Why notHi! As you may have noticed I've become a lazy piece of shit w/r/t this blog, a perception I will now confirm by sinking lower than anyone on the entire blogosphere by annotating a post I made on ILG a bajillion years ago about my beloved PS3. Hey, it's either this or continue to sit here and do no work.
truthfully, my ps3 gets more playtime than any other console I've ever had, especially now that trophies are starting to get implemented more widely.
The key word in this sentence is "console"; the DS is still my gaming road-to-Damascus moment overall. Trophies really were a great addition, though - thanks to this generation's unprecedented emphasis on massive, sprawling game-worlds, it's an imperative that developers find a way to shape "dicking around in the game" into something more productive. Well, more productive than eating your own poop, at least.
consider:
* w/ the latest firmware update, the PS3 natively supports full-screen flash 9 video (e.g. Hulu, BBC iPlayer, etc) and can stream Netflix movies from a media server. plus TVersity supports the PS3 right out of the gate too.
Still very much true; if you're looking for a media hub, the PS3 is probably your best entry-level bet thanks to a variety of technologies Sony wisely built into it. (The best media hub overall, however, is easily the Popcorn Hour, which not only supports [larger, cheaper, quieter] 3.5" drives but also works as a standalone BitTorrent and Newsreader client if you get mah drift.) PMS owns TVersity, though. Actually, it works so well that I'm a little surprised someone hasn't licensed it and started charging for it.
* not only are there an ass-ton of awesome PSN games (PixelJunk games, Super Stardust HD, The Last Man, etc), but since the PSN doesn't have size restrictions developers are free to publish utterly disc-worthy games like Wipeout HD (or offer full installs of BD-based games like Burnout or Warhawk). plus game-sharing lets you split the cost of PSN games with four other friends to save $$$$ - I paid $6 for Burnout and $3 for SF2HD! (I know, I know, lol @ buying a $8000000000 machine to save ten bucks every couple of months, but still.) PLUS you actually get to pay in real currency rather than asinine Sony Fun Bucks or whatever.
Crash. Fucking. Commando. And I guess Flower and Noby Noby Boy and Burn Zombie Burn and a bunch of other games too oh yeah and Fat Princess in a couple of months, but Crash. Fucking. Commando. I am still irredeemably shitty at it but you just can't beat the feeling of perfectly banking a grenade. Not even with a stick.
Also the paying-in-actual-currency remains a massively underrated component of the PSN; I've had excess Wii points sitting in my account pretty much since I bought the damn thing back in dickety-six. Game sharing remains tremendous but since all of my friends are too ethical (I prefer "dumb") to set up a group share account I've had to pick my spots lately. It's still a great option to have, though.
* WPA2 support! the other big perks of the PS3's network support were already mentioned (free & out-of-box wireless support), but as the one dumbass in America actually trying to run a local Wireless-N network, WPA2 was the big selling point for me. the wireless adapter for the 360 costs a hundred damn dollars, doesn't support WPA2 despite THE BOX SAYING OTHERWISE, and comes backed by a statement from MSFT which boils down to "WPA2 is for homosexuals and this is a MAN'S MAN'S MAN'S CONSOLE HERE BRAH". nuts to that.
Seriously, though: fuck that access point.
* PSP remote play is kind of staggeringly superfluous; I don't play games while sitting on the toilet so the appeal is somewhat limited to me personally. having said that, it's an undeniably cool little gimmick which is at least as much fun to show off to your nerdy friends as Electroplankton.
Embarassing admission theater: one night a few months ago I decided to give Remote Play another go and ended up going on the greatest run in PixelJunk Eden that I ever had (seriously, I was like this close to getting that all-the-pollen trophy before, well...) while parked on the shitter. Unfortunately, I had taken a fistful of melatonin a few hours earlier, and at some point during the run they all took over my consciousness at once. Cue a disoriented James waking up on the terlit several hours later, pants around ankles, PSP still in hand... and PJE game over. Not my proudest moment, although I suppose it's a pretty good proof-of-concept for Remote Play in general.
* the PS3 - especially the latest hardware revisions - are whisper-quiet. I lucked into a used 60-gig at Gamestop somehow over the summer and I have to admit that it does make a little noise, but keep in mind that I'm comparing it to (a) the library-silent 40-gig I'd been playing on before trading it in towards the 60, and (b) the airport tarmac disc-drive motor in my former 360.
Also, note that my PS3 was this quiet despite me accidentally blocking off the wrong exhaust vent; I've since moved it to a cubby in my entertainment center with better ventilation and if anything it's gotten quieter.
* also a backwards-compatible PS3 may well be the last console you ever need to buy. punching tigers in the face in Yakuza 2 is fun. punching gorgeously upscaled tigers in the face is a virtual Bacchanalia. and don't even get me started on how great Odin Sphere looks when upscaled.
All of the above remains true, especially the part about Yakuza 2. Legitimately one of my favorite games from last generation full-stop.
* and speaking of buying used consoles, unlike the 360, the PS3 hardware is a fucking tank. each PS3 can be used to bludgeon eight hoboes to death before needing to be replaced; with the 360, you're lucky if you can even kill three.
No news on this front, either - it's still going strong. Man, this must be the most engrossing thing you've ever read on the internet.
* oh, and there are actually hell of great games out for the PS3 right now; get one Uncharted, LBP, MGS4, Buzz Quiz, and all the aforementioned PSN games. plus the PS3's 2009 exclusives look unbelievably promising: Infamous, White Knight Chronicles, God of War III, GT5, Fat Princess, Nobi Nobi Boy, new stuff from the PixelJunk and Ico ppl, etc. plus more and more multi-platform games are being lead-dev'd on PS3 these days (Mirror's Edge, Burnout Paradise, and the new Prince of Persia spring to mind); I doubt that'll make them BETTER than their 360 counterparts, but it's a pretty clear sign that the days of the PS3 getting turdly ports is drawing to a close.
Obviously this could be expanded on into infinity; I didn't even think to mention The Show '09 fer fux sake. And if anything, I'm selling the PS3's 2o09 short here - I mean, whither Prototype/KoF/EyePet? Meanwhile, the last 360 exclusive I can even remember wanting is - L4D? The GTA expansion? I'm Ron Burgundy?
for balance, here are the things I miss from my 360:
- widespread voice chat, which made casual games like Uno and Catan exponentially more enjoyable social experiences (especially if you enjoy ridiculing/provoking the mouth-breathing future leaders of tomorrow). I wish future PS3s would ship with headsets, although the official bluetooth one is so slick that it might not be cost-effective.
Apparently I'm one of the few people who actually likes open-mic games, although then again that might have something to do with most of my XBL gaming taking place in the aforementioned Uno and Catan rather than pre-teen domains like GTA or CoD. Still, though - what the fuck is this push-to-talk bullroar in Warhawk and Crash Commando?! My withering putdowns never have the same oomph when I have to sheepishly repeat them like eight times.
- it's mandatory to build achievements into yr game (although trophy support apparently becomes mandatory for PS3 starting in January)
Rather than go over this again I will simply link to this instead. Because it rules.
- the controller, except for the d-pad (although I managed to snag a pair of those clip-on PS3 triggers a while back and MAN do they ever help out)
For real, though - buy those triggers. Best eight bucks you can spend on your PS3 - at worst, it's second only to a HDMI cable from Monoprice.
- apparently can be h@x0r3ed to play backups if you're 1337 enough (then again, my backlog is indefensibly long already)
Oh well, I'll just steal twice as much stuff on my PSP to compensate.
- no stupid poopbutt Sixaxis controls ever
As of February, this point can be read as "Cannot play Flower". Disregard it.
blah, blah, blah. I say all of this as someone who gleefully bashed the PS3 as an overpriced format-war boondoggle at every opportunity until I actually started thinking about buying one. I was wrong; against all odds, I seem to be getting way more than my money's worth (although as a game machine, it and everything else this generation still takes a backseat to the DS, of course).
If anything, this is underselling the situation dramatically; the PS3 is such a quality piece of hardware that it basically killed off any console-warrior impulses I may have ever had. I mean, yes there are plenty of irritating aspects to it (the installations, the slow speed of network updates, Home's altogether-indefensible existence), but that's true of any console (for instance, did you know the 360 tends to break a lot? Shocking, I know!). In the meantime, the functionality you do get out of a PS3 is second to none. If anything, a 10-year life cycle could be too short; Sony's going to need to include a self-cleaning Fleshlight (or, y'know, maybe just reintroduce PS2 BC) in order to make an upgrade worth it.
seriousbusiness.gif, I guess
But of course.
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