by John Severio
Lets get one thing out before we get started, the PS3 in a word, is one sexy looking beast. Seeing it just sitting on my equipment rack in all its molded black reflective iconic glory, makes me want to get on my knees and worship it like some gaming monolith while the theme to 2001 blares in the background. It is by far one of the best looking consoles ever, with really on the super futuristic looking Supergrafx beating it. Now on to the juicy bits, that I know your all here for.
Gaming wise the PS3 has so far been hit or miss, some of its
games like Motorstorm, NGS, RFOM, etc, truly deliver on the promise and hype that Sony fed us in spadefuls. The games look great, especially on a properly calibrated HDTV, and most importantly they are fun as hell. Others like Untold Legends and Genji, or most ports for that matter, thud louder than a cat dropped from a 10 story building. But the PS3 has a lot of promise gaming wise, and hopefully devs can dig into that fact and deliver the sweet stuff soon. Right now the PS3 is like a girl on prom night, dressed up all fancy and cute, but with no one to get her motor reving and to show her a good time.But once that motor gets cranking, damn can the PS3 deliver. It is by far the most future proof console for those that have the money to burn and the itch to make themselves the envy of the IMAX down the street. With the power to playback full 7.l uncompressed Audio via HDMI, and supporting resolutions up to 1080p, the PS3 can shower you in the glory of true HD next generation home theater close to God like mindwarps, like a Roman orgy celebrating the Cult of Mitra. Granted you have to be willing to spend the money on the right equipment, cables, etc, and have a some what working degree of confidence in setting up highend video and audio equipment, but the end result is worth it.
Online gameplay and how the PSN in general is set-up is hit or miss right now, the actual online gaming experiance isn't bad outside a funky friends list and most not having headsets, and its comparable to XBL. But other stuff like Sony actually supporting devs in getting the online code working is a little skewred, so games that are online on XBL might not be on the PS3, hopefully this is an issue Sony fixes soon. Other stuff that need big help is the PSN itself, its a best plain and simple with hardly any real reasons to visit it, outside a few PSone game downloads. There is a severe lack of demos, game content, trailers, etc on it right now, and Sony really needs to get the ball rolling on this.
On to the much argued and maligned inclusion of Blu-Ray, face it, its here, its in the PS3, so be objective and get use to it. Personally, I am a huge movie lover, so the thought of playing my faves in 1080p HD resolutions while surrounded by the crispness of uncompressed PCM almost makes the price of the PS3 a afterthought. I love the fact that the PS3 can playback BDs, and I love the fact that allmost point for point it is the most full featured BD player on the market. Unlike many other standalone BD players, the PS3 can actually playback true 1080p and not the deinterlaced 1080i than many standalones stick with, and it was recently updated to do 1080p24 which is the holy grail of HD for those with the ability to use it. And with the recent updates that allowed for Full Blacker than black and super white, the PS3 has the ability to display images on your 1080p set that transcend what was thought possible just a few short years ago in how TV should look. And don't forget that the PS3 can also make your ears stand up and start to worship the gods of all that is audiable, with full playback of both uncompressed LPCM sound and lossless Dolby TrueHD audio, and the promise of DTS Master Audio in the future via updates. It can also upscale DVDs into 1080p, but I never use this function, compared to my A2X HD-DVD player, the PS3 does a pretty shoddy job at it from what I have seen so I leave that function alone.
The PS3 can also, like the PS2 before it, play its console forebears games, in this case the games of the PSone and PS2. And via recent updates, it can scale said games into 1080p, which for me its a godsend. I have never really played the PS2 on a SDTV, owning nothing but HDTVs since 2000, so for me the games look better than they have ever. some complain that they look better on a SDTV even with the upscaling possibilities, but I wouldn't know, never playing the PS2 on a SDTV before. So IMO, PS2 and PSone games upscaled to 1080p is the Cat's pajamas, others might disagree.
The PS3 is also by far the ultimate Home Theater media player, it can accept and playback audio files, MP's, video's etc via USB hard drives, memory sticks etc, and you can also download said media for playback straight into its HDD. I myself use the PS3 as my main music player now, with well over 10,000 songs downloaded into it all in nice little folders catalog by musical genre. Very nice for sexy time!!! The PS3 is also very useful for video playback, since it can playback most files you can download off the net in wonderful HD resolutions. also very nice for sexy time. The ability to display your pics on your HDTV, stream media off your PC, and go web surfing with it, just rounds out the PS3 as what is probably the best AV equipment one can buy, it was clearly designed to be the centerpiece of a high-end set-up.
So there you have, my thoughts, criticisms, and observations on the PS3, take them as you will and use them to the best of your abilities to help in your decision to buy or not buy a PS3, or just to help and inform others. God speed Gaming chums.
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