So, I Now Have a PS3
Posted by Patrick on 23 Mar 2008
Eventually, I knew this would happen; eventually, I knew there would be a line crossed from which the temptation could not be overcome; eventually, I knew that I would find myself owning one of Sony’s most love-hate debated toys, the convexoconvex-shaped obsidian-black PS3. I have the 40GB model, which means I was also treated to a comp of Spiderman 3 (THWIPP!) on Blu-Ray and I got a single sixaxis controller, but that was about it.
My first thought was something like “damn this hog is heavy” when I compare it to the Wii, which is about the size and weight of 3 DVD cases stacked together. Granted, the Wii isn’t the biggest badass in gaming over the last year+ and it isn’t the most highly rated fun machine in the universe … oh wait, yeah it is. Ok so granted, the Wii doesn’t advertise 1080p graphics and Blu-Ray playback, but my dissertation on the Wii is a different post. The point is, the PS3 is a big bitch, and she’s got a fat ass to go with it; must be a Georgia girl.
Of course I had to have a game with it to justify taking it out of the box. My game of choice - Rock Band. As the proud owner of GH3 on Wii, and a prior owner of GH2 and GH2 80’s encore both on PS2, I have to admit that I’m pretty sold on the GH line of games except for the coming title that is GH:Aerosmith. While I believe Joe Perry is one of the iconic music figures of the last 30 years, there are a zillion people who don’t think so and the target audience for GH:Aerosmith is going to be the 30+ crowd since today’s heavy gamers aren’t old enough to truly respect Aerosmith’s heyday. Anyway, second sidebar finished. I got Rock Band. I love it.
Most people who are experience GH players will say Rock Band is “too easy” in its guitar parts. What I’ve played of the guitar sets, comparing the “Hard” level difficulty on both games, I am inclined to agree that GH3 is “harder” than Rock Band at the end of the game. I haven’t played through Rock Band on “Expert” with the guitar yet so I don’t know how it stacks up. HOWEVER, that is where the comparisons effectively end. In every other way - from character creation to online play to downloadable music (I’m biased here b/c of GH3 on Wii and RB on PS3) to just the overall soundtrack of the game - RB is hands down better than GH3. Plus, if I get bored of “Green Grass and High Tides Forever” on expert, I can always plug in the microphone and sing while I play for an added challenge that GH3 could never provide. My only knock on Rock Band is that there should be a tour mode available for the bass guitar parts - bass is pretty fun in RB.
Back to the PS3 itself. I found the “home” menu a little unwieldy, honestly. Sure it has all of the options, but the fishbone layout is nearly awful and some features aren’t where I’d expect them to be in their main menu categories. The sixaxis controller, regardless of the palindrome, is actually pretty nice once it gets a full charge - I learned that I could just charge it off of my PC instead of leaving the PS3 on for years, so that helped. My one other knock on the PS3 overall is that it doesn’t have a standby mode. It is either fully on or fully off with no happy medium. But that is where the Wii smokes it with its messaging protocol/feature. My blue Wii lights are flashing right now, even.
What I need in order to make the PS3 a mainstay at home - some family titles like stuff I could do with my boys. Assassin’s Creed doesn’t quite cut it, neither does COD4, Heavenly Sword or GTA4, though those titles would be great for me by myself. The EA sports line just won’t ever make it at my house because, except for Tiger Woods’ golf games, their sports games blow. The other thing that needs to happen here is that Sony needs to branch out and stop reaching into only the heaviest gamer genres with their titles. They could certainly take a lesson from Nintendo on this one. But, now that the Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD (HHD DVVDD BVD for those in the know) battle is officially over, it looks like PS3 sales are going to have a leg to stand on, finally.
