GameLuv on PlayStation 3 – Part 1
Yup. That’s a PlayStation 3 alright. And it’s right there in our living room, right in our entertainment center. It’s actually quarantined away from the Wii and the Xboxes but it wasn’t intentional. So how did this happen? How did I, a vehement anti-PS3 gamer end up buying one?
The Deal
The price cut was enticing but when that news hit about clearing out the 60gb model to jack the price right back up for the heftier hard drive I was torn. Sad as it seems $500 is probably as cheap as the PS3 is going to get for a while. The bigger hard drive I can live without as I haven’t even come close to filling up the 360’s meager 20gb drive in nearly a year. But what really got me was the limited backward compatibility of the new model. I think of it along the lines of the 360, which is to say, pointless. A handful of games made playable on a sporadic basis is actually quite heart breaking. Will Mr. Domino play today? Oh, nope, sorry, try again in six months.
Circuit City still had a nice deal going too. Buy a PS3 at $499 and get a free SIXAXIS controller. Not bad, that’s a $50 savings which we’d almost have to spend immediately anyways. We set up local pick up and avoided the emotional rollercoaster that is “free shipping” and went last friday night to collect our reward.
The System
It’s big! No wider than the 360 but this bombshell’s got girth. The surface is also very plastic-y. I don’t know what I was expecting (brushed steel?) but it actually feels kinda cheap and, of course, is a dust and fingerprint magnet. Pray you don’t have to change discs while enjoying some greasy food.
It’s also hot, and I don’t mean hawt. The thing may be quieter than the 360 but it’s almost possible to dry your hair from the heat that seeps out of this box. The cover on the left that hides the memory card slots is nice as are the four USB ports at front. Three of them have already been used at once. The best surface feature are the “buttons”. It’s like sci-fi where you just wave your finger across the surface and stuff happens. If I weren’t worried about the cushion drive failing I could sit there all day and pop discs in and out. This is obviously what the Cell processor was designed to handle.
The Controller
It’s great. I’ve been using this same controller for over a decade now and even though it’s lighter, doesn’t rumble, and has funky L2/R2 triggers it immediately feels comfortable in my hands. Yes, the lower left analog stick is a bit harder to use now that we’ve been through the Xbox and GameCube era but I didn’t feel it was hindering my game at any point. The PS button is an obvious rip from the 360 but it’s good that you can shut down the system or controllers from it as well as fiddle with “virtual memory cards”, check the controller’s power, reassign the pads, and ditch back to the dashboard all from one press.
It doesn’t light up or animate when the system comes on though which is a serious downer. The plug-n-charge cable is also ridiculously short at no more than four feet. Setting up a high tech $500 “super console” with your nose stuck in the screen because you can’t move any farther away sure isn’t very engaging.
The Interface
We’ve actually spent more time discussing this than any other aspect of the system. By far Microsoft has the best interface this generation. Colorful and well organized it’s possible to navigate the 360 dashboard by color alone. The PS3’s Xross Media Bar (XMB) in contrast, is pretty boring. Small gray icons line the top of the screen while a pretty, yet utterly boring, ripple glides around in the back. The faint color tones seemingly change throughout the day so if you always play after 6 or 7pm it’s nothing more than gray on black. The text is also dramatically small. Even setting things down to 720p doesn’t make much of a difference. The internet browser has the ability to scale up text so why not the XMB?
There’s also a ton of settings with vague descriptors like Video Conversion, Cross Color Reduction, and choices between Linear PCM and Bitstream. I consider myself pretty well versed in the tech and I don’t understand some of this stuff. It’s obviously not designed with a casual user in mind.
Organizing your media is a fair bit easier but there are hardly any on-screen buttons to say ‘press X to copy this track’ or ‘press O to cancel delete’. It also doesn’t help that a sub-menu of options is accessed via the Triangle button which you’d only know about if you dove into the manual. I understand trying to be slick and stylish but most users would never even realize it’s possible to delete content. Maybe that’s the idea behind the 80gb model. Don’t even worry about pesky tasks like deleting or copying, just buy a bigger hard drive!
It’s not a mess but in trying to be ultra minimalistic Sony has made navigating media and games more bothersome than it need be.
Online Stuff
Where the 360 has the Marketplace broken down into content types all incorporated into the dashboard scheme, the PlayStation Store is a web page. It’s not a very exciting interface although I do appreciate the What’s New and Top Downloads lists. Price icons also help instantly decide what to click on or ignore. Movie trailers are nice but unlike the 360 there’s no video service which makes for a big disconnect. There also isn’t much content at all. Even after E3 there’s only a handful of videos and demos and even fewer bits of downloadable content. But, things are still early for the PS3 and it’s probably possible to integrate a better store interface in the future. As it is now it’s functional but I could see it being a real chore to navigate once there’s four, five, or ten times more content.
In the name of journalism I went ahead and bought Calling all Cars through the store. Compared to the ambiguous point systems used by Microsoft and Nintendo it is nice to see actual dollar amounts for content but upon checking out I was shocked to see I was being charged tax on my virtual purchase. There best be a physical copy on its way; sadly, I know there’s not.
Speaking of downloads, let’s talk about installations. Once your download is complete you have to install it. I appreciate compressing the files to save me download time but it really bugs me to sit through one progress bar just to look at another before I can even load up a demo. The lack of try-before-you-buy demos is also disheartening. The only game I’ve checked out is Super Rub a Dub simply because I could play it without forking over the funds first. The PS3 boasts a built in wireless connection, and it works, but it sure is slow. It’s to be expected but compared to the 360 (which I have plugged into the router) the PS3 takes ages to grab stuff. I have yet to try an online game or even a voice/video chat.
In Part 2
I’ve covered most of our concerns and delights with the system and its functionality. Up next (to be posted at a currently undisclosed date), are the games and any other bits I left out of this uber-post. Now, it’s time to call all cars.
