Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

This week we had a new member join our household: the PS3 80GB. Like the long lost son returned, Sony now has a prominent place (and what a size that is too!) again in my entertainment center. The grandfather (PS2) has left and taken his place in an assisted living residence, aka the box that also contains PS1 and its peripherals.

Everyone knows I’ve been eying a PS3 for quite some time, and with the culmination of the uber-deal from Wal-Mart and the 80GB version being repackaged with Metal Gear Solid 4 and the new DualShock 3, I just could not pass it up. Well… it’s actually my father’s day gift from my family, but I put the idea in my wife’s head.

So far I’ve been quite pleased with PS3 experience. After I set it up for my 1080i HDTV, wifi, and receiver, I jumped into playing some MGS4. Beautiful doesn’t justify the visual and audio presentation, and all I’ve seen was the opening credits. I haven’t had much time yet, unfortunately, to really dig into yet, but this isn’t a MGS4 review. Now I have to say I’m quite surprised by the amount of sound produced by the PS3. See, I say this because on more than one occasion, I’ve had a friend bring over their Xbox360 and that thing is louder than some of the forced-air-cooled labs I’ve worked in. The PS3 on the other hand is quite, I’d even say its quieter than my Wii. Now, hoo-boy that thing puts off quite a bit of heat. I had to relocate things to make sure that it had proper air flow around it.

The next day I decided to try out the web browser and the Playstation Network. The browser text is almost unreadable when the console is set to 1080i and being viewed on a 52″ TV. I haven’t bothered looking around to see if I can fix it because I’ve been too busy playing around with all the other options. I’ve already downloaded new themes for the XMB, demo’s, and movie trailers. All in all, I’ve been really happy with the out-of-the-box experience I’ve had with my PS3.

See, recently I also obtained a Wii (February to be exact) and had been playing that pretty extensively since then. I’ve purchased a few games for it: Elebits, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Wii Play. Out of the box, the only thing I could do with it was play the games I had purchased with the system. Yes, I could have bought games on the Virtual Console, but to be fair I haven’t bought a game on PSN for the PS3 yet either. Nintendo finally came to the table with their demo/video channel not to long ago, while the PS3 has had this for awhile.

I also like the fact that I can theme my interface. It’s not that OMG awesome, but it is the little things that help set apart one product from another. Oh, and the speed/response of the XMB is much faster than the interface that Nintendo has. I think that’s really a big issue that Nintendo needs to get fixed on their next firmware release. Click-and-wait is so 1999. Now, I’m not hating on my Wii. In fact, I love it. It’s just from a straight, out-of-the-box experience I’ve spent more time on my PS3 than I was able to with my Wii. My Wii only got more play time because I had purchased other games, besides the Wii Sport pack-in.

So yes, I’ve finally stepped up to the plate that some call the Next Generation platform and took my swing with Sony as my team of choice. Right now I’ve also managed to pick up Resistance:Fall of Man, and Rainbow Six Vegas 2, because a local indie game shop is closing its door and marking down the prices of the games. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my head above with my work and get to spend some decent time playing the games. Hop into the forums for more images of the PS3 un-boxed.