Monday, October 9, 2023

Cloud Monday - Matterfall - Part 1 - Cloud Streaming Copes OK With All The Particles On Screen


This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Matterfall, a PS4 game from Housemarque that came out in 2017. I wanted to see how this game would hold up being streamed from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming as it has a lot of particles that, on services like YouTube, can appear to be blocky rather than the fine points of detail they are.

And for the most part, the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service was able to cope with the, at times excessive, amounts of particles on screen at a time. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that when the quality did drop and things got a bit blocky it wasn't too noticeable and not for very long.

The game has a mechanic that makes it a good choice to be streamed from the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Service. we know, and have seen, that the service will give you a 20 second warning when it'll kick you off. thankfully, Matterfall has, mostly regular, checkpoints. this means that you're either not too far from reaching one or haven't progressed far since your last one. because of this, i wasn't worried about loosing progress and felt relaxed continuing on. 

Whilst streaming it is fine, the game itself has it's own quirks that will take time to get used to. the one that annoyed me throughout the video was the control scheme. i feel like i never truly mastered it. the focus is on the R1 and L1 buttons and using them in combination and it's just something i've not really done in games. the other thing i mention a few times is how our weapon feels so weak right from the beginning. Hopefully i'll get more familiar with it in part 2, but for now this does make it more difficult whether or not to recommend the game 'cause on one hand it's game design means it's a great choice to stream but on the other hand it's gameplay feels lacking.