The History
May 16th, 2005, Los Angeles California. Sony’s PlayStation 3 console was unveiled to the public, or rather a trailer for a game named Killzone 2 was shown. Within days, claims of pre-rendered footage were abound. After confirmation that the trailer was indeed only a target, Sony received quite a bit of negative press. And that was only the beginning.
Kaz Hirai @ E3 2006
The PS3 was originally announced with two HDMI ports, 3 Ethernet ports, 7 USB ports and numerous other abilities. The system was going to have a world wide release in the spring of 2006. This did not happen. In fact, Sony denied a delay up until a few months before the supposed release. So after officially delaying the PS3 till Fall of 06 (Spring of 07 in Europe), the system itself was unveiled at E3 2006. Unfortunately for gamers so was the price. $599. And that’s the only number gamers saw.
Yes Sony’s PlayStation 3 had a difficult beginning. Marred by bad press, massive damage jokes and 4 dimensions it seemed to be all doom and gloom for Sony. But on November 17th (11th in Japan) Sony released the console in North America. And it didn’t suck.
I’m not going to bore people with the system details. The system has been out for months now, everyone knows about the Cell processor and its 7 SPEs. You know what Blu-Ray is. You’ve heard about Sony’s free online network.
The Purchase
I spent over a month of gaming time with the PS3. I wanted to try to judge it as fairly as possible. I picked up the system with one game (Motorstorm) and cautiously swiped my debit card through the reader at GameStop, $698.54 displayed across the screen. I almost wanted an armed escort to the car.
Arriving at home with the new box I feverishly ripped it open. I gently unwrapped the system from it’s foamy clothes and there it stood. Shiny. Glossy. Black. Ooooooooh.
While the looks of the system may not be for everyone, it’s definitely got a strong presence in any entertainment rack. The PlayStation 3 easily stands out as the centerpiece. It’s a huge and heavy system, slightly bigger than an XBox 360; but without that big ass powerbrick that is somewhat of a joke to gamers.
The Hookup
After unpacking everything I hooked it up to my TV via the included standard AV cables. No HD out of the box here, you’ll need to hit up Monoprice.com for an $11 HDMI cable or drop $20 for a set of component cables. Turning the system on greets you with a powerful Orchestral tune. No doubt a reminder of the size of your purchase and the power the system contains.
Navigating the Cross-Media Bar (the main interface) is fairly simple and straightforward, it’s especially familiar for PSP owners. After setting HDMI output and 1080p the PS3 truly came to life. I have to admit, there’s something incredibly sexy about the XMB. It’s simple, but elegant. And best of all it’s functional and fast.
The PS3
The Noise
A major complaint of XBox 360 owners is the noise level of their system. Thankfully the PS3 is a quiet as can be. The fan noise is no more loud than a normal laptop. It’s a welcome change. The slot loading Blu-Ray Drive is fairly quiet as well, even during loading and movie watching. This is perhaps where Microsoft went wrong by choosing a tray based drive.
The Heat
As consoles get more and more powerful, they consume more and more energy and therefore give off more and more heat. The PS3 is no exception. With an internal power supply and an advanced cell processor this puppy really blows heat. In fact, the heat coming out of one side of the system was so hot, it actually melted the glue on the back of a nearby picture frame! Holy Hot tamales!
The Controller
The Dual-Shock design got a slight face lift with the PS3. Now the SIXAXIS the controller, it’s wireless, and without rumble. In rumble’s place comes a brand new motion control system that detects six axis of movement. This feature works well, and in some cases provides an excellent gameplay mechanic; in others it feels forced.
The L2 and R2 buttons are now triggers, much more akin to the XBox 360 controller. The controller is surprisingly light, no doubt due to the lack of rumble motors. Overall though it’s still that classic PlayStation feel.
A few issues have been reported with the controller, mostly due to interference from household appliances like cordless phones and microwaves. A few times I had the controller basically go unresponsive for a few seconds, but overall it really wasn’t an issue.
The Games
This is a gaming console after all, so we need to talk about the games. The really great thing about the PlayStation 3 is it allows you to not only play PlayStation 3 titles and PlayStation Network downloadable games, but also original PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 titles.
Ooooh…Shiny!
Motorstorm (PS3)
Motorstorm was the reason I picked up the system. The game has garnered rave reviews from numerous media outlets. Obviously the biggest selling point of the game is it’s graphics, and they do not dissappoint. Texture detail is incredibly photo realistic, and the models of the cars, bikes and trucks are all very well done. Gameplay is fast and smooth with rarely a hiccup.
The game features free online play, support for buddy lists, and free downloadable content. There can be up to 16 racers in a match, and all of the races I tried were completely lag free thanks to dedicated servers.
Controls are tight, with the option to use the SIXAXIS’s motion control. The lack of rumble in the controller is especially apparent in this game, and it’s definitely missed.
Motorstorm isn’t without it’s problems though. For one, the loading times are atrocious, they are especially noticeable when choosing your vehicle. There’s a good 10 second pause as it loads up the model. Even changing the skin of the vehicle causes a 5 second pause. Loading times of the tracks aren’t much better with some tracks taking 30 seconds or more to load. Finally the game suffers fomr a lack of variety in the courses; most courses take place in a mid-west canyon/desert motif.
Bottom Line: As impressive as it is, I’m not sure it as longevity. Rental.
Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Resistance was the PlayStation 3’s flagship title. The game was created by Insomniac, makers of the Ratchet and Clank series. The game it set in an alternate World War 2 scenario in which a strange virus overtakes the Eastern Hemisphere.
While the game has some pretty impressive narrative, I couldn’t help but feel something was missing overall. The weapons while somewhat interesting, seemed to lack punch. The level design is very linear, and some areas lack a lot of detail while others are littered with objects.
Resistance: Fall of Man
The multiplayer features up to 40 players at a time online. I only managed to get into 1 match that was full with 40 people. The gametype was team deathmatch and it was absolute insanity. There was very little if any lag during the match, once again, thanks to Sony’s free dedicated servers. Microsoft really needs to step up their game here as Sony is making them look plain silly offering dedicated servers for free while Microsoft is offering peer to peer for pay.
Bottom line: The single player is fairly mediocre, but the online multiplayer is a blast. So if that’s your cake this is a solid purchase.
Blast Factor (PSN)
Blast Factor was Sony’s answer to the success of Geometry Wars on XBox Live Arcade. The game is a fast paced dual analog stick shooter that is actually a lot closer to Mutant Storm: Reloaded (another XLBA title). In the game you progress from cell to cell defeating various enemies.
Graphics and gameplay are both solid, and the controls for the most part are tight. The developers attempted to integrate the SIXAXIS control in a way I found very annoying. Not because of the gameplay mechanic, but because of the jerking motion required to get it to work. I don’t think this was an issue with the controller itself, but rather an issue with how the developers utilized it.
Bottom Line: For $10 this is a worthy purchase, though multiplayer requires an additional $3 download.
Call of Duty 3 (PS3)
I wanted to compare a PS3 title with an XBox 360 title directly. I chose CoD3 for the comparison. For the most part they look and play identical, though the PS3 has a brighter less contrasty palette to it.
Bottom Line: Edge goes to the 360 version.
God of War (PS2)
I won’t go into details reviewing a 3 year old title, but the game performed and looked good on the PS3. Progressive scan and wide screen modes worked flawlessly, though I had to choose it every time I loaded the game. The other really great feature with the PS3 is the ability to create virtual memory cards for PS2 and PS1 games. Some games do have an issue with this, the recently release Raiden 3, but it more or less works flawlessly. It’s a welcome change from the backwards compatibility with the Wii which requires both original Game cube controllers and memory cards to work.
The only minor annoyance (and this is PS2 titles only) is the need to constantly resync the SIXAXIS controller when a game starts up. Basically it goes like this, Turn on PS3 Controller -> PS2 Games Starts -> Turn on PS3 Controller -> Play Game -> Exit Game -> Turn on PS3 Controller. Apparently this should soon be a thing of the past thanks to a firmware update.
Bottom Line: Amazing game. Works well on the PS3.
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
Someone needs to remake this game for the Next-Gen systems. The game truly showed the limitations of the PS2. Apparently rumble is an integral part to this game, but I honestly didn’t know I was missing it until someone mentioned it.
Bottom Line: Rumble may be lacking, but it’s not totally missed. Solid title.
Vagrant Story
Vagrant Story (PS1)
Still one of the best RPGs ever, Vagrant Story on PlayStation 1 still holds up well today in terms of gameplay. One thing missing from the PS1 emulation is the ability to use texture smoothing, an option that was on the PS2 version of the emulator.
Bottom Line: Game holds up well, loading times are fast but it’s beginning to show it’s age.
Star Wars: Masters of the Terras Kasi (PS1)
This game wasn’t good when it came out, and it’s still not good today. But it’s one of the few PS1 discs I still own. The game worked just fine and dandy with super fast loading times.
Bottom Line: Eeek..this game still sucks. And it looks bad to boot.
The 4th Dimension
What is the 4th Dimension? It’s the PlayStation Network. Sony’s answer to XBox Live comes out of the box and it comes free. But how does it stack up?
From a purely gameplay standpoint, that is in terms of performance of the games played, reliability and such the PSN easily meets that of XBox Live. The problem though is when you step back and look at the broader picture.
The PSN feels very much like the original XBox Live when it came out. With a lack of common interface between games, lack of unified buddy list between games, lack of standard voice chat and the inability to even check messages in game there’s a distinct disconnect with the service. There’s also the constant user agreements you must accept in games, when downloading content, when getting updates, etc. It’s a minor annoyance but an annoyance none the less.
XBox Live offers you a complete socialization package, one that allows you to meet new people, make friends easily and launch games quickly. The PSN offers you a more PC oriented package as well as some of the features of XBox Live like Quick and Ranked matches. My biggest disappoint is the lack of voicechat in games. Even though most titles support voice chat, it’s rarely used. It simply doesn’t feel like playing a game with a bunch of buddies around the TV, instead you might as well be playing AI. I think the ironic thing about this statement is the number one complaint by most people with XBox Live is the childish chatter on the voice channels; yet here I am complaining about the lack of any chatter. I think it could go a long way if Sony released a first party Blue tooth headset for the system, or better yet started including one standard in the box. With a few software updates the PSN definitley has the potential to meet the XBox Live service. Especially with upcoming products like [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_Home]Home[/url].
The Media Functions
Blu-Ray
It’s all about Blu-Ray. From the beginning it’s been said this was the driving factor behind the PS3. It wasn’t about the games, it was about selling Blu-Ray discs and making it the format of chose for the next-generation of disc formats. But how good IS Blu-Ray?
Having both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players now I was able to compare the quality and features of the two discs. Blu-Ray seems to have one distinct advantage, and that is a higher disc capacity with a greater overall transfer speed allowing more bandwidth. For the most part the end consumer is not going to see this advantage,but theoretically this should allow for a less compressed video with higher quality audio.
The few Blu-Ray discs I watched all had solid picture quality and excellent audio quality. Honestly the difference between the discs I’ve seen on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are negligable. The ONLY difference I found is the HD-DVD menu system seems to be a bit snappier and snazzier.
Music/Video
Playing music and video files via the XMB was quick and painless. I simply popped in a memory stick or a CD and the content was instantly available. The PS3 visualizer is particularly nice for music playing, and it supports CDDB for track listings and such.
The one thing lacking is the ability to stream video/audio from a computer or other device. Hopefully Sony will add this feature sometime in the future.
In general I’ve found the audio quality on the PS3 to be excellent. In fact it’s noticeably better than the XBox 360. I’d compare it to the difference between Dolby Digital and DTS, which ironically, the PS3 supports both of while the 360 only supports Dolby Digital.
The Conclusion
So we’ve come to the end of my tale. And if you are still reading this, then bravo! Most likely you skipped right to this part and you want to know, you want to know if $600 is really worth it.
I think the bottom line is, if you have the money and you are passionate about gaming then there is no doubt in my mind you should pick up a Playstation 3. But if money is tight, and you already own a XBox 360 I can only recommend you wait for a price drop or a killer app. Because frankly, right now, the Playstation 3 has no killer app.
Free online play is great, and it’s a step in the right direction. The value of everything you get in the box is amazing. You truly get an all in one media and gaming appliance, and one that should last you for 5 or 6 years.
3.5 out of 5
The Good:
+ Lots of functionality right out of the box
+ Free online play with dedicated servers
+ Quality Blu-Ray Player
+ Excellent potential
The Bad:
- Very few games.
- No standout game as a system seller.
- Sync issues and other quirks with the controller
The Ugly:
- $600 is a huge investment.
Excellent write up BA. I think you pretty much summed up my experience with the PS3 thus far.
A blog called Killzone Unit did a Q&A with Dave Karraker. It was mostly BS but he did provide news that they are hard at work on the Playstation Network. The interview can be found at http://www.killzoneunit.com/kz/?p=439 if you’re interested in a quick read.