Playstation 3 - Late to the Game - First Thoughts

I came late to the Playstation 3 arena, but decided the console was mature enough and there were enough unique games on the Playstation 3 to warrant buying a one. The main reason was to enjoy the games released by Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog whom made some great games like Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter on the previous two Playstations and I really missed their humour. I had also been made aware of three games by That Game Company that were Playstation 3 exclusives. The first had already been released as a flash game that was an ambient experience plus a detailed and involved game to boot. This was revamped and released for the Playstation 3. Their next game was also an ambient experience called Flower in which you used the six-axis controller to fly a flower across lush grasslands to cause flowers to pop open. But it was their third game that really inspired me to buy a Playstation 3, Journey. One distinct feature of That Game Company was August Wintory’s sounds, and Journey really allowed him to expand and explore this music fully.

I got the 500gb model, as I knew most Playstation 3 games installed part of the game on the hard drive, and my experience with the Xbox was that my 60gb hard drive space seemed to disappear fast. One downside of buying older games is that you can't play them straight out of the box. You need to install them (Grand Theft Auto V had a record twenty minute install) and then wait for updates. The Blu Ray player on the Playstation 3 is slower than the DVD drive on the Xbox 360, but the Blu Ray disc has a higher capacity. By allowing you to install as much of the game to the hard drive as possible it does speed up loading times. I was surprised that Sony released a 20gb model which is seriously underpowered and I have a friend who did buy it and is constantly managing the storage data. Interestingly the Playstation 4 has a 500gb hard drive, and is swappable and the Xbox One is now 500gb too. Both manufacturers have realised that they can't fool their customers any longer with high priced small hard drives any more.

The existing Playstation 3 is not backward compatible with the previous versions of the Playstation, which is a shame as this way Sony have cashed in on retro and High Definition (HD) remakes of older games, essentially selling you the game twice. And with the release of the Playstation 4 they have begun making HD remakes of Playstation 3 games too, such as The Last of Us. The Playstation 3 initially lived in the loft, but the portable television I played it on was so small you couldn't read the text designed for an HDMI LED flat 40” screen, and it wasn't long before I smuggled it into the lounge and it became home to SingStar for my second daughter who has a fairly decent singing voice. Getting her to sing Def Leppard and Toto songs is a winner in my book.