Mind-Boggling Realism

Now that I have a PlayStation 3, a 1080p High Definition Television, a 1.5m HDMI cable, some HD movies and six HD PS3 games, I have been playing games and watching movies outside in the lounge instead of my room. Pretty much to get the best picture and sound quality since my room is just a little CRT TV with faulty Component inlets. I am very satisfied with the PlayStation 3. While I still love my Wii for its unique games and the News and Weather Channels (yeaaaaaa I use them bastards :p), the PS3 has its unique awesome features as well.


One major gripe is the Friends Codes on the Wii system where players have to trade their unique 12-digit friend codes away from the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection before they can connect with eachother to play a game together or send Miis and messages to eachother. Theres a unique code for each online-enabled game as well as a unique Wii console code. Thats a hell of a lot of codes just to have fun together. The PS3 on the other hand just has one PSN (PlayStation Network) name where you can include the standard alphabets, digits and symbols for everything, games and the PS3.

Another cool feature is that you can tell when your friend is online and what they are playing. Nintendo puts so much empathsis on community, simplicity and fun when they restrict you so much to have fun with friends over the net! Any person you meet online during your travels through the PSN will be logged into a list of the most recent ten ppl and you can invite them to be your friend. So much easier. Sorry Nintendo, you lose once again for being a tight-mother.

Being able to customise the XMB (Cross-Media-Bar, which is the home page of the PS3) like the PSP's is a great feature. I have a Street Fighter IV wallpaper and Metal Gear Solid 4 icons; it really makes cool that you can personalise it. A downer on the Wii is that you cannot download trailers, demos and personalisations mainly because of the space-restrictions the Wii has (512MB compared to 20-80GB on the PS3). I have been downloading PS3 and movie trailers left-right-and-centre just to see the game in its HD-optimised quality.

With the Wii having no capability for anything other than playing games, checking the weather and news, the PS3 can also play Blu-ray, DVDs, MP3s, WMV and DivX files for your liking from a disc, a USB stick, a flash card or even through the network! I have hooked up my PS3 to my computer and have it stream movie and anime files from my HDD to my PS3 with no lag at all! Its freakin' brilliant! The PS3 was recently enabled with Force Feedback and Trophy (same as 360's Achievements) support. Its all good and all but the fact that only some games support these features and not all will be supporting these features in the future is very frustrating.

The most annoying game I have is Soulcalibur IV. The game is awesome but the extra features are lacking. Since the game was released long after the release of the DualShock 3, it doesn't support it at all! There is already a trophy system in place to unlock for extra in-game content and that system being used by the 360's Achievements, its unabled for the PS3's Trophy system... oh man. If Naughty Dog made Uncharted with a trophy system long before the PS3's Trophy update then when it was announced and releasing a patch for Uncharted to enable trophies, why couldn't Namco do that to begin with? Very frustrating.
Hehe also the PS3 is the first video game system to give me motion sickness! Probably because of its realism in HD that I got so sick that I had a headache even the following day. I was playing Time Crisis 4 one night in the dark and I felt really really sick. Maybe because I was sitting too close to the TV and it was in the dark but man did I feel really off. I blame Namco for this for having the G-Con3 gun wired instead of being wireless-enabled. But that was the last time I played the game and gave it back to Ren soon after.

Anyway I'm happy with my PlayStation 3 but I wouldn't say its better or worse than the Nintendo Wii an vice-versa. Both have its strengths and weaknesses and I wouldn't trade both of them for anything else in its generation unless Sony brings out a PS3 slim :p

Anyway I'm happy with my PlayStation 3 but I wouldn't say its better or worse than the Nintendo Wii an vice-versa. Both have its strengths and weaknesses and I wouldn't trade both of them for anything else in its generation unless Sony brings out a PS3 slim :p

DigiDistro Musings

I was actually working on a Metal Gear Solid 4 review post for August but just couldn't finish it in a way I was satisfied with. Sorry about that dudes. It truly is an awesome game and I really want to review it so I'll do that after I do this one and two more on Space for Hiroes. Because its so awesome and groundbreaking, I just can't think of a good way to do it yet but it'll be soon!

Recently Digital Distribution has been getting popular lately and I can see why. The convenience of not having to go down to the store, find the game whether its there or not and wait in line just to get home to play. With Digital Distribution, you can just sit at the comfort of your home, enter your credit card or paypal details and ya off waiting for it to download!

Also concept and convenient and I can see why so many turn to it. Recently developers and publishers have been releasing their games as standard retail boxes and also online. And thats cool as there are many benefits from cutting the middle man out, everyone who wants a copy gets one and for convenience sake. I don't have a problem about this but why am I typing up a blog entry about it? Cause I think this is gonna be a worrying trend in the near future if publishers decides to release all games as Digital Distro only.

With the recent announcement D3 Publisher are removing their PSP UMD games to become download-only really worries me that others will follow. While others find it the best way to get games off Steam, XBLA, PSN etc instead of their physical-copies, I prefer to go out and shop for the best bargains of the same game. It may take me a few weeks to get a game I really want, at least I would've paid a price that was much less than what online offers (in their official AUD RRP). Another point that deters me from buying a digital copy is that, the publishers controls the price as its the only source to get it from and will never have a sale unless the game is selling like nothing. Whereas at the shops, they compete with eachother and have sales and bundles etc.

Having a physical copy to display on shelf is also another great satisfaction of my accomplishment that I was able to get it for a great price. I have many friends come to my house and always awe at my collection of games whereas having the games I have downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel on my Wii does not have the same effect. Ren and I constantly look inside second-hand shops for the good rare games at bargain prices and its a great feeling when you do find a gem underneath many normal games.

I know many gamers aren't as hardcore and economical as me when it comes to buying games but the feeling that you actually own it and not just stored on your harddrive is such a much better feeling. There are some instances I do buy a digital copy when there is no other option for a classic game to be played as the Wii's Virtual Console games are. Especially the rare games like Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario that weren't even released in PAL and released in public in Australia respectively. Thats acceptable and most of the classic games that just aren't available anymore or wasn't at all that are on sale on PSN, XBL and VC.

If the world thinks like ex-Xbox boss Peter Moore then it would be a sad one when every game will need to be bought and downloaded online. Its also sad that some of the great games are already digital only like Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness and Audiosurf but for the majority of games, they are still available in physical and digital so thats relieve... for now.

I really hope it continues to have both options and not just digital only. My collection would die, eBay will suck for games and just.... would be boring to shop for a game-geek like me. Also I don't want the publishers to handle the prices and never have sales or reasonable prices especially in Australia where everything is double the price of what America pays.... gay. More games in retail the better, more competition and cheaper prices as well as knowing you own a physical copy... all worth it.