Wednesday 3 June 2015

Sun, Garden, and The Witcher 3 on remote play!

    Being able to play outside, in the garden, when the sun is high and the temperature is hot, with a frozen beer at my side, always intrigued me.

    First reason is that this way I can enjoy a bit of the "outside" people always talk about, leaving my Hobbit Hole for some time.

    Second reason are my dogs, who can enjoy the garden more than they usually do, while I can still devote myself to my favorite hobby.

    So, during this sunny week end, I brought out the "solution" described in my previous post "PS4 and PlaystationTV marry Power Line Adapters", as shown in the attached photo.

    A very long extension cord provided energy to the whole thing, and the remote play on PS4, through the PlaystationTV, worked perfectly, with only some very minor connection drops.

    Sunlight is a major issue, because it strongly limit visibility. Still, increasing both game and TV brightness, make the game playable. I'll try to find a solution to this, even if I already know there aren't that many: anti-reflection film for PC and other device can perhaps better the experience, so I'll try out one of them.

    The Witcher 3 is a great game for remote play, as it doesn't need an incredible precision in controls: differently from Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, I found the play experience to be almost like I was playing directly on PS4.

    Speaking of this, this title is very attractive, big, and masterfully directed. Still, I must admit it has a bunch of things I strongly dislike:

    - Controls: Let's face it, the "action" side of this game is pretty sick. Controls, movements, attacks and the like are clumsy, woody and inaccurate at best. CD Projekt RED clearly haven't improved this side of their development skill, as both The Witcher 1 and 2 had the same problem!

    - Fast Travel: I think the sign posts system is a bit annoying; being forced to reach one of them to use the fast travel is just a waste of time. The ability to open up world map and directly select a destination sign post would, imho, improve exploration.

    - Food: Food heals so few it hurts, and you're forced to bring tons of them with you, if you want to rely on it. I strongly dislike this (going around with 50 meat chunks, 60 hives etc etc just sound wrong to me). I think it would be better to have the food heal more, perhaps over longer times, in order to limit the carriage. I understand the developers want perhaps to force the player into using alchemy, but still food works bad for my taste.

    - Quick Items Slots: Dunnow if later in the game you gain more, but the two item slot I can use so far is a bit limited. 2 potions or 2 kind of food (or a mix of the two) is not very much. Something like four slot would be probably more enjoyable.

    The game is still a precious gem, and one of the best titles for PS4 so far, but my vote for it is around 8/10, perhaps 8.5/10, mostly because it's pure gameplay aspect is definitely clunky.