Well guys, it's here and it's fabulous
Demon's Souls is too good. I found myself slowly walking every single corridor. I've beaten the game in the past both on the PS3 and earlier this year on PC emulation. I thought the graphics would be the key thing as the loading times on the emu were nearly zero.
But nope, it was a combination of the visuals (yes, they are great) together with the sound and controller feedback. The sense of immersion felt as mind blowing as when I tried VR for the first time. You hear every cracking sound of floorboards, enemies breathing and groaning. It puts you in a place where you stop interacting as if it was a video game, instead you feel like you're really there. As a consequence you stop running around like an idiot, it just feels normal to walk as if you would in real life and consume all the extra sensory information you're getting.
I don't know if everyone would be affected this way. I'm sure there's a connection to this spatial sound profile Cerny was talking about. I did the test and all 5 of them sounded like they were coming from different places. Only the 4th one seemed about right to me.
Having said this, I played Spider Man MM as well. The feeling of immersion is night and day when compared to DeS. The game is gorgeous, fun and the loading transitions are nowhere to be seen. But that's it, it feels like a game, just prettier. Demon's Souls feels TRUE next gen.
I honestly can't fucking wait for other actual ground up built titles that are next gen exclusives. I loved my PS4, but seriously, I hope it dies and fast! You can't go back after you experience true next gen games. I can only compare this shift to going from SNES Mario to Mario 64 (complete paradigm shift).
But hey, that's just me