Sony: I bitch, I praise

This post was originally intended to be a mini-rant about Sony's ass-backwards approach to online interactivity, but then I glanced at my RSS feed and they came out with a press release that suddenly makes the PSP instantly relevant again. So: toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh. I say: why not write about both?

When I bought my Blackberry Storm, it came with a bluetooth headset that I never use - until I realized that I could use it as a headset for the PS3. I don't really do a lot of online gaming on the PS3, but I do like communicating with the few PS3-owning friends I have, and chatting is easier through speech than with the clunky text interface, and I wasn't about to spend $50 on a Sony headset or the official chat-pad thing which, speaking of being ass-backwards, look at that thing. So a free solution to the problem seemed awfully appealing...

... except that the process of getting a headset hooked up to the PS3 is not at all intuitive and there was a key thing that I apparently wasn't doing, and I only figured out what I missed through extensive google searches. (It's not just enough that you pair your device; you then must dig into another sub-menu on the dashboard and flip a few switches, and I'd never have figured that out on my own.) A lot of fanboys like to point out that PSN is free while XBL is a paid service, but I say you get what you pay for; if you want to use a 360 headset, you put the plug into the controller and that's it. In any event, I was eventually able to get my headset to work, and so I was finally able to talk with my friend as she kicked my ass in Street Fighter 4 yet again, and I was able to send the game back to Gamefly with a clear conscience, knowing I had tried my best.

As for the PSP news, peep this MTV Multiplayer article for the full press release; the important PSP releases are as follows:

• LittleBigPlanet (sounds like a port, with added levels and features)
  
• Assassin's Creed (and a themed bundle)
• Rock Band Unplugged (I'm actually pretty curious about this - it'll have its own wi-fi store)
• Madden 10 and Tiger Woods 10 (meh)
• MotorStorm Arctic Edge
  
• Dissidia Final Fantasy

It's maybe not as jaw-dropping when you look at it like that, but this is a hell of a lot better than the nothing that's been the PSP's status quo for the last year or so. I'd certainly like to see a new GTA title on the PSP (as would lots of people, it would seem).

Weekend Recap: Reality Sinks In edition

I'd thought I'd handled my 360's recent death rather calmly, all things considered; it happened the night before The Lost & Damned came out, so I already knew I wouldn't be playing it - I imagine I'd have been a lot more pissed off if I'd bought the DLC and then found out my 360 was fucked. And, really, this was a perfect time to try out the PS3 as my main console, and if nothing else this gave me a lot more opportunity to spend with FF7.

Problem is, I was expecting Microsoft to send me a shipping box for my 360 when I did my online support request, and as it turned out, I had accidentally selected the "No, thanks, I'll send it myself" option, which I didn't actually find out until Saturday night, after the local UPS store closed. So I basically wasted a week of repair time that I didn't even know I had. And now, well, I'm really missing my 360.

I certainly had stuff to play for the PS3 this weekend - I downloaded Noby Noby Boy, already this year's front-runner for the coveted "What The Hell Is This Thing?" award, and my rental copies of Valkyria Chronicles and Street Fighter 4 had arrived.

I can't really talk about Noby Noby Boy, because I have no idea what it is. I was certainly excited to check it out, as my love of all things Katamari runs deep, but NNB is just plain weird. I'm not even sure it's a game, to be honest, nor am I sure what exactly it is you're supposed to do. Then again, the game's creator doesn't really know what it is, either, so I guess you get what you pay for.

Valkyria Chronicles is a sort-of strategy RPG, and while I can appreciate that it's doing something new, I really don't like strategy RPGs, and after finishing the first mission I already knew I wasn't going to like it. So there's that.

Then there's Street Fighter 4. I feel terrible for not really liking it. I feel pretty confident in calling it the 2nd best fighting game ever made (next to Soul Calibur), and it certainly brought me back to my childhood years in which I'd routinely beat the hell out of my younger brother on the Sega Genesis version of SF2. But the truth is that I think I'm kinda done with fighting games; I have neither the skill with which to be even marginally successful in online play, nor the patience to learn. I tried Arcade mode on Very Easy with 3 or 4 different characters and I couldn't even make it past Round 3 with any of them. I tried the Trial mode, which ostensibly teaches you all the moves, but it's done pretty badly and the nomenclature they use to describe moves went way over my head.

I can totally respect why other people are going apeshit for it, and I really wish I felt the same way. I suppose if my wife were interested in mashing buttons with me, I'd probably put in a bit more effort into getting better at it, but she is most definitely not interested, and so it'll be going back later this week. I kinda want to give it one more go online before I send it back, though, if only to see if I can get my headset to work (in advance of Killzone 2's eventual release).

Fully well-rounded

My wife and I have absolutely no patience when it comes to gift-giving; it's incredibly rare that we can actually hold out until the actual day to exchange gifts. Our 4th wedding anniversary is in a little over a week and being that my wife is currently in a cast recovering from foot surgery, this meant that I was actually tasked with not only buying her a gift, but buying myself a gift as well (at her request, and on her dime). And so, last night, I bought her a 32gb iPod Touch, and she bought me a Playstation 3.

The PS3 is going to serve mainly as a Blu-Ray player, which is just fine with me; ever since the format war ended, I knew I was going to get a Blu-Ray player at some point, and so why not the PS3. I did feel compelled to get some games for it, though, because, well, it can do that, and so I picked up Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet & Clank and spent roughly 10-20 minutes with both.

Uncharted certainly looks really nice, and it plays like a masculine Tomb Raider, which is just fine. And R&C has moments of near-Pixar-like beauty, although I'm not sure it's anything the 360 can't handle.

It is exceedingly weird to now own all 5 major gaming devices (not counting my cellphone, which I play Scrabble and Solitaire on during my commutes and my PC, which I haven't used in a gaming capacity since I stopped playing WoW). I had been an Xbox loyalist - and rather proudly at that - for a very long time. I suppose I kinda still am, to be honest - the 360 still has the most compelling lineup and I am an Achievement whore, and that shit goes a long way when it comes to considering cross-platform purchases. But it is nice to be able to know that I can finally experience all that this generation has to offer.

And hey - I'll give the PS3 a fair shot, now that I have it. I'll admit that I've been a hater since before it launched, and I maintain that there isn't really anything in the PS3 catalog that's screaming for a purchase right now; in fact, there's really not all that much that I'm thinking about renting, either, except for Resistance and maybe Motorstorm. I will probably end up checking out MGS4, but I've hated that franchise for years and nothing I've seen of this new game has done anything to change my opinion that MGS is fantastically overrated. OK, and I am looking forward to LittleBigPlanet. Still, though, that's not really much of anything to get terribly excited about, and unless there's a terribly compelling reason not to, any cross-platform games are gonna be bought for the 360; that's where my friends are, that's where my Achievements are, that's what I'm used to.