CORBIE'S GAME BLOG

Okay, I've had my Playstation 3 system now for a little over a week and I thought I would share my early impressions of the system. I ended up getting the 20GB model, mainly because the Wi-Fi wasn't a priority and I plan on adding a larger hard drive later anyway. Okay so I liked the all-black look better, so sue me. I also picked up Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance: Fall of Man on launch night as well. I've put about 30 hours into the system playing these two games as well as trying out some of my older Playstation and Playstation 2 games, not to mention trying out some blu-ray movies. If you've visited any of the various PS3 message boards, you'll know that not only are the Playstation 3 systems in extremely short supply, but those who've been lucky enough to get their hands on one have some strong opinions about how the system itself performs. Now I'm going to tell you what I think of the Playstation 3 system so far.

After taking some time to figure out how to get the Playstation 3 to recognize my Monster HDMI cable, I got things rolling. I played about 3 hours each of Resistance and Ridge Racer 7. Graphically the games were nice, but I think my expectations were a little too high, as they didn't "wow" me the way I had hoped they would. But I do realize these are launch games, and things are only going to get better from here. Despite the fact that I was hoping for a new controller, the Sixaxis controller gets the job done, but it's very light in your hands and does feel a little weird right at first. You'd think Sony could have at least changed the form of the controller a little bit, but I guess after the backlash they got over the now-famous "Boomerang" controller, they decided not to take any chances. The system itself is a whopper, and pretty heavy at that. I was originally going to put it on top of my Zektor component switcher, but after sitting it on top of it, I decided not to push my luck and I situated the PS3 vertically next to it.

I got my Nintendo Wii two nights later and I'll admit, it's hogged a lot of my time ever since, but that also says a lot about how disinterested in the PS3 I've become. To be honest, I've spent most of my time playing Tales of the Abyss for the PS2 and watching blu-ray movies on the PS3. I haven't even played either of my PS3 games since the Saturday afternoon before I went to pick my Wii up at midnight. Now rest assured, I have no doubt that the Playstation 3 system is going to have some outstanding games for it, and I'm excited about it. It just might be awhile. Thankfully I have my Wii and Xbox 360 to keep me busy in between intervals of great PS3 releases. That and lots of blu-ray movies, of course. Overall I'm not to impressed with the Playstation 3 launch, given the huge lack of consoles available and the low-quality of the launch titles. The one thing that keeps me going is knowing that the Playstation 2 launch didn't thrill me much either, yet I now have over 70 PS2 games in my collection, most of which I'd never part with. It's only been a bit over a week, but my rating of the Playstation 3 system so far would be about a 6.5. Let the flaming begin. : )