Playstation 3 has epic graphics, price

By Lucian Tucker
Collegian Editor
November 8, 2006

Sony recently gave 50 gamers the opportunity to test out its newest gaming system, Playstation 3 (PS3), at an undisclosed location in New York City. Due for release Nov. 17, I was one of the first to get a two-hour sneak peek.

In addition to gaming, Playstation 3 can be used for music, movies and photos - Lucian Tucker

Second inside, I was able to walk around before the other 48 gamers crowded the room. There were about 18 different games on display, all connected to Sony 1080 HDTVs via HDMI input. In other words, the screen quality was at its best. Along with each PS3 was a PS3 controller, which Sony has dubbed SIXAXIS for its ability to pick up the controller’s movements at any angle it’s tilted.

Eventually, I found my way to Activision’s Tony Hawk Project 8, an extreme skateboarding game. Players can flick, flip and twist the SIXAXIS to affect their characters’ movements. After a few minutes of play, an Activision representative demoed the controls for me, flipping the controller down and up to perform manuals, and left and right to move. He then showed me the “Nail-A-Trick” feature, where the game slowed down as he twisted the controller in various positions to kick the skateboard in the corresponding direction. To land the trick, he waited until the skateboard was upright and leveled the controller.

It was my turn. Manuals were easy enough, but I found myself constantly performing them accidentally. And “Nail-A-Trick?” I only nailed a few. When I tried to level the controller, I’d kick the skateboard in another direction right before landing on my face. Losing interest in these “innovative” controls, I switched the game’s options back to perform manuals and “Nail-A-Trick” with the controller’s two analog sticks the way it’s done on the PS3’s competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox 360. It was much easier.

I spent a good amount of time playing it after I switched the controls — and loved every second of it — but I had to move on. Next on my list of games to play was another Activision creation, Call of Duty 3, a World War II shooting game in which players reenact parts of the war. After shooting a few rounds and throwing a bunch of smoke grenades to get familiar with the controls, I was ready to kill.

Like Tony Hawk Project 8, Call of Duty 3 took advantage of the SIXAXIS controller’s tilt feature. This time, flicking the controller caused my character to perform a melee attack with his gun. Although I never actually got close enough to an enemy to rifle-smack them, I could imagine how much fun it would be to flick the controller and “Bam!” Right in the kisser!

The other controller interaction feature I performed was setting a bomb by tilting the SIXAXIS over and over again. This twisting motion caused my character to untwist a detonating pin from his bomb.

Hooked, I got pretty far in the game after only a short amount of time. Eventually, I ran into a barrage of gunfire, with nowhere to hide, and was killed. After I died, a fellow gamer commended me on my great skills.

By this time, there were lines at all of the popular games, with the largest crowd behind Resistance: Fall of Man, a sci-fi shooting game. After watching several people play, I walked across the room to a set-up of PS3s with the systems’ main interface being displayed.

Connected to the PS3s were not only SIXAXIS controllers, but also mice and keyboards. The keyboards, like the controllers, could be used to navigate the interface. It can also be used along with a mouse to browse the Internet, a feature the Xbox 360 does not have.

Like with Xbox 360, gamers can view photos, listen to music and watch movie clips on PS3. Using the shoulder buttons at the top of the controller, I rotated and flipped through photos quickly and fast-forwarded and rewound songs and videos. I particularly liked the blur effect the images had as I went from photo to photo. Overall, everything about the interface was very next-gen.

But despite all of this, from the moment I grabbed my first PS3 controller to the time they kicked us all out, I kept thinking about telling my friends Playstation 3 is no better than the Xbox 360. The only difference is that Playstation 3 has a larger price tag ($500-$600).

The graphics for all 18 games on display were on par with Xbox 360, but definitely not any better. Also, the time it took for all of the games to load seemed the same as Xbox 360, if not a little slower.

The SIXAXIS is almost identical to the Playstation 2 controller, with only two major exceptions. The rumble feature, which causes the controller to vibrate when a player is hit or shot, has been taken out. To someone like myself who’s used to controllers vibrating, the new controller felt “dead.”

The other difference between last generation’s controller and the next-gen one is the tilt feature; honestly, it’s more a nuisance than a benefit. It’s a feature I would show off to my friends, and then turn off once they seemed impressed.

In the end, PS3 did not impress me. The only games that I enjoyed were games I could also buy for my Xbox 360. Sony will have to release a lot of good exclusive PS3 titles before I think about dropping $500 plus on a new system.

tuckerl1@lasalle.edu