Finally gets 5 hours alone with a PS3!

[Fuzzmosis]

Shrug, if you've read any of my comments on the PS3, I don't own one, but a friend got one in December, and thus had kinda access to the machine. I get an hour or so of multiplayer, but last night, 5 hours unfettered access. Played Darkness, Rainbow 6, Oblivion, even watched a portion of Swordfish on Blue-Ray, my first high definition movie, all on a 1080I resolution!

 My expectations were far too high. If this is next gen, next gen is the same as last gen, but prettier. Play B3yond this is not. This is merely play like you always have. At twice the price. My mind is quite clear: No PS3, cept for free, until something else comes out.

Let us review. Partly, this will be the devs fault. I'll start with the worst: Rainbox 6. Spent only 5 minutes on that thing, truthfully, I'm not a gun and cover player, I was born and raised on Quake, pure twitch. Which of course, works on FPSes, but without my HUD display, I'm lost, no idea if shots hurt me etc. I'd love to give you a single player review, based on a couple hours of unique single player. I can't. For some reason, you can only have 1 single player campaign going on at the same time. This is not my game, nor my console, so am I supposed to delete my friends game? No, I'm not a douche. So I go play terrorist hunt, looks about like CS source though that may have been the map I chose. 30 terrorists to kill, handles like meh, but console FPS rarely handle well for me, and terrorists die in the most random fashion. I shot one guy through a bunch of tires, and didn't notice that one shot kill him. Another ran by me as I crouched with an AK47, took an entire clip, then killed me. Given the choice between a death match between me and 30 terrorist bots in a game that looks and feels ugly, and another game, I took the other game. Oh yes, and despite the fact this game is loaded on the harddrive, prepare for loading screens for loading screems, about 35 seconds wait. Maybe the single player saves it. Maybe the multiplayer saves it! For now: Pass! Pass and don't look back!

This led to The Darkness! Whoops, same problem! 1 single player game only. Sorry Friend, your save at the last boss is GONE! I actually cleared this with him first. So I could play single player, and do you know what? It was fun! Great first scene shows some good attention to detail, a nice kinda moving target mini game as you gun down random people (If you hit them all, it's an achievement) seguing into the story. The game, despite you having giant demon of death posessing you, is still sneak and shoot. In the early portion of the game, you are stuck in a cemetary with about 9 goons trying to kill you. I said before, I'm a twitch. On easy mode, because I went for execution kills (You can chain the first 5, but then they spawn out of reach), I died many times because no HUD, and you take four of five shots and you're gone. Anyway, the game then moves into a free exploring FPS with some interesting twists, nice charecter interactions and quests. Mike Patton voices the Darkness, but I hated his band Faith No More, though he is a good vocalist, and that gives some geek cred for those geeks that like bad music. Oddly, at 1080I, I can't read the posters in the subway. Also, apparently the model has a metal bar for a neck, since the sprite doesn't look up or down. Normally, that's not an Issue, but these 4d graphics seem kinda like just slightly better 3d. Load times are 20 seconds pretty much everywhere, but a little cutscene of the main charecter talking distracts you from it. Worth a play. Though maybe 10 hours in and you want your friend to see the cool opening scene, too bad. Despite the save file only being 2.8 megs, you only get 1. Shame, isn't it?.

 Led to the game I enjoyed the most, Oblivion. Well, I don't like wandering through field, but the game installs on your Harddrive, and almost no load time! It's... awesome! It's what it's supposed to be with your blazing fast load times! So, I congratulate the coders on this one, and really wonder if it is faster on the 360, because this was nice, smooth and quick. The game even let me play single player without deleting my friends file, wonderful! Didn't like the first dungeon taking 30 minutes of my time, but I was new, and having fun, though getting a face tone to not look rediculous would probably take 10 minutes, I just gave up after 1. Worth a play.

 Then we get Blue-Ray, which perplexes me. The movie just started, no menu, though you can access the bonus menu, but I have to imagine that was just a quick porting onto blue ray. Though a chapter scan would be nice. Fast forwarding at 1.5x speed to 10x speed seems like a big jump, and yep, the movie is pretty. Not 4x pay what I normally would pretty, but Hale Berry's tits did look nice in HD.

 I first played Resistance back in December, and liked it, since it was a lot more twitch. On a Whim, I decided to check if Resistance had the same problem as darkness and rainbox 6. I checked, and yep, only 1 single player game. So according to Sony, you don't have friends, family, roommates or visitors who may want to play the game.  Thanks Sony!

Admittidly, Darkness and Oblivion both were fun games, and people other than me like tactical shooters. But this is nowhere near playing beyond. This is playing games, just like you have before, on a controller with no rumble, on a nicer TV.  For a lot more. There is no Wow factor, unless you like looking at pretty things, and if you look too closely, there are going to be cracks. The Darkness looked about as good as Prey, with some weird shading issues. Rainbow 6 looked like CS: Source. Most of them had load time issues. I expect more when promised more. I got... just a polished PS2. If I was sold on the machine as anything but the future, I wouldn't expect so much. It set the hype, and so far, it has failed to deliver.

If I get another 5 hours, hopefully I can play some Lair, if not, it'll all be Oblivion with some Resistance Multiplayer once I get bored of playing with myself. Yes, I do love myself a good rant.