Is The PS5 Pro Worth It For You?
We don't know, we're not your mum. Also Jackbox Party Packs and Evercade VS-R
Hello friends!
This week is all about the PlayStation 5 Pro. Tim and I went into checking out the new console with different expectations, but we both came out of it realising that we’re picky tech/games journos who love the finer things in life. I didn’t expect to notice anything that significant, I was wrong.
Also this week, I fell back in love with the Jackbox Party Pack games, and Tim got yet another new console with the Evercade VS-R.
Enjoy!
OK, I get the PS5 Pro now
By Alice
I will admit to having been somewhat sarcastic about whether a PS5 Pro could possibly be worth it. It’s so expensive, and the PS5’s graphics were already so pretty. It felt like Sony was releasing a newer, more powerful and more expensive version of the PS5 now because this is when it normally happens in a console cycle, not because there would actually be a measurable difference.
Reader, I was wrong. The moment I booted it up, it already looked significantly better. Playing Gran Turismo 7 in 4K at 120FPS is ridiculous. It’s the kind of black magic that’s usually confined to the fanciest PCs. Consoles are always chasing the graphical experience of PC, and that brief window in each cycle where they catch up looks incredible. The puddles in Ratchet and Clank of all games had me impressed.
What I really appreciate, though, is that there is now finally some 8K content for my 8K TV. There aren’t enough games in 8K to make it worth rushing out to buy an 8K TV now (there’s literally 3 listed, and the patches haven’t gone live for all of them), but it’s just nice to give my TV a proper workout every now and then. It’s like taking a Blue Heeler to visit some sheep, and remind it of its true purpose.
Even playing games that can run on a potato, like Fortnite, look noticeably smoother and prettier on the PS5 Pro.
While what it can do now is breathtaking, I’m more excited about what developers will be able to do in the future. Obviously, I can’t review the future, or make recommendations based on what I hope will happen. But it has the potential to be very cool, and I love that for us.
Do I now think that releasing a $1200 games console was a good idea in this economy? No. It’s still a bizarre choice. But who are we to deny ourselves a little (absolutely giant and expensive) treat in a trying time?
What to play
A pair of brand new releases hit Game Pass this week, with the wonderful Metal Slug Tactics and the wobbly Goat Simulator Remastered. A bunch of games are also moving from the Ultimate library to the more broadly accessible Standard one, notably stop motion adventure Harold Halibut and pixel puzzle mystery The Rewinder.
November’s monthly games are now available for all PlayStation Plus subscribers, and they are the surprisingly good Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged, first-person spooky Ghostwire: Tokyo and licensed Among-Us-like Death Note: Killer Within.
New on Apple Arcade today are Wheel of Fortune Daily (based on the TV game show you remember from childhood), Drive Ahead! Carcade (a driving game), Arkanoid vs Space Invaders (save the galaxy), and Texas Hold’em Poker: Pokerist+ (it’s poker).
One for the sickos
By Tim
Trying to express whether something like a game console is “worth” the asking price is always fraught, not only because such purchases are inherently non-essential but because it’s a totally different calculus for every person. What kind of games do you play, and how often? What’s your existing library and console like, what kind of TV do you have, what do you personally value in a gaming setup tech wise? And obviously, how’s your budget and ability to absorb a big purchase?
For that reason I always find it curious when people dismiss products immediately as not worth it, or say that something deserves to fail for being priced too high. But on the other hand I never want to recommend something unconditionally when it costs more than what plenty of people have for a monthly food budget. The best you can do is try to break down the functions and benefits to make the calculus easier.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is more powerful than the standard PS5, but not by a huge amount, and has a bigger 2TB hard drive. In the future it may enable all kinds of new features but, from my early testing, a lot of the benefit comes from the proprietary AI upscaling. Allow me to way over-simplify:
We’re all familiar with the idea that games have to balance resolution and framerate, which is why big AAA games tend to offer a choice; sharp image and 30 frames per second, or blurry image and 60. AI upscaling is able to restore that blurry image to something that very closely resembles the sharp one, so you effectively get the same fidelity at double the performance.
If you currently have a PS5, switch a graphically heavy game like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth from the fidelity mode to the performance mode. If you don’t notice a dip in visual quality, the PS5 Pro is not for you. Maybe you have a HD TV, so the low resolution performance mode doesn’t have to stretch as far. Or maybe you sit a long way away, or don’t care about sharp graphics.
If you make the switch and can’t notice a difference in smoothness, you also don’t need the PS5 Pro. Some people are blessed to simply not notice the difference between 30 frames per second and 60, and can just stick with fidelity mode.
Then there are people like me who torture themselves over every new game because the performance mode is blurry and missing graphical features, but the fidelity mode is a jerky 30fps. We have nice TVs, the cursed eyes of technical knowledge, and likely one or more neurological disorders. For us, the PS5 Pro can offer a serious upgrade by enabling 60fps modes with very little compromise.
Would I buy one for $1200? Yes. I play games constantly, have no other expensive hobbies and really care about having the cleanest possible 60fps performance. But that doesn’t mean the PS5 Pro “improves” Dragon Age by a certain dollar amount or that another player on another system can’t enjoy it just as much.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
They’re technically not board games, but in all ways other than literally Jackbox Party Packs are board games. Sure, they don’t have boards, and they’re on PC and console and require internet connected mobile devices to play. And yet they are absolutely board games, stranding that weird grey area of following the spirit but not the letter of the law.
They all come from the tradition of board games (what if Trivial Pursuit didn’t take 1000 years, what if Pictionary didn’t require skill or craft supplies, etc). Yet they don’t make any mess and don’t require packing up. Plus, they’re just good for dinner parties, party parties, and when you’re trying to make a family gathering less awkward.
Many of the Jackbox games have the spirit of a kinder Cards Against Humanity - make everyone laugh and be ok with imperfection. Some present fun ways to interact with trivia. My least favourite ones are those that require you to interact with large sections of text written by the Jackbox team, like Fixy Text, because their American humour never quite gels with that of my friend group, and not everyone likes trying to be funny on a short timer.
The best Jackbox games, though, are the ones where you have to draw something. Drawful is the classic example, where you’re given an abstract prompt and told to draw it and then everyone else has to guess what it is. There’s no pressure to be good, just to get people close enough to guessing what you were going for, and it means everyone can just let go.
Tee K.O.2 is the more recent drawing game, and is perhaps my favourite Jackbox game of all time. You draw a bunch of t-shirt designs, have them remixed by everyone, and end up with something deeply weird and (depending on your friend group) absolutely hilarious.
Jackbox Party Pack 9 is in PlayStation Plus game catalogue at the moment, and is absolutely worth checking out with a group of people this weekend. It’s not technically a board game, but it is one in all the ways that matter.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
The PS5 Pro isn’t the only new hardware to grace my lounge room recently. I bought an Evercade VS-R quite a while ago and it’s taken forever to arrive. Now it’s here though I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, even if it does make for a pretty humorous comparison to the 4K monster I’ve been spending most of my time with.
While the PS5 Pro does away with a physical media drive by default, the VS-R literally doubles down with two cartridge slots. It barely uses power and barely connects to the internet. It uses wired controllers. It outputs in 1080p, and frankly I think it should have an option to go lower. It costs $200, not $1200. It’s the least Pro console, and I love it for that.
For those unaware, Evercade is a library of new cartridges (there’s more than 50 now, and growing) that each contain a number of games and come in a nice box with a cute physical manual. The vast majority of games are emulated from NES, Mega Drive or even older systems, being either licensed releases from back in the day or modern homebrew. Though recently there’s also been a few native indies that run directly on the device, or 3D-era games like Tomb Raider (the trilogy comes with the VS-R) and the upcoming Legacy of Kain.
Personally I’m mostly into the homebrew and indie carts; slap two of them into the system and the screen fills with a dozen or more weirdo retro delights that makes me feel like I’m seven years old and I’ve just been given a stack of random nonsense to play. I already have several options for playing this stuff, the simplest being buying them from the creators on itch.io and slapping them on a flashcart. But it seems so much warmer with physical media, and $40 or so per Evercade pack is a lot better than paying for freshly manufactured NES-compatible carts.
There are also a lot of obscure arcade games available on the system that you just literally can’t get in a straightforward or legal way otherwise, and the VS-R plays very nice with my 8bitdo sticks.