Save a fortune on gaming. Games consoles can be expensive and it can also be a bit of a minefield deciding on the right one. And it’s not just the consoles themselves that cost a lot of money, the games and extra controllers can really hike the costs up.
Recently Harrison has started making noises about wanting a PlayStation 4 for Christmas, because that’s what his best friends have all got. I’ve had a chat to him about maybe trading in his Nintendo for one – in the same way he traded in his Xbox One for the Nintendo – and he’s thinking about it but would prefer to get one from Santa (yes he still believes in Santa, or at least tells us he does).
My main issue with all this, despite the costs, is whether it will even get used. He hardly ever used the Xbox for instance. So when I discovered that Playstation have a service called PS Now that allows you to play hundreds of their games on even a modest old laptop I was over the moon.
I was even more pleased to see that the 700+ games included loads of the Lego games available as well as kids favourites like Little Big Planet 3 and Ratchet and Clank. What’s more PS Now offer a free one week trial period that could be followed by a monthly, three monthly or annual subscription priced at £8.99, £22.99 and £49.99 respectively.
The only problem I had was that I didn’t have a PS4 controller and these cost around £50, which is way more that I was willing to pay to test out the service for a month.
So my first thoughts were to check out Gioteck, whose controllers I’ve previously reviewed for the Nintendo Switch, and who sell for a fraction of the price of the official controllers. I was really pleased to see that they sell a number of different PS4 controllers including wired controllers and wireless ones, starting at just £17.99.
I went with the wired Gioteck VX-4 partly because it was the cheapest at £19.99, partly because wired means you don’t have to remember to charge it (which is important in my kids’ cases) and partly because I felt wired was more likely to work with PS Now on my PC.
The VX-4 comes in a variety of colours and designs but I opted for a straightforward blue design since that’s Harrison’s favourite colour. It has a lightweight feel to it compared to the official controller that Harrison’s friend has but feels sturdy enough in the hand and otherwise very similar. All the buttons are there and there are only very subtle differences in the shape.
Despite being PC compatible the VX-4 is designed primarily for PlayStation 4 owners and will simply plug and play with a PS4 without having to do anything to set it up. For my PC however I had to follow some quicjk basic instructions that involved me plugging the controller into my PC, going to Gioteck’s website and downloading a small file to update the firmware. This was really easy to follow and once I’d done this it was instantly recognised by the PS Now app on my laptop.
Going through the PS Now menu, the VX-4 controller was responsive and this was also the case once I loaded up any of the games I tried out. During a game it felt very comfortable to use and the sticks had the right amount of pull and grip while the triggers and shoulder buttons felt responsive at the same time.
Harrison was over the moon with the controller, instantly recognising it as being for a PS4. “But where’s the PS4?” he asked.
“Here,” I told him, pointing at my old laptop. He didn’t believe me at first, but after trying out a good dozen or so of the games on PS Now for PC he’s hooked, and more determined than ever to get a PS4 for Christmas.
PS Now for PC verdict- 9/10 – I was literally amazed to realise that this service was available on PC- and that it could be used on even a 5 year old mid-range laptop. They manage this by streaming the games in the same way that Netflix works, so it doesn’t even use up any of your hard drive for the games. With over 700 games available the kids won’t be stuck for something to play, but the most recent big name games aren’t on there for obvious reasons.
NOTE: If you’re more interested in Xbox then there is a similar service called Gamepass that can be used on a PC, but your computer may need to be a much higher spec to run the games.
Gioteck wired VX-4 review -9/10– You can’t really go wrong with Gioteck for such a good price. Their controllers are sturdy, responsive and often superior in visual design to the originals. In this case I went with plain blue (also buying a plain red controller for our daughter once I was sure it worked with my PC). The kids have had hours of fun with the controllers on PS Now since and it only cost £35.98 for the pair of them. It also means that if Harrison does get a PS4 in future we’ll have two spare controllers for family fun.
