In the month's leading up to the PS3's launch, it looked set to have a day one line-up to rival the very best. A pleasing collection of first party exclusives, coupled with a mind-blowing plethora of third-party support. Unfortunately a number of delays along with some mildly sloppy ports reduced that line-up to something far less impressive.
Oblivion for instance - one of the flat-out best games ever made and a potential
huge catch as a launch game - was delayed 'til '07's first quarter. Rainbow Six Vegas - one of Dig's fave shooters of last year - was also nowhere to be seen, and two months on, is still MIA. Although Call of Duty 3
did make it out the door on day one, a severe case of port-itis with its iffy framerate and stripped down online functionality made that one sadly pale in comparison to the "real" version on 360 too.
To make matters worse, the system's first next-gen killer exclusive MotorStorm missed launch completely, although thankfully it's since seen subsequent release in Japan. I nabbed a copy of that, of course, but what else does that leave us early adopters with to play right now? Let's find out...
Resistance - Fall of Man
 | | An incredible and intriguing FPS game made exclusively for a Sony system? What evil, twisted dimension hath I stumbled upon! |
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Resistance was the big launch game on day one, and months later it's easily still up there as one of the more impressive to be found on the machine. Forget your Riiiidge Racer and your
MASSIVE DAMAGE, back in November this was the single illusive game that pretty much made owning a PS3 worthwhile by its lonesome.
Not only do we have a decent console FPS here in its own right, but one on a Sony machine for a pleasant change. It's funny in a way, as what the PS2 struggled to achieve endlessly for a good 6 years, the PS3 manages straight outta the gate. Part of this is down to the improved Sixaxis controller - so where Killzone and friends felt awful and unresponsive, Resistance actually
works - but mainly it's down to developers Insomniac. They've constructed a superb FPS journey here that borrows from a wide variety of different sources, then melds them all together beautifully into a top draw mish-mash of hardcore action coupled with the most insane selection of first person weaponry you've ever encountered. Since
Oddworld, at least.
You play Sgt. Hale, a US Ranger shipped to England as part of a strike team circa 1950. Fear not though, this is no World War II game. Resistance takes place in an alternate timeline you see, one in which the war never happened, and Europe was instead invaded by friggin' aliens. Named the Chimera, they're fast, ugly and inexplicably know how to shoot guns. They've also wiped out every country in Europe, including 90% of the UK. Enter Hale.
 | | From the warped minds behind the Ratchet & Clank series, Resistance proves all about the guns |
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While this plot actually ends up rather cool in its own right, the thing that sets Resistance apart from the rest is its aforementioned arsenal of weaponry. There's none of your M1s or BARs here, instead Resistance takes the artistic license route, mixing in loads of top secret and "experimental" governmental guns, with a wide range of crazy Chimeran technology to boot. What impresses is the sheer originality of the buggers though; one for instance, can shoot through walls like a Counter Strike hacker, while another lets you "tag" a target with a beacon, then have all your bullets magically home in on him like a Medal of Honor aim-botter. My clear fave of the bunch though is the Hailstorm, which fires thousands of ludicrously tiny nail-like bullets in rapid succession, bouncing off any and every surface they hit. This not only makes for many a humorous corner-based show-down where dudes get capped before they even see you, but also offers up a truly striking visual effect on top.
Even the grenades stray from the norm, such as the all-too-brilliant "Hedgehog", which on impact, ejaculates razor sharp spikes in a 360 degree radius, pinning all in the vicinity to death against nearby walls and floors. Throwing this sumbitch into a cluster of 10 bad guys then witnessing the resulting rag-doll hilarity proves quite the sight. And you thought FEAR's nail gun was impressive? Pffft. You spastic.
 | | The more bombed-out city-based missions in its first half don't quite get the blood rushing that the later levels do |
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Admittedly, it takes a while to uncover all these ace new gadgets and thus really get the overall
point of Resistance though, and as a result it feels little more than a slightly damp Call of Duty rip-off in its first few hours. What starts to become more and more obvious as you explore its 10 odd hour campaign though, is that Half-Life has been a far more successful influence here, and the game's all the more better because of it. It can be seen through the in-game cut-scenes, the alien designs, the ace use of physics and in sheer look and feel too. If you're gonna steal, steal from the best they say, and Resistance does an ace job of doing exactly that.
This is particularly evident in its later stages, which showcase more and more of the stunningly dark and twisted alien architecture at work. The art design is simply mind-blowing, with mammoth, epic structures of metal and evil encapsulating your favourite English cities in a freakishly captivating manner, almost like some kinda twisted take on Aliens by way of the Combine. As massive Chimeran capital ships fly overhead and humongous walking spider-bots tower above you in the streets of London, freakish amounts of love start to blossom for this game. Some of these sights are so utterly gob-smacking in fact - particularly in the last level - that I almost wish the entire game focused on this more fucked up sci-fi imagery, and ditched the WWII-esque knock-off stuff completely. Sequel, perhaps?
Of course, Halo gets its fair share of nods too. Everything from the multi-passenger vehicle segments, the AI allies sprouting wisecracks, to the all-too-pleasing emphasis on grenades and stealthy melee bashes comes through intact, making Resistance's skirmishes just as fun and spontaneous as Bungie's ever
were. Where the two primarily differ though is in sheer pace. Resistance isn't a slow, accessible game by any means - this is a full-speed, spray 'n' pray massacre more comparable to something like Quake 3 Arena. It's actually the first console shooter that I feel has successfully emulated the hardcore chaos of a PC FPS.
 | | I wanna show you Angels, Spider-Bots and gargantuan Chimeran towers, but I better let you witness such sights for yourself |
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Helping it along even more is the inclusion of split-screen co-op. Although your solitary American "saviour of mankind" from the single player game inexplicably appears here with a black slave side-kick never mentioned once, it provides a great sense of comradery to go thwarting the Chimeran invasion with a pal. Whether shooting each other in the back by mistake, or just roasting your buddy alive with the ludicrously awesome "Air Fuel" grenades, two player Resistance is just as brilliant as any such game found in Xbox land right now.
Gears aside.
Finally there's of course them versus modes. The one PS3 title to pretty much match Live right across the board - mainly thanks to full comms, clan support and its own internal achievement system - it even one-ups Microsoft at times by providing dedicated servers and spots for a whopping great 40 players. For all Sony's missteps in the online world so far, it's something to be applauded for sure, and although not my personal game of choice for online blasting, is still an amazing accomplishment.
As a launch game, Resistance is an all-out winner then. The opening WW2-esque levels are a little "been there, done that", but once its darker and more visually arresting side emerges, it turns into something far more inspired, far more captivating, and just far more fun. I dunno if I'd say it's worth buying a machine solely for this game, but if you do own one, it'll certainly make you feel pretty damn good about it.
Genji - Days of the Blade
I'll just say it...Genji is nowhere near as bad as the universe somewhat angrily (and inexplicably) wanted it to be. Cast your mind away from cringe-worthy E3
footage of lard arse Benkei smashing giant enemy crabs around with real-time weapon change, that really ain't vaguely representative of Genji
at all. It's got some issues, sure, and I probably wouldn't have picked the sucker up had it not been included with my machine (curse you, launch bundles), but it's still a solid beat 'em up cum adventure game, and one just fine for an early launch title.
 | | Mock away, but Genji's alright. No work of genius, true, but hardly the disaster many were expecting |
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Gameplay-wise, this is your typical last-gen hack 'n' slasher I guess. As a fan of such games though, it's nice to nab a new one that, while still overly traditional and hardly ground-breaking, utilises some of that supreme next-gen visual power to bring it all to life so alarmingly well.
You play Yoshitsune - who from here on out I'll refer to as "Yoshi" - a skilled young swordsman tasked with defending the Genji clan in ancient Japan. This boils down to third person button bashing action that borrows heavily from many a Japanese title you've probably already played, such as Dynasty Warriors, Bujingai, and even good old Ninja Gaiden. It's almost the PS3's answer to Ninety-Nine Nights some might say, but for me friggin' blows that thing out the water.
At least, at first. Starting out pleasingly well, you take control of Yoshi himself, armed with a pair of gloriously awesome twin blades of arse kickery. Your village set upon by the evil Heishi clan in the wee hours of the night, it's your job to rain death down upon the endless hordes amidst burning buildings and twilight-bathed courtyards...almost as if fighting your way through a scene outta Crouching Tiger. Yoshi proves to be a rock hard bastard, slicing and dicing and somersaulting like an absolute bad arse, subsequently making you ponder if this is indeed the same game all those 5/10 reviewers were playing.
 | | She may look like a boner-inducing cast off from Dead Or Alive 4, but make no mistake, she's shit. They're all shit |
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Things take a humongous nose dive after that, mind. It soon becomes apparent you see, that Yoshi is not your only controllable character in Days of the Blade, with said bad arse just one of four friends who soon form a sort of fellowship for the remainder of the story. Sadly, every single one of the others plays like absolute arse though, thanks primarily to their ever so mundane selection of weaponry.
Any time the action switches from Yoshi then, the game kinda falls apart. None control anywhere near as fast, sleek or simply as fun, and thus fail to hold your attention for any length of time. Thankfully though - and here's the simple underlying fact that saves Genji from a fate worse than eBay in my book - an hour or two in, the game stops forcing you to use 'em - thank fucking christ - allowing you switch freely between the four at will. This returns the game to something once again resembling cool, and from then on, I was a bit of a fan to be honest.
The other reason I so readily dig this game though is because of how unabashedly freakin' gorgeous it looks. My god, this is - to my eyes - far and away prettier than anything the 360 pushed out for launch. The animation on the characters is amazing, the detail is oh so rich, and the colours gorgeously vibrant as to border on blinding. In fact, those who, like me, are anxious to get their mitts on the ever-pretty Heavenly Sword later this year, will be happy to hear that Genji looks graphically every bit as good as that...and it's doing it
right now. With a quintessential Eastern flavour almost effortless in its beauty, I feel this needs a certain degree of highlighting 'cos it's the sort of unique vision and style of game you just don't get on Microsoft's platform.
 | | These crazy quicktime events let you mow down armies of dudes in seconds, and make for a strategic change of pace |
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Somewhat at odds with all this stark beauty is quite possibly the worst camera ever to grace a video game unfortunately. It seems focused 100% on idolising you at all times you see, blowing your character up to fill the entire screen in minute detail...as to the point where you quite often can't actually see anything else. I'm really not exaggerating here either, you'll more often than not be fighting dudes
off-screen. Particularly unforgivable though is the lack of a two-player mode, which the game seems almost designed to make use of, yet for some insane reason never does. What a wasted opportunity.
I think with Sigma, Heavenly Sword, and Virtua Fighter 5 all on their way soon, this'll get forgotten pretty damn quickly as a result, but in these early launch months of tumbleweeds and barren wastelands though, Genji is a fine game in its own right and one to certainly keep you company 'til the better stuff shows up. Far more importantly, it also doubles up as a superb example of just what the PS3 can already do visually, and damn well at that. So laugh all you want, haters, 'cos I for one am enjoying it - ish - and don't understand where all the rampant hate stems from.
Oh wait, yes I do. That fucking crab.
Cunt.
Ridge Racer 7
This however,
is rather disappointing. I love Ridge Racer, don't get me wrong. You may remember I particularly worshipped the last game in fact. The problem with this latest rendition though, is that it's really just a beefed up remake of its predecessor and not a whole lot more. Seriously, the majority of the courses are
identical, the game plays no differently, and it even looks - for some insane reason - worse at times. It's a Ridge Racer 6 Special Edition, and a bit of a rip-off really.
 | If I told you this was
Ridge Racer 6 would you believe
me? |
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Actually, "special edition" might be too generous a term here. "Port" is perhaps more accurate. The game simply doesn't feel as polished nor as razor sharp as its predecessor did for me; it's very jaggy next to the 360 game, the motion blur looks dreadful, and most bizarrely there are also some environmental details missing from the older courses too. Perhaps worse of all, that gorgeous tint seen in Ridge 6 - which flavoured the game with such a unique and gorgeous atmosphere - is nowhere to be seen here. Now everything looks bright and colourful and...kinda boring, really.
One all-too-rare new feature that does sorta rock hard however, is the car customisation. Rather than make do with simple paint-jobs like last time, here you get to actually mod and tweak your vehicles' handling from the ground up. This includes buying new parts, changing out tires, and even tweaking your Nitrous capabilities. You can do this for every single car in your collection too, so I took it upon myself to rustle up an army of turbo-changed blue and orange TPS mobiles, all tweaked out just how I like 'em. You can even take these customised cars into the multiplayer arena.
 | | The scarce few new courses are pretty good, that all said, boasting epic views with more advanced graphical effects |
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And yes, that online mode does indeed come intact. Much like Resistance, it actually feels kinda weird to be playing against others so seamlessly on a Sony machine for once, but what can I say, it works just as easy and accessibly as on the 360 version. Matches prove just as fun as ever and totally lag-free, even in rooms comprised solely of Jap players. No longer relegated to just bog-standard races here though, Ridge 7 adds a few new team-based modes as well, giving the online game a fair bit more variety and longevity in the process.
Sadly Ridge is one of the aforementioned brain-scratchin' titles that offers no effin' voice chat. At all. It's not that people aren't using headsets...the game simply doesn't support them. You can select from pre-scripted text messages in the lobby, but in-game there's simply no way to communicate. Think about that for a moment...
Metroid on the DS boasts better voice capabilities than this game. Needless to say, this makes those new team modes a little more complex than you'd perhaps like...
At the end of the day, you still can't beat Ridge's super-fast, drift-centric gameplay, and in its own right, RR7's still a beautiful, fun and harmless racer that PS3 owners can be more than happy with. But if like me, you already own Ridge 6, this game feels like a minor scam-job to be honest, and at ?40 a pop, I can't even vaguely recommend owning both. Especially with #6 going for well under half that these days...
MotorStorm
Far more impressive on the racing tip is MotorStorm. Quite simply, it's the best game out for the system by quite the long mile right now, and as such is instant purchase, must-have material that as a bonus, you won't see anywhere else either. There is however, a small catch.
 | | Cars and trucks come as standard, but my fave has to be the quad bike. Way too much fun - and way too fast - to be legal |
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Similar in style to Burnout, MotorStorm is essentially that game taken off-road. You'll blaze across wide-open desert landscapes, beautiful, rocky mountainsides, and daunting Tatooine-esque canyons by way of mammoth 15 car racing orgies pushed to their most ludicrous extreme. Stupidly fast nitrous boosting comes as standard too, although unlike Burnout, here in MotorStorm you have to keep a constant eye on your temperature gauge, or that mud-stained car be goin' kaboom.
I say car, but that's misleading, as one of MotorStorm's more unique traits is how it sees you racing everything from quads and bikes to big rigs and garbage trucks. Each one handles surprisingly unique too, flavouring each and every race with a different spin. What's particularly awesome though are the various different scenarios the game then works into this setup, such as one race I just played that split the line-up evenly between motorbikes and lorries. Everyone's still out to win, sure, but this strange sense of teamwork also comes into play, as the ant-like bikes weave in-between the big rigs while the monstrous behemoths try to squash the little bastards against each other.
The one thing I can't stress enough about MotorStorm though is the handling. The way these machines feel in your hand is just abso-fucking-lutely perfect. The sheer size and weight of the suckers married with the expert implementation of suspension is the best the genre's ever seen in my opinion, with blazing across planes, bouncing over rocky outcrops, and screeching around dirt-covered mountain bends all handling borderline flawlessly. It just so totally nails that underlying sensation of a humongous multi-ton tin-can hurtling around at immense speeds.
 | | Road Rash for the new millennium - with cars, no less - MotorStorm plays like sex, and looks fuckin' real. Almost |
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Visually, it's almost up there with Gears of War for me too. Played from the first person view - the only way to truly see this game in its element - it looks like some kinda crazy race footage captured through a hood-cam, jostling and bouncing around all over the place with alarming realism. The sheer detail, amazing physics and glorious track design continually see your jaw dropping to the ground like a fluffer. Some ever so slightly jaggy shadows prove the only real fly in the ointment here to what is, that aside, one of the most flat-out glorious looking games you will ever see.
The way these courses are designed reminds me somewhat of SSX in a weird way, as much like EA's extreme sports monster, there's no single "right" path in these tracks. In fact, most of the courses offer a good 3 or 4 different routes, many intersecting and intertwining with one another and thus opening up hundreds of possible avenues to take from beginning to end. Depending on how bumpy the roads are, how narrow they converge, and how much wet mud litters each of 'em, different paths prove better choices for different vehicles. This flavours the game with surprising depth and replay value, and a nice sense of freedom as you test and prod each with all the different classes.
You can even praise the heck outta the AI on this thing. MotorStorm's rivals ain't mindless robots who follow one another round in a straight line, and they aren't perfect drivers either. They'll regularly fuck up, smash their cars, and even stick you the finger if you piss 'em off. They're also especially good at filling out all those different paths on a course and thus providing a stream of demented action no matter which direction you take. Hell, out of the corner of your eye you'll regularly notice ludicrously insane crashes and pile-ups off in the distance too, almost like these are real drivers off having their own crazed experiences that have nothing to do with you. While the lack of multiplayer is a huge bummer, this AI really is the next best thing I'd say, and battling them proves an absolute blast.
Wait one god damn minute there, did I just say no multiplayer? Ah yes, the aforementioned "catch". You see, to meet its early Japanese release date, this rendition of MotorStorm has nothing but single player out the box. There's not even a split screen mode. The thing that particularly grates with this though, is that even as a single player game, there's very little meat here. There's no choice of modes, no unlocks, no real customisation...nothing. You play the solitary "Festival" - which is basically just race after race until you finish the game - and that's it. It's quite depressing in a way, as Evolution Studios so totally nail the exquisite sense of speed, stunningly satisfying handling, and sheer visual chaos that make MotorStorm so much fun...but kinda forget to tie it all together with anything of vague substance.
 | | I can't wait to do this to dudes online. Especially YOU |
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There is a silver lining, mind. The game's upcoming American and European releases will in fact have a full online mode included. Even though the MotorStorm you're currently left with right now, as sold in Japan, is really half a game, it has been confirmed that a downloadable patch will bless this version with similar online functionality come March too. Picking up an early - albeit somewhat unfinished - import at least lets you get some practice in before the virtual competition heats up as a result.
Which you'll need incidentally, as this motherfucker's brutal too. Even on my better races - ones in which I seldom hit a wall and avoid just a single crash - I'll still find myself trailing 7th or 8th for no apparent reason sometimes. In fact, one level was so god damn hard I was only able to ultimately complete the motherfucker by literally blowing myself up on the home straight and catapulting my flaming corpse of a car over the heads of my rivals to the finish line. It gets to the point where you almost wonder if the final outcome of these races has little to do with you.
But in a way, it sorta doesn't matter. Every meagre second of MotorStorm is such a fucking riot, you're more than happy to give it another bash, time-in, time-out. You'll laugh it off. You'll hit "retry". You rinse and you'll repeat. Evolution pulled off that single, illusive trait that only the very best games ever do, in that MotorStorm is just
absolutely god damn fucking brilliant every single second you play of it. You can whine about the lack of modes, the hardcore difficulty and the fact we have to wait for online, but when you're in that cockpit, blazing down the most pixel perfect canyons ever imaginable, and some lunatic's car blows up forcing you to serve outta the way at the last possible millisecond...it's just about the single greatest gaming rush ever. It actually makes Burnout feel sorta timid. That's the only way I can truly sum up this game.
Considering this Jap copy has - I exaggerate not - maybe 5 lines of home-grown text in the entire game, a purchase is a no-brainer really. In case you didn't know, every PS3 title so far is fully region free by the way...one
very nice bonus feature that Microsoft and Nintendo may well want to take note of.
Untold Legends - Dark Kingdom
The disappointment of Ridge Racer aside then, the above four games all impressed me in varying degrees. Even Genji isn't a bad game per se. A flawed one, sure, but certainly not a bad one.
Untold Legends however, is.
 | | Looks pretty cool? Think again. Pretty spells do not a good game make. A fuckin' awful one though, perhaps |
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I must say, I really sort of enjoyed the first two Untold Legendseseses (first reviewed
here). As old-fashioned action RPGs, they filled a nice, if clich?d hole otherwise conspicuously missing in PSP land, and proved brainless and simple enough as to work beautifully on a handheld without ever getting overly complex and laborious. I know those games weren't met with particular critical acclaim - much like this new third instalment titled Dark Kingdom - but my own love for the series made me think that perhaps the masses were wrong once again, hence I snagged it on the cheap courtesy of eBay.
Sadly, they weren't. The simplicity of the handheld games - simple button bashing, non-existent story, and colour-less medieval backdrops - really doesn't cut it on a 32" HD TV with next-gen power backing it up. It just feels so god damn mundane and by-the-numbers here, so much so that you'd be hard pressed to pick it out of a medieval line-up. When I think back to Fable, Zelda or any other such stand-out action RPGs of this persuasion, there's just no vague comparison really. Dark Kingdom boasts zilcho personality, and is just so utterly and totally lifeless, it feels like the Greg Kinnear of video games.
A simple button basher in which you play either a Warrior, a Mage or the hotty rogue-like Scout, it ultimately boils down to hammering square and X over and over and over to make evil beasties go cry. It's mildly fun at first, with some nicely animated melee combat, but the problem is - much like its handheld processors - variety ain't Dark Kingdom's strong point, and you'll essentially be doing the same exact thing 10 hours in as you were in those first 5 minutes. It's clich?d dungeon crawling hack 'n' slash stuff as if painted by numbers, whacked on repeat.
If there's one thing to mildly praise, it would have to be the physics. It takes a bland, flat and otherwise totally derivative game up a notch that definitely adds an extra dimension over its previous incarnations. I mainly play the Mage myself, and he comes complete with some nice telekinetic, Force-style powers like hurtling rocks at dudes, and sucking huge armies into black holes in a spasticated rag-doll tangle. Unfortunately the other classes - particularly the Warrior - are so bland in comparison, they're not even worth considering.
 | | I shed a tear here. Sadly for the wrong reasons |
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There
is co-op play included, but even this proves disappointing in the long run. The game offers a 2-player same-screen option for offline play, or a full-on 4-player mode over the internet, and it too proves fun at first, due to - in a weird way - actually reminding me of running WoW instances. That same dungeon-crawling, loot-stealing vibe returns almost full force, but the problem is, 4-players are just way too many for the comparatively small number of enemies and cramped, confined corridors that the Dark Kingdom universe ultimately offers. As a result? It comes off like pure chaos. You really can't see what the hell you're hitting most of the time, and I more often than not found myself trying to slaughter fellow team mates for minutes on-end before realising they were, err, on my side. Again, no voice chat support compounds this problem, which for me, is pretty much the entire point of co-op instantly removed.
I also gotta mention the absolutely painfully awful cut-scenes, truly cringe-worthy stuff that tries to get big, chunky WoW-style cartoon characters - who's swords are bigger than their bodies - to actually emote and tell a captivating story. Oh dear.
All in all, even my middling expectations were failed to be met by Dark Kingdom, and it goes down as by far the lamest disc I've yet inserted into Sony's otherwise proud beast. It leaves me with the nagging feeling that this may well have started life as a PS2 game behind closed doors, a theory more than backed up by its uneven looks and almost hilariously dated action.
Hilarious at least, if I hadn't wasted hard-earned beer money on this puddle of penile excretion.
Backwards Compatibility
Speaking of which, the PS3 is also of course backwards compatible with both PS2 and original Playstation games, which on paper, sounds like an amazingly awesome bonus feature. Hell, the PS2 is still seemingly pumping out blinding games on a monthly basis as we speak, with Bully, Okami and the upcoming God of War II all must-haves just off the top of my head.
Unfortunately, I'm unable to really test this functionality out due to region restrictions still firmly in place for BC games and my owning of a US model. It gets a lot worse though. While such extensive backwards compatibility all sounds great on paper, by all accounts it's actually pretty iffy in practice. There's word of a few hundred titles suffering minor issues like music not playing or control pads not responding, and although Sony have been exceptionally on the ball about already starting to fix some of these slip-ups, far more worrying is
this comically awful glitch involving horrendous video output in PS2 games. I can't speak for the validity of that myself, but it certainly makes the 360's backwards compatibility look a hell of a lot better if true.
In fact, unlike the 360's BC, the PS3's effort deserves further critical judgement for doing absolutely fuck all in the way of up-scaling or anti-aliasing your old games. Say what you will about Microsoft's treatment, but to play games like Halo 2 and Ninja Gaiden up-rezzed to 720p with no jaggies in sight is truly a sight to see, and I was hoping for similar such upgrades from Sony. The thought of Ico in high-def? Or
Resi 4? Or
Metal Gear Solid 3? Dear lord...what a missed opportunity. 'Cos let's be honest, eh? If any system needed those jaggies fixed-up, it was the PS-bloody-2.
All in all, a bit of a bummer then, this, but one I have minor hopes Sony will rectify via firmware updates. I'll keep you guys posted if they do, but in the meantime I guess Dig's undying dream of actually getting to play
Shadow of the Colossus in high definition remains but that. Fuck.
The Competition
Much like the 360's launch, there's no real killer app here just yet, with even MotorStorm not really approaching those levels 'til we see its online mode patched in over the next few months. I guess in some ways you could say Microsoft launched with more interesting games in 2005, with titles like Condemned, Kameo and PGR still ace titles I continue to play to this very day, while I doubt I'll be saying the same about Genji and Untold Legends this time next year. Then again, Resistance totally shits upon Perfect Dark Zero with ease, and thus both line-ups seem pretty comparable all-in-all.
 | | Just picture what these cats'll do with next-gen hardware. Only on PS3, suckers... |
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Of course, the 360 has a year's worth of subsequent releases that make it a far more interesting purchase right now, that goes without saying. I personally think that from the graphical standpoint though, the PS3 has already all-but-caught up, and when its true killer titles start showing up over the next 12 months, it should make for quite the interesting battle between MS and Sony.
As far as Nintendo go, the more resounding compliment one can pass on to the PS3 is how it so totally trounces the Wii's line-up right now. Much like I whined about last month, with Zelda polished off, that thing's already starting to gather dust while we await distant new releases. The PS3 by comparison, is seeing hours upon hours of play every day, and unlike Nintendo's console, also has more great titles on its way
soon. Heavenly Sword, Virtua Fighter 5, Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Mercenaries 2 are all right around the corner in fact, and along with your Metal Gears and your Final Fantasies that'll show up further down the line, we also have an as-yet unannounced new game from the Ico team to look forward to as well.
The mammoth rush to get a unit for launch day back in November seems somewhat silly in retrospect, but now knee-deep in 2007 with such top draw greatness right around the corner, now ain't a bad time at all to start pondering whether the PS3 is for you.
Particularly with rumours of another Euro delay now hinting all the way back to September...
