So Playstation Home Open Beta launched today and here's a brief overview on what it brings:

The Central Plaza (main community hub of Home) has a pond where you can play a spaceship minigame which you collect stars and fuel while avoiding mines.  In this plaza there is also an area that plays music by some rather unknown artists (or at least to me), currently they are nine songs to listen to and if you can vote for the next song to be played in the song queue.  Throughout Home, here are a fair amount of screens on walls that basically advertise Playstation related content, which is to be expected.  You can travel to the Mall where you can buy various items that range form an awesome cowboy hat for $0.49 to a Summer Home for $5.00, and if you were part of the closed beta, you should have had the good sense to stock up on these things while they were free; other than that, there are chess tables on the top floor where you can play with others.  In the Bowling Alley you can play Bowl (duh), Pool or arcade games, which include, Echochrome (not the full game), Ice Breaker (basically brick breaker) and Carriage Return (a game where you line up three carriages of the same colour and send them on their way before the station is flooded with carriges).  In your Personal Space (basically your home), you can decorate your "Space" furniture you have; other furniture can be bought in the Mall or as prizes from playing the arcade games.  The Theatre is basically a room that loops a single video over and over, which right now is a trailer for Twilight and a related music video.

There are currently two videogame related spaces; an Uncharted Space and a Far Cry 2 Space.  The Uncharted Space basically looks like a club for hunter of various treasures with an arcade game where you traverse a maze of sorts to get o a treasure chest, all the while shooting dudes and snakes.  There is also a door on the second floor that requires you to enter a code in order to enter.  The Far Cry 2 Space has a board game  entitled Mancala which I have no idea how to play, but is played with bullet shells, which is awesome.  Other than this, there is an interactive map and dossiers with info on various characters.

There are also clubs that can be created (for a $5.00 fee) which gives you a clubhouse to decorate to your fancy.  You can recruit Home users and gather in you club and I dunno... have an awesome dance party?!

Speaking of dancing, you know who loves to do the robot?  Jeff Gerstmann.  So I ran into Jeff's avatar in the Bowling Alley while he was apparently playing some Ice Breaker, one thing led to the other, and pretty soon Jeff and a small band of Giant Bomb enthusiasts (myself included) began to dance.  While conversation was mostly based on amazing random nonsense, Jeff commanding various people to dance with us and discussions of dancing's deeper, philosophical meaning, "Dancing is obviously the answer, but what is the question?" - Jeff Gerstmann, we also talked a bit about Giant Bomb.  I asked if a couple reviews for games that apparently only I care about were in the works, and one of them seemed a possibility (Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm).  I also asked asked how the "Game of the Year stuff" was coming along and apparently nominees should be coming next week, so look out for those (this could have already been announced, I'm not too sure).

All in all, Home seems full of potential.  It seems like a hub for between gaming sessions where you can just socialize, play some minigames and maybe find some players for a game.  Once trophies are incorporated and stuff can be obtained through playing videogames, Home could be a very cool and casual place for player interaction.  Plus, dance parties that last about an hour with Jeff Gerstmann and Giant Bomb fans are pretty kick-ass.