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PlayStation 3 - Impressions (from first few days of ownership)

By RussianDrink July 15, 2010 2 Comments

It's been a couple of days since I got the PS3 and I should probably write up some impressions so far. First off, I've been a PC gamer since I started gaming in the mid-90s and I've been an Xbox 360 gamer for 2 years now. And I never played a single PlayStation game. So here are a couple of things I gotta say about Sony's 120GB Slim model.

On the surface

It certainly looks cooler than the 360, at least the Slim model does, but the rounded top makes it hard to leave the controller on it. Sony's XMB interface is much better than Microsoft's NXE piece of shit (rumored to be getting a fix this fall, but that's irrelevant at this point). Except the PlayStation Store which, in my opinion, is slightly inferior to Xbox Marketplace when it comes to navigation and finding games/demos/DLC. Also the controller feels a bit too small for my hands while the Xbox controller feels just right, but I think it's something I'll get used to in time.

First game I bought for my new PlayStation3

Speaking of controllers, what better way to test out the new Sixaxis-enabled thingy in my hands than with the PSN-exclusive downloadble title Flower? MAN that game is beautiful! It has such simple gameplay mechanics and such gorgeous visuals and such inspiring story... Then I downloaded some demos ( Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, God of War 3) and to play them I had to install them. Okay, what the hell? On Xbox you just download a demo (or an Xbox Live Arcade game or a full title from Games on Demand) and play it; here you have to go through the process of installing shit. I mean, it's okay for PCs but not for consoles. Nothing ball-breaking, but it's a slight nuisance.

More game impressions

The first scene of Heavy Rain definitely sold me on the game. I kind of got my ass kicked by that one dude ( unlike Ryan & vinny in their Quick Look of the game) because I'm very unfamiliar with the layout of the buttons so I got confused by the Square and Circle prompts. Doesn't help that X is associated with Square's position inside of my head. But it was really cool and I'm definitely going to buy that game when I get my paycheck. Included in that order will be Uncharted 2. Not because of the gameplay — which felt inferior to Gears of War's cover-shooting and Assassin's Creed's climbing/jumping — but because the writing was genuinely cool (at least from what I've seen in the demo and heard/read on GiantBomb).

God of War 3 was... okay, I guess. I don't think it's my style of game because even though I found Darksiders to have a cool story, I quit fairly early in the game because the gameplay just didn't do it for me. I thought God of War 3 demo definitely looked good but I didn't like playing it. I got God of War Collection from GameFly because I thought I wanted to learn more about the story but the gameplay turned me off. I guess it's Wikipedia for me. I also tried the Killzone 2 demo but the controls weren't doing it for me either so I think I'll just stick to Xbox and PC when it comes to FPS games. I'm going to pass on Infamous and Little Big Planet because both have fantastic-looking sequels coming out that, as I understand, improve heavily on the originals.

Final thoughts

Overall I'm very pleased with the purchase of this console and there are great games for all three platforms and they all do a ton of great stuff. I was never one to bash PS3 gamers (unlike some of the Xbox fanatics out there on the dark forums of the internet) and had I originally bought a PS3, I would never bash on the "Gay-box 360" because that's just stupid. I cancelled GameFly since I decided to buy both Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 and there aren't any big releases for a while, at least none I'm interested in, so I'm pretty happy with how the rest of my summer is going to be in terms of gaming.

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