FOREWORD BY DOC: I never thought I would see the day. Over the weekend, Lono bought a PS3, and in true Lono form a slew of games and peripherals. He called me and was audibly shaken. “I don’t know man. This better not suck. That was a lot of dough,” he told me, apparently unaware that he had an option NOT to add every available add-on to his cart. For the past several months our podcast has been at time criticized for not following PS3 news as much as we could. Well, be careful what you wish for fanboys. Lono’s one of YOU now.
I finally collected enough Best Buy Gift Cards and goodwill with my wife to allow me to purchase a Playstation 3. You can finally check that little item off of your Apocalypse Checklist.
How the heck did this happen? After my purchase of a PS3 on Saturday, I now own or have owned every gaming apparatus ever made by Sony and I’m ashamed to admit I owned a mini disc player at one time too… The PS3 was just too expensive to justify. I don’t know why I get accused of being an Xbox 360 fanboy. I defy anybody to check out my articles and to find any fanboy stuff in any of them.
Well, now I’ve got one and I’ll just go through my first impressions… Yay! Blogging like its 2006! I know, I know, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the last person to buy a PS3, so bear with me.
My first impression when I took the thing out of the box was that it looks way cooler than the 360. It’s like something out of Star Trek, but way cooler. It’s totally silent as well, which was a welcome perk and was pretty easy to set up, although the actual system set up stuff takes forever…
As for games? Well I picked up Warhawk and it’s expansion, Lair (yes I like the game), Motorstorm, and a bunch of PSN games that I’ll give quick reviews later in the week. I know that I’m a little late to the party on Motorstorm, but dang if it doesn’t look purty.
Due to my familiarity with the PSP, the actual user interface wasn’t as daunting as most people may find it at first. It’s a bit overwhelming with the amount of customization and settings you must apply, or set, or tweak, for your optimal experience. The whole set up is pretty slick, after you get used to it. No problems there.
Now for some gripes. Downloading and installing games is a bit time consuming. First you have to find the game on PSN, which isn’t the most user friendly store I’ve ever used, but I have heard that the store will be a bit streamlined in the coming months. After you finally find whatever it is that you want, you download it, and you can download multiple items, unlike on the 360. Here’s the kicker: after you finally download the item, you have to install it and you can’t do anything else while you’re installing it. That sucks.
Second gripe: I couldn’t use Lono Lives as my PSN ID. Also couldn’t use Lono_Lives, so I had to settle for LonoLives. Sucks.
Another gripe: Voice chat. You can’t do anything else when you’re chatting with a friend, which really kind of makes you want to avoid chatting with people. I hope they fix that.
What about inviting friends to games? Is this even possible, or maybe I’m just an idiot because I can’t figure it out? I dunno, but when I was trying to get some peeps together to play Warhawk, I ended up having to host the match because I couldn’t figure out how to invite friends once I got in a server. That sucks big time and in the long run it will likely limit my multiplayer purchases for the PS3. I hope they fix this as well.
Overall, it’s a slick device that is a bit cumbersome and really seems unfinished, even after over a year and a half after launch. I know they constantly update the firmware, but some of my gripes are basic and I hope they address them sooner, rather than later.
One quick recommendation though, go and buy Pixel Junk Monsters. That game rules them all.
Want more PS3 v. 360 talk, reviews and debate? Check out the Sarcasticgamer.com Podcast right here!
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@Lono
you wont have to worry about price drops for a while, i have a feeling they wont be obligated to lower prices (with Blu-ray victory and all) untill a few months after MGS4 and maybe if FFXIII is close to release (which i dont think it will be) itll be even longer, look for a price drop months after MGS4 though… Sony doesnt need to drop the prices its already the most fully functional Blu-ray disc player and the cheapest price. also the fact that they have been outselling the XBOX360 for months now can attribute to that fact.
My experiences with Xbox 360 have been interesting to say the least. My first system overheated and froze, my refurb replacement gave error messages and scratched discs, the next four did the same thing, and finally the system I have now only rarely gives read errors and no scratches yet. I began using d-skins to protect my investment following an acquaintance moving the system while on (first system), I then began using game skins from Gamestop (EB/Software Etc) and good thing I did otherwise these series of Xbox 360 refurbs would have destroyed my Saints Row, Halo 3, BioShock & Call of Duty 4 discs plus a few more titles. Microsoft does not admit there is an issue, therefore if I had not protected my investment at my own personal cost, they would have at this point destroyed a bare minimum of $240 dollars worth of games and would not replace any of them except Halo 3 upon me paying them $20 for a replacement disc. I also bought a Xbox 360 wireless head set, in which the battery was defective, I then had to exchange it three times at GameCrazy, all of which died with the same problem, before finally having to contact Microsoft and at my own expense ship them the item for replacement. I estimate I’ve spent over $75 dollars protecting my investment. This has lead me to seriously considering dumping the entire platform based on the fact that Microsoft does not value, nor respect its customers enough to make things right with them when they’re clearly to blame. Therefore PS3 with its Blu-ray, featuring the most important multi-platform games running in parity is very attractive considering I have heard almost nothing but good things by large regarding their hardware. With that said there is the lack of in-game XMB and in-game messaging, but those should be available in April and Home is very interesting as a social networking application I believe could evolve the way people meet to party up in games (much like Saints Row’s warehouse a 3d graphical environment that can be used for strategy and socializing before, later, and between matches). All told Micrsoft has the advantage on online for the moment, but in the hardware reliability category Sony has the clear advantage.
I have the same complaints. Recently, I’v noticed Rainbow Six Vegas 2 won’t let me even join my friends rooms. It seems like it works when it wants to. But, that’s not the PS3’s fault that’s Ubisoft’s fault. For making yet another buggy PS3 port. If you like hack and slash check out Heavenly Sword, it’s short but it looks great.
Well I recently bought a PS3 maybe about 3 weeks ago when my 360 died for the second time…..And i regret it….I am pretty sure that i will still buy more games for my 360…..to me there is no comparison…360 is the way to go…
I really don’t see how anyone who has experienced the best that both consoles have to offer could possibly say that the 360 is better. The 360 is not even a next gen machine. Anyone who thinks it is should ask themselves one question. Why is it that it cannot play Microsoft’s own HD format. Because it’s not a true high def machine. Blue Ray Disks are not written or read in the same way as DVD tech. The 360 is most definitely still DVD tech. Maybe that’s a little inside joke for Microsoft. Think about it, where do you end up if you do a 360 degree turn? Right back where you started. Same tech, same disc format with more memory and the standard quarterly upgrade in processing power. The PS3 is in it for the long haul. Soon we will be buying Blue Ray drives for our 360s and future 360 exclusive titles could even come on a BD. And what can I say about the Cell Processor. This isn’t just some new fangled fad. We will see this become the standard for processing over the next decade. We will also see it applied to robotics as it is the closest man has come to replicating the function of the human brain. Anyone who still cannot be convinced that the best thing they could possibly do for themselves and for gaming is to buy a PS3 should just hear this. A new Microsoft console will be here in the next 5 years. It will almost certainly come with a Blue Ray drive. I would bet it will feature some form of parallel processing capability, and I bet it will cost around oh I don’t know , 600 dollars. Wake up little kiddies.
@Killer Tomato: Gaming is all about the… wait for it… Games. Right now, the PS3 is still behind the 360. The cross-platform games suck on the PS3 vs. 360 and the 360 exclusives, overall, outshine the PS3 exclusives.
You must be one of those “imaginary games” fanboys.
You can have whatever fancy shmancy processor you want in your gaming machine, if it can’t get a cross-platform game to play properly, then I ask you:
What is the point?
Lono what is the point of paying for an online service that does not even use dedicated servers across the board, leaving you with something called host advantage? What is the point of buying a console where most of the console exclusives end up playing better on the PC? As long as you have a decent processor you could easily get a graphics card that would enable you to play most of the Xbox 360 console exclusives rather well anything more than that would probably run another 200-400USD. If you look at the PS3 exclusives you notice that they are not available on the PC for the most part. It doesn’t even make sense to buy a 360 for it’s exclusives when an overwhelming number of them end up on the pc. If it is about games the 360 really does not have much of anything worth buying. Of course in real life a purchase is about more than just games, it’s about what is cost effective, what you can do with the product, and what you are looking for not to mention build quality.
@shadowskill : The problem with your argument is two-fold.
1) Host advantage is seen only in GoW
2) Video cards and computers in general, are more expensive than 360’s.
Now what?
First off host advantage a is a phenomena not unique to any one game or network, it is a function of how the online play itself is structured. Who ever is the host of a game tends to have less lag than anyone else connecting to them. Secondly you do not need to buy the 600USD graphics card in order to get great visusals out of a pc game. Finally if you are a wise shopper you can pull off a good machine for around 400-600USD within the range of both of these consoles. Even if I grant you your second point it just means that the games available are not the sole reason for purchasing the console and that cost effectiveness is part of the equation as well.
(Quote)Lono // Mar 17, 2008 at 3:02 pm
@ Rothbart: Been collecting them since Christmas, my B-Day and rewards from my CC…
@LJ: please don’t use offensive words, they’ll just get deleted. Oh and I thought everybody knew that SDF is supposed to be satirical. It’s not a real “sony” site, it makes fun of… ah never mind.
AND YES, I LIKE LAIR. IN FACT, I REALLY LIKE LAIR. GET OVER IT. That game was given the shaft, I don’t know why, but Today, I’m raising my Freak Flag for Lair. Consider flag raised.
Let the Lair bashing commence, but be warned, it will not be taken kindly. (Quote)
i liked Lair also, (couldnt buy it before it repeatedly sold out here tho) along with heavenly sword, had some controller issues but fun game none the less. alot of the good ps3 games get the shaft just for 1 little issue usually complained about by someone who just cant grasp how todo / use it, of which is usually some little kid that cant figure it out and starts the whole issue. Both Lair and Heavenly sword are fair graphics and good game play so just ignore them
*By them i mean people complaining about certain games*