Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

So by now you all probably know that Sony has released the open beta of Playstation Home. According to Sony, this new service is supposed to be a breakthrough for online gaming and socializing. Their launch of the beta did not start well as the servers were straining from the pressure. Luckily later in the night things calmed down and I was able to get started.

So what is good about Home? For starters the avatar creation system is one of the most in-depth I have seen. It puts a lot of great games to shame. That said, the avatars themselves look a bit funky up close, but once you’re done you rarely get that close again. The other thing that I liked was the game rooms, no not the one in the bowling alley, the ones associated with individual games. I think out of everything in Home this idea was one of the few Sony got right. I would bet money that Microsoft will copy this feature in the future. Unfortunately this brings me to the end of what I found good about Home.

The bad really encompassed everything else. Technically the system runs fairly smooth, load times are not too long and I didn’t run into any major glitches. The problem comes from the fact that Home is just plain boring. Everything is just so plain and generic. The main town square is about as vanilla as it comes. You can redecorate your apartment but even that is boring to do. I search and searched for something fun to do inside of home, but almost everything was a disappointment. The game room, which has pool tables and bowling, alongside some simple arcade style games is the rare break from the boredom, but the games are so simple and plain that they become boring very quickly. The Home mall gives us a glimpse of how Sony plans to micro transaction dumb people to death. If you want to redecorate it’s going to cost you. I am sure there will be some free stuff, but at the end of the day anyone who pays Sony 5 bucks for a new couch should be taken out back and shot.

After a while wondering around I thought “Home is about community” so maybe I would enjoy things more if I had a friend with me. So I invited a friend to join me and we explored for a while. 45 minutes later we both came to the same conclusion, that Home is in essence a very boring virtual environment that needs a lot more work if it wants to compete in the online space. It’s great if you want to talk with people and just hang out, but I didn’t spend $600 to be bored, I spent it to play games, and Home adds very few things that makes the gaming experience better.

Maybe I am too old or just too set in my ways, but I really can’t see to many positives in Playstation Home. I am all for making gaming communities tighter, but Home really just serves to make them more annoying and in your face. I want to play a good game, not watch someone do the robot in front of me for an hour! I couldn’t help thinking over and over about how we waited 2 years and all we got was this boring second life mini game. I know the Second Life analogy has been used to death for Home, but in all reality Second Life is a lot more fun then Home.

I am sure some people will like Home, but for me I am disappointed because I hoped that Home was going to be the update that put PSN on the same level as XBL, but Sony has seemed to ignore every single real issue they have on PSN and instead decided to build something to distract people from it. Home is the equivalent of them shaking shiny keys in front of your face. “Look at the shiny keys and ignore the fact that our friend system is awful and lacks tons of simple features”.