Review: PlayStation 3 and Resistance: Fall of Man

So I did it. I got my PlayStation 3 yesterday at Best Buy. They were kind enough to price match Circuit City’s free controller offer, I wanted to get it at Best Buy for a couple reasons. One; they have their Reward Zone card which landed me about $15 in gift cards for getting it there. Two; on Circuit City’s “City Advantage” protection it covers the system, but to get it fixed you have to call a number where you send it off then get it returned, fixed natch, or they send a gift card for the value of the system. At Best Buy their “Product Replacement Plan” means you walk in, they test it, then they give you a new one. Also, if it breaks and they replace it and the price has dropped to $300 then you can use the difference to buy games! Games!

I purchased Resistance on the good word on Jaime. He sells damned near every game he buys back to Gamestop, but said he kept this one because it was that good. Good enough for him, good enough for me. And he was right, I played maybe 30 minutes of single player then decided to try out the online part. Seemed awesome from what him and others had told me.

And they were right. It’s easily the most fun I’ve had online on a console. Everything plays so smoothly. In 2 minutes you can go from system off to playing online. The game also has a perfect balance with the humans and chimera. It’s not like one dominates the other, so things stay pretty even.

The best part is the “Level” system works. You gain XP from rounds more for winning and less for losing. When you level up you gain a military style ranking. Right now I am “Gunnery Sergeant.” Plus you earn ribbons and medals. Ribbons are fairly easy and you win those by getting a headshot or killing 3 people in a row without dying. The medals take more time and are more difficult to earn. Things like “Get 100 Assist Kills” or “Get 100 Kills with a specific gun” are examples of medals. Another part I like, for a stat geek like myself is how much is tracked. It keeps up with kills per gun, rounds played/won, ect.

I like what Insomniac did by not making you pay for the maps to enjoy your online gaming also. If pick Ranked Game and it starts up it won’t pop up telling you “YOU DON’T HAVE THE MAP THE GAME WAS ON” and you have to wait again. Some games like Gears of War do that nearly every time and it pisses me off. I don’t have the $10 right now to buy some maps, but by not making me and letting me enjoy the HELL out of this game online I would love to have some more maps, thank you.

Back to the PlayStation; the system itself is a lot like the game above. It is smooth. You never hear the system, not whirling up the disc, not loading from the hard drive, nothing. Unlike the 360 which sometimes sounds like it has a bad timing belt, the PlayStation runs quietly, hardly making any noise outside of the almost misplaced “beep” when you turn it on from the controller.

The menus are very easy to use, and when I saw the Sony guy at E3 with a phone that had similar menu styles I was jealous. They don’t try to be too much, and that makes it so easy to use. The Sony Online Store also has a feast of movie trailers online for viewing which make it so easy to want to buy as many Blu-Ray movies as you can. Seeing the 300 preview makes waiting for it’s release an anticipation of sorts.

Sony did really well with this, and I would gladly sell my Xbox 360 for less than face value with all my games and accessories with it as the PlayStation is the King of Consoles.

Late Night

1. I could not find a website that worked to watch the Microsoft E3 press conference live, so I didn’t see it.  But reading at Joystick, I can tell you this much…. it sucked.  They showed off a bunch of 3rd party stuff that will be on PlayStation.  What’s the point in getting your system then?

2. Nintendo goes Wednesday morning at 11am.  They will have an interesting one, probably walk out there and say, “Here is Mario Galaxy (movie)…. here is Metroid (movie)…. here is Smash Brothers (movie)…. here is that Sonic and Mario game (movie)…. here is Nights (movie)…. here is Mario Strikers (movie)…. here is some DS stuff (movie)…. Thank you and you should never doubt us again.”

3. Sony goes later in the day tomorrow.  Sony has the most potential of all of them.  Seriously.  What if Sony walks out there with Killzone 2, Gran Turismo 5, Tekken 6, Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty, and Final Fantasy?  Says, “Here are 5 you will NOT see on Xbox 360.”  And what if they sneak in a couple extra 1st party games we don’t even know about?  Sony has the most at stake here, and if they pull this together then I think they could really pull even with everyone very quickly.  I mean, if Sony has a playable Killzone 2 that is CLOSE to what they showed last year then it will be the talk of E3.

4. I’m still getting it Thursday.  I promise.  Ol’ lady is got plans for Thursday that don’t involve me, so it’ll just be, me and ‘3.

5. 5-5=0

The Sky is Falling!

Okay, okay, so the deal of the year might be too good to be true.  The PlayStation $100 price drop is great, the Circuit City buy a PlayStation 3 and get a free controller is too good.  Why?  Because by the time I get paid on Thursday I don’t know if any Circuit Cities will have any left.  Just today there were TWO online orders sitting there when I left work at 8.  We HAD 8 PlayStations in stock and now we are down to 6.  If Tuesday and Wednesday keep pace we will have 2 on Thursday.  And that’s if none get sold in the store!

So I tell myself, at least ONE store in the area will have it in stock on Thursday, right?  Well a quick look on the store website shows out of the 10 closest stores FOUR of them are OUT OF STOCK.

Well there is a delivery on Wednesday right?  Yeah, that’s it!  A $10,000,000,000 a year company has to expect a sure in sales when a product gets a 16% price drop.  Right?  Well you would think so but no, “In Transit” on the old Magellan system shows “0.”  A lone goose egg.

Assuming I find this damned system I at least get a free controller right?  Not so much, looking at the website it shows that 5 out of the closest 10 stores are out of stock.  On a damned controller.  I have friends damn’t and I want to call them and show off my new plastic toys.

There is hope, right?  RIGHT?!  Actually… there is!  On a quick check on the Circuit City website it shows that Fort Worth stores have both items in stock.  Nearly all the stores on the west side have it.  So we are good… for now.

Late Nite With Marcus O’Brien

Okay some thoughts and various news and notes…

1. I am so damn hyped about the PlayStation 3 price drop.  It’s already purchased in my head.  I’ve been planning it forever, wait for the price to drop and then buy it.  I have not purchased a single DVD in well over a year.  Why buy a DVD any time recently when in 2 or 3 years I would want to replace it with a Blu-Ray version?  So now I’ll be back in the movie watching part of America.  I do not know how I went without watching DVD movies.  I would usually buy at least one new release every other week.  I love movies, so getting back to buying them will be fun.  I’ve missed quite a few good ones.

2. 300 comes out on Blu-Ray on July 31st.  This was another little promise to myself, I must have a Blu-Ray player for 300 when it comes out.  I MUST.  If you have not seen the movie then you are missing one of the best of 2007.

3. Speaking of movies, tonight at work we were empty from about 6 to close so I was able to check out some trailers.  The two most promising were for “American Gangster” and “Shoot ‘Em Up.”  American Gangster could be amazing.  The whole preview felt like a little Godfather, Departed, and Scarfaced mixed together with Pursuit of Happyness.  Shoot Em looks fun.  I hope that’s what they went for with that movie, because it looks like a really smart action film.

4. PlayStation 3, Resistance Fall of Man, I’ll be playing it on (hopefully) June 12th.  I’m also picking up Departed.  DAMN I’M GLAD I CAN BUY MOVIES AGAIN.

5. Got my windows tinted.  Thanks Mom for the birthday present.  Looks freaking bad ass, but no pictures until I wash it.  Next “mod” is getting the damn brake light on the spoiler to work instead of the one in the car.  Then something more exotic after that, cold air intake maybe?

6. What happened to summer being the low time for games?  Used to be one game all summer, NCAA Football.  Now… All Pro Football, NCAA 08, Nascar 08, Darkness, DIRT, Super Mario Strikers Charged, Hot Shots Tennis, and Stranglehold.  Jeez.

7. There is an ongoing promotion for purchasing any Blu-Ray player, including the PS3 where they will give you 5 free movies with the purchase of the player.  You have to pick out of select movies, but it looks like I can get Invincible, Corpse Bride, Underworld Evolution, The Italian Job, and Transporter 2 for free.  That’s almost a $150 value since the movies are all still in the $25 range.

8. This is not number eight.

Moment of zen…