Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes I know..

I'm still fighting the temptation to get a PS3, but with GT5 (yes I know..), Uncharted and Motorstorm its getting harder to resist.

How soon you you think it will be until sony inevitably reduce the price again?

Does anyone know off any good offers at the moment?

Play have it for £299 with GT5 prologue and uncharted. Amazon have it for £289 with just GT5.

Since my review of motorstorm is not up, I'll just say that it was one of the main reasons behind me wanting a ps3.

It's horribly disappointing. (What's that, you've driven from sand onto rock, well in that case your car simply has to flip over and explode)
I was also disappointed with Uncharted.

A case of try before you buy, I'd say.

GT5 is an expensive demo.
There's no 'upgrading' your cars, no racing cars you don't have in the garage in Arcade mode, and a limited selection of vehicles. It's fucking pretty, though.
I must confess that I liked Motorstorm more than Mr. Dave seems to. And Uncharted. And Heavenly Sword.

good point, unfortunately I don't know of anyone with one that I could have a go on.

You can have go on mine, if you want. Just turn up.

Not tried that. I don't think it's my kind of thing. Ratchet and Clank, however, was excellent. If short. And the other PS3 games I want never seem to be in the preowned section.

I don't think that's entirely fair, there's a bit more to it than that. It's no Forza 2 though, despite the added prettiness.

Unfortunately the court order says I'm not allowed to leave the house.

I was bored of heavenly sword after one set of stages, a poor mans god of war and i was sick of that game by the end of the first one.

Warhawks great fun though.
that little locoroco game for £2 quid
I quite like that pain game aswell
calling all cars is ok but there is no one online where it would have been a thousand times better.

Maybe. I didn't realise it was half a game before I started to play it.
Also: Console games should not take 11 minutes to install!

We have Loco Roco for the PS3 (which isn't very good, either - it doesn't have anywhere near the charm of the first one, which was loverly) and Singstar. That is it. There's just nothing for it! When that Little BIg Planet comes out I'll want to play that, but there's just nothing of interest.

Funny, I feel the same about the Wii

I don't think that the Wii and the PS3 are anything alike, though. What I mean is that if something comes out on the PS3 and the 360, I'd always get it on the 360 rather than the PS3 because of the well established Live network, because I know that's the platform that most of my friends use.

And because it's generally £10 cheaper!

Hmm, i bought and played GT5 prologue on Friday and quickly went back to Forza 2 for the rest of the weekend.I can't decide if there's just something a bit 'off' about GT5's handling or whether my problems with it stem entirely with the PS3's awful trigger buttons.

It is very pretty though.

that's the thing with the PS3 games, is that they are very pretty, and that's all I have to go on, apart from the opinions of those I trust. Which is where this thread comes in.


I am very shallow mind, so I like shiny pretty things.

Talking of which, does anyone have the URL for that place that was selling those Sixaxis trigger extension things?

It's the lifeless opponent cars, quite apart from the damage they seem very "stiff" compared to Forzas.

As for GT, I assume you turned it to "Professional" and turned off all aids immediately.

what about anti-aliasing and stable frame-rate?

And Achievements, though I'm not a gamerpoint whore like some other people I could mention, it's quite nice when you get the little Achievement Unlocked thingy.

It's got both of those too. So long as it's not Two Worlds.

I have a PS3. I like Everyday Shooter. If anyone wants an almost brand-new PS3, with Uncharted, Singstar (and two mics), MotorStorm, and a few things bought off PSN, it's yours for £300.

You've had that a month?

About a month, yes. I've spent about 4 hours on it, 2 of which were me installing things and swearing that the wifi is a bit rubbish.

Calling All Cars is ACES multiplayer, but it is so sad to see that nobody plays it online. I'm hoping there'll be a resurgence when Home is released and allows easier matchmaking for friendly games.

Crikey, not had any problems with the Wifi with mine, it works great even though it couldn't be further away from the base station if I tried -- even streams HD DivX encoded video without skipping a beat straight from my Mac. I love it as a feature as it means that I can watch all my [legally downloaded - Ed] content on my TV without unnecessary faff.

Indeed i did.I'm far too manly for traction control,ABS etc.

The PS3 is still generally disappointing but not quite as bad as people have tended to make it. It feels much more high-end than either the 360 or the Wii but the user experience is somewhat clunky at times.

These, off the top of my head are the full-price games I'd recommend:

Resistance.
Motorstorm.
Ninja Gaiden.
Oblivion.
Ridge Racer 7.
Ratchet And Clank.
Uncharted.
Call Of Duty 4.
MLB The Show.
Devil May Cry 4.
Hot Shots Golf.
Burnout Paradise.

Plus I think there's three or four very good games on the PSN. With Metal Gear, Wipeout, Little Big Planet, and possibly God of War 3 coming along this year, it's not a terrible time to get one although you might wanna wait for the DualShock3 controller to come as standard. It's a very good DVD and Blu-ray player if you want those functions and I've personally found the media sharing things to be excellent. All my music is streamed to the PS3 via my Mac. It works.

Downsides:

Crappy Early Ports.
Average Controller.
Poor Network Community.
PSN Slow For New Content.
Games Install To Disk.
Borked PS2 Compatibility (for some models).

yep, I think I'll wait for the DS3, although there's no firm news on when it's coming to Europe. I have read rumours that the 80gig US version (with software Backwards Compatibility) will make it's way to the uk this summer, with the DS3 bundled. hopefully it'll sell for the same price, or less, than the current 40gb version

May 2nd or 5th if you believe the rumours, it'll definitely be here in time for MGS4 (June 12th).

in which case, I shall definitely wait. Hopefully I will have something useful to spend my cash on by then!

Hmm,these sound like something i could do with, sadly google isn't helping much.

Were they only a magazine freebie?

Yeah, I got mine in the otherwise detestable PSW.

Chap at work might be interested. What model is it? How many controllers?

I bought Gran Turismo 5 Prologue off the Playstation Store last night, because Tuesday is the "nothing on TV" night at our house.

It went something like this:

5:40pm - Get home from work. Wait for Friends to finish.

6:00pm - Log on. Buy from store. Start download.

7:40pm - Download finishes, game installs itself, start game up. It says it needs an update. Why? Why not just give me the updated version to download in the first place? Anyway, download starts, seemingly without a progress bar.

7:50pm - A tiny block of white appears on screen. Ah, so there is a progress bar, it's just filling very, very slowly. Decide not to sit watching it.

10:30pm - Come back to PS3 after watching a movie to find the update failed. Restart.

10:40pm - Update fails again. Restart.

10:55pm - Update fails again. Restart. Fuck it. Start getting ready for bed.

11:05pm - Check download just as I'm going to go upstairs to find the update has installed itself. Play two short races.

11:20pm - Go to bed. Late.

Great stuff, eh?

The funny thing is, as soon as I was whizzing around in the RX-8 I forgave it for all the hassle and I'm itching to play it again this evening.

Rumour is that the DS3 will be on sale next week in the US, a full week earlier than advertised!

Wimp.

I need my eight hours now I'm old.

Of course you also paid £7 more than you could have paid for a copy, in a box, on disk and could sell on, or take to a mates, or lend to someone.

Resistance - kind of interesting in that it feels more like a hybrid of Doom and the typical FPS experience you get now (probably the health bars and medikits and spray-and-pray style of shooting as opposed to sniping from cover), but otherwise unremarkable. Even the North of England setting is wasted as the voice acting is clearly done by Americans and every other line is BLOODY HELL TEA SHINE YOUR SHOES M'LADY!

It's not bad by any means, though. One to get on the cheap.

Uncharted - gorgeously decorated, above-average shooter with some climby bits and push-the-statue puzzles. "Like Tomb Raider, but good" is the best way to put it. Probably the best single-player shooter on the PS3 after CoD4, but not incredible, and it has the most horrible final boss, so the game ends on a distinctly sour note.

CoD 4 - The single-player campaign grew on me a lot and I enjoyed it a great deal once I'd got used to the style of play (never fight defensively and never expect your teammates to do anything useful), and I'd say it's well worth getting. But it's exactly the same on the 360 (better in fact, as the triggers aren't shite), and I've not played online on the PS3 yet so can't rate that (if it's at all like the 360's multiplayer, it's ace, and I hate online games). Bonus points for allowing four-player split screen (or rather, no points deducted, since this should be the norm but games designers are cunts).

Vegas 2 - Fantastic tactical shooter, trebly so in co-op (unless your flatmate or girlfriend is a moron), and only gets away without a pasting for being nothing but a glorified expansion pack because the PS3 port of the original is terrible.

Army of Two - average shooter with a couple of neato gimmicks and some fun weapon options. Considerably more fun in co-op, but the single-player won't blow you away.

Pes/Fifa 3,000,000 - shit music, slow, dull, lifeless and unresponsive football tediothons, now with adverts in the fucking menus. The case for the wholesale destruction of the entire video games industry.

Fight Night 3 - about the same as on the 360, but a bit less shiny and slightly prettier. That is, a deceptively well-made sparring game with excellent balance - every strategy can be countered, and it's possible to beat a maxed out heavyweight fighter with an average featherweight fighter if you're good enough (I am glorious. My flatmate's shame is eternal). And best of all, you don't have to play it for hours to master it - I was unbeaten in nine games on my first night against three veterans of the series. It really is far more fun than I expected. However! The music's shit, it's got annoying, insidious adverts and the PS3 loading times are considerably longer than the 360's.

I think that's all I've played on the PSSST. Hope that helps!

Yes, simply because I play games more off the hard drive. It was £25 for a game I'll play bits of here and there for many months, or £18 for a game I'd play this week and then probably never touch again.

I'm a lazy bastard when it comes to changing the discs in my consoles and I don't know why.

At the risk of making my review sound uninformed... Do you actually push anything in that game?

You can still get eight hours if you go to bed at 2, 3 or 7am.

sixaxis axed
http://feeds.joystiq.com/~r/weblogsinc/ ... 262833281/

Does that mean they're dropping the motion control?

I got a PS3 for Christmas and I've spent much longer on it this year so far than the 360, much to my surprise. I wouldn't have bought one yet normally, I'd likely be waiting until the next price cut (my money is on September for that) but as it was a Christmas present I wasn't complaining.

Bottom line, I'm much more impressed with it than I thought I'd be.

Games wise, I've completed Uncharted and Ratchet&Clank, both of which I thought were very, very good. Uncharted, as someone up there said, is like Tomb Raider but good and contains some of the finest digital acting I've seen yet. The little touches, like Drake jumping for a ledge and nearly falling, grunting in pain, or looking worried as bullets ping all around him make this the closest gaming experience to an Indiana Jones film I've ever played. R&C is just lovely, lovely fun from beginning to end and everytime I put it on for a quick bash it seemed to swallow hours and hours of my time. It's short, as someone mentioned (took me about 12 hours I think) but has the usual R&C Challenge mode to encourage a second, more difficult, playthrough.

We also have SingStar, which I'm infomed is good (I'm not allowed to sing -- court order). It could cost you a fortune in DLC though. Unreal Tournament 3 I think is the PS3's must-have shooter but I'm a long time fan of the series. The mod support with all the free DLC will give this game a lifespan measured in years, and a distinct edge over the 360 version unless Microsoft pull their collective head from their collective ass. I've heard COD4 is good on the PS3 but I got it for the 360 as I have a lot more friends over there and I mostly bought it for the multiplayer.

As for the GT5P controversy, personally, it seems to be garnering a lot of hate I don't understand. Yes, it's not that long compared to a proper GT game, or Forza 2 for that matter, but I think it's plenty long enough to justify £18. I also don't seem to have this violent objection to the handling many other people have had (I am playing on Pro with all assists off) but I'm only halfway up the B series so it may get worse once I get the more powerful RWD cars. I will freely admit though to a possible case of rose tinted glasses here, because I once took two weeks off work to play GT3 with a mate (we got to 93% completion), so even the little "bong" it makes when you select things in the menus feels nostalgic.

The hardware is mostly lovely, the console feels really well made, and little things like the ability to use any memory card to backup save games, any Bluetooth headset, and any laptop hard disk are very nice. It has made me object even more to the merciless price gouging on 360 accessories. It's a peerless media centre, as others have noted, and a superb DVD/Bluray player; using it as a media player is also helped by the fact that compared to the howling tornado the 360 seems to need to cool itself it's practically silent. The pad is distinctly inferior to the 360 one -- convex triggers, WTF? -- but again, other people seem to hate it but it doesn't bother me that much.

Would I buy one yet if I hadn't gotten one as a gift? No, probably not, but I'd be getting sorely tempted now and I'd certainly cave in whenever the next price cut tips up. Do I regret getting one? Absolutey

Also: hey Owen! Nice to see you

Oh, and Grim..., the Dualshock3 does all the same motion control as the Sixaxis, with rumble as well. So no, they're not dropping the motion control.

Pedant note: The 360 makes practically no noise unless you're playing games. But otherwise, I'd say you're right (although the browser is practically worthless IMO, and I don't like the shop).

I disconcur, Grim... I'm easily irritated by fan noise (I pulled a Shuttle media centre PC out of my living room because it was getting on my nerves). Yes, the 360 is a hell of a lot quieter when the DVD drive isn't doing helicopter impressions (random semi-related link) but the 2x40mm fans in the back of it are still louder than either the PS3 or my SkyHD box. Loud enough that I can tell immediately when I come in if someone has left it on, whereas I once left the PS3 on overnight without realising (which flatted the controller as it has no idle power-off like the 360 pad has, WELL DONE FOR THAT SONY).

That's odd, I can hear my PS3 quite easily. Maybe it's because it's in a cabinet, and so has to work a little harder to keep itself cool.

Yeah, maybe. Mine's out on a bare shelf so has good airflow around it.

Your TV stand is a lot like my old one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/grim/1048747251/