I had the most trouble with slowdown while in space, but it also popped up when designing larger vessels. That’s to be expected, to some extent, given all of the physics simulations happening behind the scenes it’s demanding on PCs, too. Kerbal‘s performance varies quite a bit on PS4. No amount of practice can help you get around that.Īside from the not-exactly-intuitive controls, the other big question mark was how the game would run on consoles.

While I was eventually able to memorize most of the important button inputs, there’s this inherent lack of smoothness and speed to a mouse pointer when controlled by an analog stick. But setting up orbital maneuvers or anything else that requires a precise touch? That sure is a pain to pull off. I’d encourage you to do the same, even if you’re familiar with “ the basics.”Ī gamepad is perfectly adequate when you’re leisurely snapping together pieces of a rocket, or controlling the thing once it’s launched in the air. With all of that in mind, I felt like I needed to go through the tutorials again to stand a chance. There are only so many buttons to go around, and the end result is this scary heap of input commands.

Kerbal on PS4 makes full use of the DualShock 4 and also relies on an emulated mouse pointer, but that’s not quite enough for a game like this. That’s doubly true on consoles where even if you know what you’re supposed to do, you might not know how to execute crucial actions due to the new controls. You can’t expect to go charging right in. I’m not even good at Kerbal - pretty bad, actually! - and it has given me some of the most satisfying, deeply rewarding gaming experiences of my life. It’s an intellectually challenging game, one with lots of moving parts and procedures to be mindful of on both a micro and macro scale, but the payoff is always worth it. Even the smallest accomplishments feel like massive victories, and once you experience that euphoria, you won’t want to quit.” I may have felt confused, and irritated, and hopeless at times, but those setbacks were fleeting. But, come to think of it, not once was I bored with Kerbal Space Program. “My main fear of simulation titles is that I’ll get bored. Prior to last week, it had been quite a while since I had last touched or even really thought about Kerbal, but I still feel the same way about it now as I did back when I reviewed the PC release in 2014: How is it on a gamepad? Complicated, for sure, but more playable than you might think. After spending about a week with the PS4 version, I feel qualified to answer. More than anything else, that has been my major concern with the console ports of Squad’s rocket-building space-exploration simulator. “ Kerbal Space Program on a gamepad? How in the sweet hell is that going to work?”

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