It’s been 7 years since Sony last blew up the gaming market with a new Playstation. Understandably then, the hype surrounding this latest release could almost drown out the whimpers of “Please daddy, get me a Playstation Fou-rrrrrrr” from the little people in your house—but not quite. Crazy season is upon us; your head is likely spinning, and heck, you need the facts. So we’re here to give you the scoop on this Christmas’ most hotly contested gaming battle: PS4 vs Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Specifications & Design
PS4:
Fully loaded with an 8-core AMD Jaguar CPU (2.75GHz) with an 800MHz AMD Radeon GPU and 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. The PS4 up’s the muscle-stakes significantly on the PS3, as you’d expect.
At 275mm wide and 305mm deep, the PS4 is not a small machine. Consider the addition of up to 2 controllers, head-mounted displays, games and power source; and you’ve got a potential storage nightmare on your hands.
Pictured: Example PS4 accessories, where will you store them?
Hungry Hungry Hippos:
Measuring around 266mm wide and 166mm deep, the latest incarnation of Hungry Hungry Hippos is their sleekest yet. For those on the move, you can also get the lightweight two-Hippo setup instead of the usual four, meaning it can be easily moved from room to room, or even transported in a packed car boot and taken on holidays.
Accessories (namely 20 plastic balls), store neatly inside the playing surface, and it even packs easily back into its box when game play is over. As standard, Hungry Hungry Hippos comes in a variety of colours, and adding to the overall excitement, you don’t really know from the picture on the box, exactly what colour the Hippos will be when opened.
Winner: Hungry Hungry Hippos – fun and functional, good design doing more with less.
Interactivity
PS4: Social gaming is at the heart of the revamped Playstation experience with the ability to upload screenshots, video clips or stream live gameplay to users around the world at the click of a button. With two ports for controllers, gameplay is however, limited to two people at a time (physically in the same room), but online multiplayer can be accessed through Playstation Plus, for €6.99 a month.
Hungry Hungry Hippos: Hungry Hungry Hippos can be played by 2, 3 or 4 players simultaneously (1-player is not recommended).
Winner: No contest, Hungry Hungry Hippos takes it with its 4-player mode (no Internet connection or credit card needed). This clearly trumps the PS4’s 2-player’s and PS Plus option.
Pictured: An attempt to play 1-player Hungry Hungry Hippos. Not advised.
Games
PS4: With it’s open developer network, PS4 launches with a decent array of games including Fifa 2014, Call of Duty Ghosts, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Need For Speed: Rivals. As is often the case on launch of a new console, the PS4 lacks that one killer game to make it standout. This will surely be rectified as more indie and Sony in-house games come on stream, but for now, it’s a little lacklustre.
Hungry Hungry Hippos: HHH have somehow managed to nail everything from day one. Right out the box the game was as good as it’s ever going to get. 4 hippos, 20 balls, a board…and lots of wild thrashing about. HHH’s biggest weakness however, is the tendency for the balls to scoot off and fly under various items of furniture, in some cases, never to be seen again.
Winner: Hungry Hungry Hippos. No agile product development here, they just got it right first time and shipped the best possible game.
Overall winner: Hungry Hungry Hippos
So there you have it folks, everything you need to know to make an informed purchase for your little angels this Christmas.
