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July 25, 2007

Annoyances about the PS3 so far ()

by fluffy at 9:04 AM
  • The PS3 really likes being on a lot. It'd be nice if you could turn it off (well, to a power-saving mode, obviously) and have it still finish up background downloading
  • It's way too easy to accidentally turn on while moving the box, and then you can't turn it off until it finishes booting
  • It'd be nice if you could turn the console off from the controller (like on the Wii) Oh, okay, you just hold down the PS button for a few seconds and it prompts you.
  • It'd be nice if the controller were to turn off automatically after a period of inactivity (like on the Wii)
  • In PS2 mode it always tells the game that you have a 16:9 screen, which would be fine, except the few games on the PS2 which pay attention to that do the totally wrong thing; for example, Beyond Good & Evil letterboxes it on a 4:3 frame. This wouldn't be so bad except that in upconvert mode this means I always have a border around it (just like on a mis-encoded DVD), and while I can get my full screen used by just turning off upconverting, then it looks even worse than on a real PS2
  • Also, Beyond Good & Evil seems to have some framerate and shader problems, and occasional timing weirdnesses. (Yes, on the 1.90 firmware.)
  • Okay, you know how the Wii's games are mostly the same gesture-based minigames with different skins? The PS3's downloadable games are mostly just Robotron with occasional tilt controls.

Comments

#9525 07/25/2007 10:37 am yeah
If you haven't tried "Blast Factor", it's also just a robotron game. (Though a fairly fun one.) It is the only game of that type I've seen that uses the sixaxis. You can use it to tilt the play surface, causing everything (except you) to slosh to the side. Certain enemies can only be hit when sloshed like this.

If you are concerned, you could use the hard-power button on the back when moving it.

I've noticed some weirdness with PS2 games where they look like crap the first time I run them and then somehow figure out a better resolution the second time through. I've no clue why. It may be my weird setup.

"Calling all Cars" is one game that is *not* robotron. It's more of a social game, though. We had a blast with it for a few days, then kinda dropped it.
#9526 07/25/2007 11:06 am
Yeah, Blast Factor is one of the ones I was thinking of. That and Super Stardust, Nucleus, and probably a couple others. They're all fun, but they also all seem very very similar to each other. (It's also interesting how the "plot" of Nucleus and Blast Factor are almost exactly the same...)

If you are concerned, you could use the hard-power button on the back when moving it.

Except that turning the console to reach it is one of the ways I end up accidentally brushing over the touch-sensitive button...
#9529 07/25/2007 02:15 pm
If you wait a month, I can give you a full demo of blast factor.
#9533 07/25/2007 04:22 pm
Well I downloaded the 3-level demo already. I'm not sure whether I prefer it or Nucleus. I think I actually like Nucleus better since the latter has task-centric gameplay rather than just being "omg shoot shoot shoot dodge survive" which I have a hard time getting into. (Which is probably why I'm still so pathetically low-scoring on Super Stardust. I haven't found the zen groove for it yet.)

The PS3 needs more variety in its independent games. Where are the good action-puzzle games? (That one puzzle game pack with the three games is a nice attempt, but the games themselves are pretty crappy...) Then again, the PS consoles have never really been that big on puzzle games for some reason. Dreamcast was way better for that.