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Wow, they shrunk the PS3 quite a bit.

 

I seldom play my PS3 anymore - I mostly use it as a Blu-ray player and for streaming videos from Amazon Prime.

 

There are a couple of download games that I used to play a lot that you may like to check out - Echochrome and Super Stardust HD.

I forgot about the Amazon Prime streaming. I have a Prime account, so that will come in handy. I use my Apple TV for Netflix, but the PS3 will work for that, too.

 

I don't really know how much I'll play the PS3, to be completely honest. But that's why I waited so long to get one, and only got one when I was able to get a good price (plus - the games I want are all cheaper now). It's my fourth PlayStation - after a PS1, PS2 and PSP - but it's only the first one I actually paid for. The first one was bought entirely with gift cards, and the second two were presents from a friend of mine. So on average, I've only spent $50 for each one.

 

I still have the PS2 hooked up since there are still some PS1 and PS2 games I dust off now and then. I don't recall the last time I used my PSP. Probably when I got Gran Turismo for it. I played quite a ways through that one.

 

The better games get on the iPhone, the more I can see console games disappearing from the mainstream. I recently downloaded Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and the graphics are incredible on it. Still, playing games on a big screen has its own appeal, which even the best iPhone games can't replicate. Yet...

The main thing the consoles have over the iOS devices is their controllers. For some games iOS' touch and accelerometers work just fine. For others the iCade devices help, but they're not quite in the same league. Apple already supports PS3 controllers under OS X - it'd be great if they'd add that to iOS.

Actually, in many cases I prefer the simplified approach to controls that iOS games force upon the developers. One thing that turned me off from PC games was the sheer number of controls you had to memorize just to play the game. Tron 2.0, the Jedi Knight series, etc. Simpler is better. I'm finding returning to a console controller to be a bit of a chore in some cases. Split/Second works very well, since it teaches you the controls through a very intuitive series of tutorials. If you have to refer back to the manual to figure out which buttons to press, they're doing it wrong.

 

That said, so far I think the DualShock 3 controller is a nice update to the PS2 version. It's lightweight, the analog triggers are decent, and being wireless is a big plus.

Heh, I also bought a PS3 this weekend. I didn't get quite the deal you did, IIRC it was C$240 for the 250GB Uncharted 3 bundle.

 

If you're into racers, you should pick up a GT5 & a compatible wheel. (I had a wheel which wasn't quite compatible so it mostly worked most of the time.)

 

I also enjoyed Portal (from Orange Box) & Portal 2 (co-op), Little Big Planet (co-op), & Rock Band (1,2 & Beatles).

 

It's also fun downloading the free demos from the online store. "Plus" also lets you download some games for free or reduced cost. However, if you let your Plus expire the free games go back to being demos.

All 3 Uncharted games are, in my opinion, lots of fun.

Re: the steering wheel - I tried one with GT4, but discovered that in order for it to work properly, you need an expensive one. I've managed pretty well with a DualShock, so I'll probably just stick with that.

 

I've heard good things about Portal and Little Big Planet, so those are on my "eventual" list. Not into the whole Rock Band thing though.

 

I'll check out the store once I get around to setting up the online thing. Still haven't gotten that far yet. Haven't cracked the seals on the pack-in games yet either. Trying to wrap-up a couple of homebrew-related projects at the moment, which is seriously cutting into my videogaming time.

I found Portal to be annoying on the PS3 due to the crappy load times. I did like using the PS3 controller over keyboard & mouse though.

Sony owes me, big-time.

 

If I hadn't bought my PS3 last week, then they would've only sold 524,999 of 'em, and that doesn't look nearly as good as a nice, round number.

I signed onto the PlayStation Network the other day, to try out streaming video.

 

Netflix (at least on my connection) is poorer quality than on my AppleTV. It seems to be stepping down the resolution, as if it isn't getting enough bandwidth (entirely possible with AT&T). Also, the interface is clunky compared to AppleTV.

 

Amazon Prime, on the other hand, has excellent quality. The interface is smoother, but still clunky. Nobody really has the whole TV interface thing dialed in yet. Whoever can solve that problem, and gather all of the content together under one umbrella for a single reasonable price, is going to own television.

... is going to own television.

.. until you hit the download cap on your broadband ISP.

Having some fun with ModNation Racers now... customizing is the name of the game.

 

A decent pass at a Subaru WRX (w/rally livery):

 

 

A Ford GT-40:

 

 

And what is probably the easiest racer in the world to create in the game, but he's still cool:

 

And what is probably the easiest racer in the world to create in the game, but he's still cool:

Now you need to do the other three goofs.

The hard part is getting the hair right. You have to unlock mod parts as you play the game, and I haven't gotten very many yet.

 

Plus, you can't make the characters fatter, so Jeremy would be hard to do.

Over Christmas I got some new PS3 games. Some as gifts, some I bought.

 

So here's a question: What's the difference between playing a 2600 game for the first time, and playing one for the PS3?

 

A: About two hours.

 

Gran Turismo 5 XL took (I kid you not) about 2 hours to update itself before I could play it. It ran 8 updates, plus add-on content downloads, plus installing "required" files onto the hard drive.

 

Two hours.

 

Even after all of that, the load times for everything - races, garages, menus, are appalling.

 

Now, I've been playing Gran Turismo since the first installment. But somewhere after GT3, the series sort of fell apart for me. In the original games, you could re-run championships, and re-win cars. This let you sell them, and earn more money than cash prizes alone. But they changed that, so you could only win cars once. Plus, the interface has become more and more convoluted with each game. The current one is almost un-navigatable. Sony needs to go back and look at GT 1 and 2 and take notes. Simpler = better.

 

Several long-standing criticisms remain with GT 5: no crash damage (your cars just sort of bounce and float in collisions, and land pristine), dumb-as-a-post opponent AI, engine sounds that are often grating (and most unsatisfying), and most of the car models look as if they've been ported from the PS2. The new "premium" cars do indeed look great, but many cars (and some in-game textures) look decidedly last-generation. They've also left out several previous tracks from earlier versions (most notably Seattle - blasphemy!!).

 

All that said, once up and running, GT 5 is a decent iteration in the series. It's showing its age relative to other racing games, but DLC helps a little in that regard. For example, I was able to download a shiny, new Scion FR-S for free (aka a Subaru BRZ). Nice! That helped get me going, since I didn't have to rely on an ancient Toyota Trueno for umpteen races until I could afford a newer car. I'll poke around and see what other DLC there may be, although the XL version of the game I got included quite a bit already. It's been years since I worked my way through a GT game, so despite its shortcomings, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully GT 6 will address many of its issues. More hopefully, is that it will be released before I'm too old to play it.

 

One big plus - I was able to import my cars over from the PSP version of Gran Turismo. They're only available in Arcade Mode (grumble), but at least they're usable to some degree. It lets you bring over up to 50 cars, and since I had only 49, I didn't have to choose between say, a DeLorean and a Bugatti Veyron.

 

I also got Dirt 3 Complete Edition. As a rally fan, this one hits the mark. It's a fun game, great controls, damage, physics, and variety of cars. Plus the Complete Editiion came with additional DLC, and didn't take two hours to update before I could play it. It has a pretty good control setup too, where it starts you off with all sorts of assistants turned on that let you get a feel for the game. Then as you get used to the controls, you can start shutting them off and gain more direct control over the car. GT 5 has this as well, but in Dirt 3 they interfere with you far less than GT 5's do. The interface is a bit too "X-Games" for my tastes, but at least it's easy to find your way around.

 

I also got Tron: Evolution. I wanted this solely because it was a Tron game. You know what? I'm beginning to remember why I never played all the way through Tron 2.0 now. Controls are terrible. Convoluted, imprecise, difficult to remember, impossible to execute. I have no idea if the game is actually fun, since I can't get my character to run in a straight line long enough to find out. Really... doesn't anyone actually test these out with a DualShock? I'll give this another shot when I have far more patience to deal with it.

 

Next up was Burnout: Paradise. I was a big fan of the last few Burnout games on the PS2, as well as the PSP version. Paradise takes a different approach, where you have a massive, free-roaming city. You can start events at pretty-much any intersection, and take any path you want to get you to the finish line. The trick here though, is that without a clear path, it can be easy to get lost and end up losing races badly. But it's still a lot of fun, and as you begin to learn the city, you begin to find good routes to take and helpful shortcuts. It has a lot of the same elements that made the previous Burnout games great - crashes, shortcuts, insane speed, great sounding (if completely fictitious) cars, and there's a lot of DLC available for it as well (including another city), which I'll have to check out later. As with GT 5 though, it took well over an hour of updates before I could play it. But once up and running, there are no load times. None. You just keep playing. It's awesome. And it also resulted in me completely draining the controller's battery for the first time.

 

Finally, I bought Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension. Yes, it's a kid's game. But I love the TV series, and thought it might be fun. It's suited probably best for kids under 10. But that said, the thing that they managed to get right are the controls. It's easy to run, shoot, and do what you want to easily and accurately. Effectively, the game is similar to Tron: Evolution in that you're running around, jumping and shooting stuff. But how one game could get the controls so right, and one could get them so wrong is beyond me.

 

Anyway, between all of those, plus ModNation Racers and Split/Second, I should be able to keep busy for quite a while.

Gran Turismo lets you take neat pictures of your car.

 

Here's what the new Corvette looks like:

 

 

This, by the way, is why you don't cut the corner on the Trial Mountain course.

As was completely inevitable, shortly after I bought a PS3, Sony announced the PS4.

 

No big surprises. Just an evolution of the system to a slightly-higher level. Oh sure, being able to tell that they've simulated real cotton threads on the stitching of the seat in the car you're driving in a racing game probably counts for something... but what that is exactly, I'm not sure.

 

You just have to wonder... who is going to sit there and model all of that stitching? Seems to me that time would be better spent in actually making games... oh, I don't know... fun.

 

BTW - I don't know if the game industry already has anything like this or not, but I suspect someone could make quite a lot of money opening up a CG modeling business for game developers. Need a Bugatti Veyron? Why should everyone re-model the same car over and over? Why not just have a company that builds definitive models of commonly used game elements, and then license those out to developers? Cars, guns, trees, lamp posts, fire hydrants, skyscrapers... seems to me there's a good business model in there someplace.

 

But I digress...

 

I'm not annoyed that Sony's releasing a new console - dooming the PS3 to inevitable obsolescence - since I've been buying consoles long enough to just accept that as part of gaming. Of course this all-but-guarantees that Gran Turismo 6 won't appear on the PS3, but given how long it takes them between releases anyway, I wouldn't count on seeing it on the PS4 either.

 

Sony seems to have done a decent enough job of addressing some of the shortcomings of the PS3 with the PS4 - but I wonder if they realize the days of them selling 100 million consoles are long gone? It looks like they're trying to woo hardcore gamers with the system by touting it as a PC, "but supercharged". But is the market there? Casual gamers have all but completely gone mobile. The Wii U isn't exactly jumping off the shelf. Do that many people really want to buy another $500-$600 console? Are their forays into social gaming/networking/media too little, too late?

 

Beats me. All I know is, I won't be buying one for years, if at all. For the amount of console gaming I do these days, my PS3 will do just fine, thanks.

 

http://youtu.be/q0vcqayut0E

Beats me. All I know is, I won't be buying one for years, if at all. For the amount of console gaming I do these days, my PS3 will do just fine, thanks.

Word.

Of course this all-but-guarantees that Gran Turismo 6 won't appear on the PS3

 

On the other hand...

IGN was wondering if it makes sense for Gran Tursimo 6 to come out for the PS3, so close to the launch of the PS4.

 

Yes, yes it does.

 

If it launches for both systems, and you can race against people using either one.

 

Current installed user base of PS3: Approximately 77 million.

Current installed user base of PS4: Zero.

 

'Nuff said.

Looks like GT6 is getting announced next week.

 

If it gets released this year (at what... $70?), and it gets released for the PS3, then I'll likely pick it up sometime in 2014 or 2015 when it's nice and cheap. Unless it's unbelievably awesome. And I just don't see that happening.

 

I'm in no rush... I haven't touched my PS3 in months (except to play Blu-ray discs).

I've been replaying GT5 as the fire wiped out any progress I had made, and I'm even less impressed with it now than I was before. I guess I'm just not the target audience - I'm not willing to grind.

I don't mind grinding, if it's balanced and rewarding.

 

GT1 and GT2 worked great in that regard, because you could re-run races, and win the prize cars more than once (which makes sense - a prize should be a prize every time you earn an achievement). That way you could re-sell those cars, and earn money faster, and progress through the game quicker (and not worry about accidentally selling a car you needed later). Plus, the categories weren't as restrictive, so you could focus on building up a car over a long period of time, and take it through multiple races, categories and events. So you wouldn't waste so much money starting over with new cars all the time. I had a lot of fun in those early games maxing out cheap Celica GT4's, or slapping twin turbos on a Mitsubishi 300GT and blowing away anything else on the track. Cheating? Not if the game lets you do it.

 

Once they restricted the entry lists for races and started requiring you to have to buy cars sometimes just for one race, it really became a grind. I'd spend time upgrading a car, only to find out I could no longer use it for anything, and have to go buy some obscure 70 HP econobox just for one lousy race. It became less about working your way up through the ranks as a driver, and more about how many cars the game would make you buy.

 

I don't recall where I left off exactly in GT5, although I know I was getting to the point where I had to start buying Ferraris and Lamborghinis. And the license tests were becoming a bit of a chore (although I think I was able to import some stuff from the PSP version - but most of that only translated to arcade mode).

 

One thing that helped propel me along was that I had bought the XL edition, which included free downloadable cars. So I didn't have to grind as much as if I'd bought the game when it first came out. Still, I'd prefer the old system. GT5 seems very random and disjointed to me. Not very career-like. They have some work to do to fix their problems.

It's official - GT6 has been announced for the PS3, with 200 more Nissan Skylines cars, a "renewed" game engine, more tracks, more DLC, and new physics. So... does that mean no more indestructible cars that bounce and float when you crash them? Because I've been trying to get my real car to do that for years. (To be fair, their tagline has been "The Real Driving Simulator" not "The Real Automotive Physics Simulator". Entirely different.)

 

Their target date is "Holiday 2013". I wonder if their "Holiday" release schedule is the same one that AtariAge uses?

 

We'll find out more at E3 and Gamescom, and a demo will be released in July.

 

Here's hoping for a return of the Seattle track. I could really go for a hot dog.

 

Edit: A better article with more details is available here.

I had a thought this morning. My main gripe with GT5 (note - I've never played any of the previous versions) isn't the grinding for experience levels - it's the car shopping process. So not only do I have to play the same license test or race multiple times to try to get a better result - I need to do it to get enough money to buy the right car to access another set of races.

 

My thought is to turn the bonuses on their head. When I successfully complete a license test or race set I get a car which I can then use in the next race set. The car should be competitive - allowing me to complete the race set with a reasonable skill to tuning trade-off. This then allows the majority of purchasers to play through the majority of the contents.

 

But for the obsessive-compulsive completists, you make the gold trophy bonuses some of the worst performing cars - then have special races & achievements just for them. Can you win the K-car challenge in an unmodified pre-1980 car? Or online races only for steam powered vehicles.

 

There will still be the supercars, exotics, prototypes, performance parts and decorative paint schemes to buy with race winnings - but the real measure of racing ability will be how bad the cars in your garage are.