While Rockstar flails around looking for redemption with PS3 owners by telling us to not play their game — what else do you call a recommendation that we erase cached data, game saves, reset the PS3 to factory defaults, and switch off rumble — I’ve continued to play the game despite one isolated freeze-up during the drunkenness mission. Online play is ridiculously fun with friends — not with the general public who have a penchant for yammering things like “WHAT UP YO I HOPE THIS GAME MODE IS GOOD!” into their microphones while the game loads — but the picture here should give you a second clue that Rockstar didn’t test online play much.

Oh what was the first clue? When Kotaku’s GTA IV FAQ said yes, Rockstar told them there would be voice chat, but the online servers weren’t up and running before launch the way the 360 version’s were. (See questions 9 and 35 in the FAQ.)

The profile here should have a “2″ in the star showing me having leveled up twice, and those level-ups let me choose extra character features in the appearance categories. I chose them for Legs and Hats here, and upon returning to single player mode or reloading the next day, going into the character profile menu via the mobile phone (an immersive menu system I really like by the way) shows that yes they’re still chosen and still appear in the character model on-screen, I can’t modify them or I lose the ability to switch back to them. Is this happening on the Xbox 360 as well? I haven’t seen any reports about it on either system, and in case you’re wondering I’m logged into the PSN all the time.

Glaring problems like this tell me a patch must be coming, and it makes me worry whether or not it’ll do something really aggravating like force me to erase all of my saved games. Maybe it’s time to turn my attention back to finishing up The Darkness or dive deeper into the delicious brutality of Bloody Palace on Devil May Cry 4 while I wait for Rockstar to fix their delayed game.