So, What do you want a Playstation 3 for?

On Friday the 24th of November, my new Playstation 3 console arrived. I can’t remember ever receiving a new console, with so much bad press associated with it. I’ve even written bad things about it myself, but I can’t deny that whiff of excitement at busting open the box for the first time. Perhaps that whiff is actually a genuine facet of any new console, just the aroma of its newly formed plastic escaping its cardboard home for the first time.

As many other reviewers have already commented, the PS3 is a heavy beast. The built in power supply takes up a fair portion of the large outer case. While I am thankful the power supply is built in, you can’t help but thing the machine would be considerably smaller without it. And the Playstation 3 is too big. Bigger and heavier than the original Xbox, Sony must be praying that it’s shiny surfaces distract gamers from berating it like Microsoft’s first console. It’s a silly shape too, I always disliked the lines and non-symmetrical bottom half of the Playstation 2. While the PS3 looks smooth and aesthetically rather pleasing sideways, up on end its jolty lines resemble the silhouette of a power station. Perhaps that’s the point.

Connection is easy, well, once you know a few things. My machine is Japanese, so initially I just plugged it into my overworked but ever faithful step-down transformer. Plugged in my PS2 component TV cable, and was away. Half an hour of set up menus, tedious ‘read me first’ notices and click throughs, and I was finally rewarded with a nice orchestral tune up musical introduction. The screen then presented me with what can only be described as the front end of the PSP. Let’s be straight about this, i’m not particularly keen on the front end of the PSP. All that sideways scrolling, click everything three times for it to finally do what you asked, but not before confirming it one last time. Tedious.

After a little tinkering, my screen went black. The PS3 had turned itself off. I fumbled for my step-down and nearly burnt my hand off! The extra power consumption of the PS3 had actually melted my transformer to the carpet. Not only was I worried about the damage to the carpet, but how was I going to be able to continue playing with the machine. An hour of surfing the web for a better step-down, and I came across a debate on whether you even needed one. The thought of trusting a few gamers on a message board, and plugging a kettle cable straight into the back of my new console gave me sweats. However, finally I found a picture from a guy who’d actually taken his machine apart to prove the point. While the rear of the machine says 110v, the transformer inside has “100-240v” embedded into it’s body. I went ahead, and plugged in a standard cable, and thankfully the machine was fine. The PS3 is UK friendly, even though Sony would rather imprison hardcore gamers than sell them a machine. Anyway, back to the PS3.

Those with a Hi-Def TV will also be shocked by the initial graphic display. Only several hours later did I realise that it wouldn’t adapt to the TV setting automatically, and after some fiddling around, it looked pin prick sharp at 1080i. On the other side, internet connection was automatic, and download times are considerably faster than on the Xbox 360 through the same connection. I’ve always found the 360 download times incredibly sluggish, and the PS3 proves it is the machine and the framework rather than my connection. Anyway, first thing to do is to put in a game. The way the machine sucks in and spits out the discs is so much more gratifying than placing the disc in a tray.

First up is Resistance - Fall of man, the most highly rated of the dismal launch line up. Loading is slow, even once the game has loaded, starting your game makes you wince as it loads some more. On your first play, the game actually dumps some of its code to the hard drive, if this is supposed to speed access times up, heaven knows how slow it would have been without it. Into the game proper, and after the yawn inducing CGI introduction, you are presented with another on-rails FPS. Imagine Gears of War without the graphics, and you’re half way there. Personally I couldn’t play it for more than ten minutes, clunky and completely scripted. It’s hard to remember now, but Goldeneye and Perfect Dark felt so different to the current generation of first person shooters. We may not have had freedom, but we felt like there was. I blame Halo, which bewitched us so completely with great graphics and gunplay, that we didn’t mind the on-rails nature of the single player adventure. Unfortunately, Halo’s global success has made it the most imitated of the genre, leaving us with countless stale games, you could interchange them and nobody would notice... Gears of War, Prey , Fear , Lost Planet , Call of Duty.... There is a such a severe lack of originality, the same game umpteen times, each as dull as the last, all that effort creating ever more detailed graphics and effects, all thrown into a game I can’t be bothered to play. Anyway, back to PS3, again...

Resistance only runs in 720p screen size, and doesn’t adapt automatically, you have to go back to the start up screen, reset your screen setting and then load the game again. And yes, once finished with the game, you’ll need to change back again, Arrrrggghhh!

Ridge Racer 7 is so past its sell by date, the designers should be locked in a room and forced to play Project Gotham 3 or Burnout Revenge until their eyes bleed. It does like 1080i though, and looks silky smooth. But it’s all so irritatingly shiny. No dirt, no damage, no point! Long races on over long tracks, with a learning curve starting at 3 years old and working up to puberty by around race 1000. I won the first six races I played, and anyone who’s ever played a ridge racer before will win all their races until they finally and gently nod off to sleep. Plagued with loading intervals, patronising voice overs, and pointless cut scenes, RR7 is a throwback from the Playstation 1 days, and couldn’t be a worse driving game to force on PS3 early adopters with no other racing choice. The original Ridge Racer was one of the greatest games to ever launch a console. Ridge Racer 5 launched along with PS2, and was completely trashed by the gaming press. Ridge Racers on PSP rebuilt some credibility into the brand, but RR7 borrows heavily from RR5, and surely hammers the final nail in the coffin of this poorly developed series.

So disappointed was I with my first foray into PS3 gaming, I have yet to even try Genji - Days of Blade. It seems a shame to take the seal off of the box, if i’m just going to have another weapon with which to push the console even further down the toilet. Despite the disappointment in the software, my overall opinion is actually rather different.

Toying with the options on the home page, I was impressed with the music playback and the chill-out style graphic display which accompanies it. The way it evolves throughout tracks is quite stunning, though likely to cause spontaneous sleep. The photo options are also brilliant, filling your 42 inch TV with 1080i photos certainly beats printing them out, and the slide show options are fascinating. It is also so USB friendly, not only can you just plug any old camera in and dump the photos, but it’ll have a look at your PC hard drive too.

Web browsing is as painless as it can be without a mouse, though the way the images are zoomed makes it hard to read tiny text lines with ease. Indeed, this website is pretty hard to read on my TV. The Playstation store is great, a lot easier to navigate than the 360 equivalent, though there isn’t much content at the moment. Having downloaded all the available demos, it was with some relief that I played the Motorstorm demo, surely the ‘Killer Ap’ Sony intended to have ready for release with the console.

As an appetite quencher, the demo is too good for its own good. It’s quite far removed from the original E3 demos, and certainly plays in a similar way to other racing games. In fact, it reminded me most of the brilliant Destruction Derby on the original Playstation. You get to take a single race on either bike or buggy, over three laps. It’s packed full of action. In the demo there isn’t the big mix of vehicles promised in the previews, and dirt tracks made by cars don’t seem to make much difference to how you drive round on the next lap, but it is a thrilling racing game none the less. A turbo button helps boost you up hills, or past opponents, but hold it too long and your vehicle explodes. Keeping it on the edge of disaster takes some practice, and certainly adds to the experience.

In conclusion, i’d say i’m disappointed. Disappointed I didn’t completely hate the machine as I thought I would. In fact, it’s got a very solid build quality, and has been well thought out internally, even if it borrows heavily in concept from PSP. If movie playback is your main reason for wanting one, the word on the street is that the jump from uprated DVD playback to 1080p Blue Ray isn’t as wondrous as hoped. I haven’t bought a Japanese blue ray disc yet to find out for myself. (or a 1080p TV for that matter)

The launch games are rather dismal, but then the PS2 suffered just as badly when released, and the Motorstorm demo certainly helps show some of the potential trapped inside the machine.

Does it look better than the 360? No, not really. Not yet anyway, i’d imagine the demo of Motorstorm would run quite happily on 360, as while showing great gameplay, it’s not the mind blowing ‘tour de force’ it once was at E3. If the hardware cycle follows previous generations, and the PS3 really does have a distinguishable power advantage, it is possible Sony will overthrow the 360, in time. Like how the Amiga trumped the ST, and the SNES eventually made gains on the Megadrive - Power has a tendency to win in the end. Unfortunately you could argue that if that is the case, the Xbox should have outsold PS2, but Microsoft admit they entered the market too late. Hang on, just like Sony have this time round!

Microsoft are also a game development generation ahead, and back to back, Gears of War on 360 looks more impressive than Resistance on PS3. If all goes as it should, it will be games which fight the battle. Personally i’m sure Sony have some great games up their sleeve for the future, and they’ve created a machine more than capable of being even in sales with 360.

It’s perhaps this faltering start, broken promises to Europe, the arrogant attitude to their fans, and lack of decent software, which will keep 360 ahead as ‘the’ next generation for months to come. To dominate this generation like PS2 did last time seems increasingly unlikely, but if Sony can dig deep and create the games it’s always threatened to, it could well creep ahead.

Having read that conclusion back, the situation is clear, just like anyone else, I have absolutely no idea who’ll win! If the PS3 was as disasterous as I expected, i’d have opted for 360, but now it seems quite even. I’m sure things will be much clearer this time next year, and who knows, the UK machine might even be on sale by then!!