seem like they could collect gunk and be a pain to clean.

Stippling

The buttons all feel good, and if you really pay attention you can tell that they are not analog any longer. They don't continue to compress once pressed like the Dualshock 2 and 3 did ( I believe they claimed 255 levels of pressure on the button could be measured.) They do seem a little closer together than on previous generations.

For my evaluation, I played Killzone 3 single player  both with R1/L1 as shoot / aim and with R2/L2 in those roles. The change in grip size and angle makes it a little  less comfortable to use R1/ L1 but they are still fully serviceable. I do feel that in the new generation of playstation games you will see R2/L2 used as triggers by default. They feel fantastic. The contour is, in my opinion, just right with the fingers naturally indexing to the lower middle of the trigger. The pull is smooth as this is still an analog input. One can hope that when the fifth iteration of DualShock comes out that perhaps the triggers will be switchable between serving  as a throttle control and a trigger with improved tactile feedback rather than compromising. That said, it seems to me  that they found a nice middle ground where there is still room for precision for driving and such, but while still having a short enough pull so as not to make it slow for semi automatic guns. The force feedback doesn't work on PS3 currently either and it is entirely possible that once I'm playing on the PS4 and rumble does work that maybe it won't be as noticeable. That is me being pretty nitpicky though and overall the triggers feel excellent.

The  thumb sticks are noticeably improved being much tighter and more responsive than the previous model . New for this version is a semi-concave top for the thumb sticks having a ridge around  the outer  top and a recessed  center that is still slightly convex , but still lower than the ridge surrounding it.  In practice this makes it easy to find the center of the stick  by feel .  My one quibble with the stick design is that I would like the caps to be just a touch  larger simply because more control surface is better. They are, however, no smaller than the Xbox 360 sticks.  The tops of the sticks are nicely textured and rubberized .

Being as I was playing Killzone the D-pad didn't get much love except for switching guns, but  I did notice that they have changed the angles of the face of the pad  in a way that makes  finding the center of the pad very quick which I could see being  helpful for precise combos in fighting games. The faces of the four quadrants of the D-pad seem larger also.

The touchpad feels nice and has a click that  gives good tactile feedback. I am interested to see how it will be implemented.

Notice the options and share buttons on either side.

The light bar doesn't come on when attached to a PS3 except when charging and then  does glow with a  pulsing amber color.

The PS button rests between the thumb sticks under the new speaker and the options and share buttons are at about a 45 degree angle up and towards the center from the centers of the face button cluster and the D-pad respectively.

On the seam that runs between the handles below the thumb sticks are the headset and EXT. jacks. There are chargers coming out for DS4 that will be able to charge through the ext jack instead of the USB port (which is below the light bar right at the bottom front edge of the controller), but beyond that sony has played it close as to the port's use. The headset jack will accept all 1/8 inch headphone jacks including the mono headset that ships with the PS4, but I would imagine essentially any wired hands free set for a phone ( iPhone earbuds etc) should work for game chat.

Overall, I think that the DualShock 4 is a great feeling controller and a great evolution in the DualShock line. Any claims that it will make you run faster or jump higher are probably doubtful, but Sony have made a nice piece of hardware in the DS4 and I can only hope this is indicative of the improvements to and quality of build of the PlayStation 4. We will find out in just a couple weeks!