My First Homecoming

November 25, 2008 on 9:49 am | In PS3, Preview | No Comments

Like an ever-increasing number of lucky Playstation 3 owners, I received a code to participate in the Home beta over the weekend. After years of promises and half-glimpses, I would finally have a chance to experience Sony’s much-touted interactive online experience. What awaited me inside their online realm was in a word, sparse.

Overall, the beta offers little to see or do at this point, which is kind of despairing when you considering how long this thing has been in development. The amount of clothing and furniture with which to custom your individual avatar is limited to only a handful of items. Still, I went ahead with gusto, creating the fattest, tallest character possible and then decking him out with red track pants, a black tank top, aviators, a brown hat and black dress shoes.

My online personage thus made, I ventured out into Sony’s brave new online frontier. There are only a few locations available for exploration at this early stage, so I had to content myself with wandering the large plaza area. It serves as a hub, connecting you to the other spaces, like the bowling alley, mall and movie theater. It all looked pleasant enough and, to my infinite surprise, my fellow inhabits displayed equally sunny demeanors. After experiencing the unvarnished brutality to logic that was “World of Warcraft’s” old Looking For Group channel, I expected a little more in the way of fanboy bashing and argument mongering.

Before you can visit any new location, they must be downloaded to the hard drive and even after that there is still a cumbersome loading screen to contend with. While it was neat to see all the people milling about, interacting become a trying process. As most PS3 users lack a headset, communication was limited to typing in each letter manually using the controller. This process continually frustrated my attempts to insert my biting, sarcastic barbs into conversations, due to the lateness with which said jabs would arrive. Also, once I had more than 15 people on my screen, the lag kicked in, though in all honesty it could have been a lot worse. However, my Internet set up is not ideal due to my living in South Korea and my router’s config screen being completely in Korean. On the plus side, there is any number of amusing dances that your avatar is capable of executing. On the downside, after 15 minutes boredom set in. I don’t think I’ll be using it again until the next update.

Generally, the mood seemed subdued, which reflects my overall takeaway from the experience. I know it’s too early to judge, but things like a beta are supposed to get consumers excited about the product. Instead, I’m borderline worried. The fusion of Second Life and gaming that Sony seeks to capture seems headed toward a muted middle ground. The bottom line for me is that I want to be able to find my friends online and play games with them, and I want to do it quickly. What Sony fails to realize, I think, is that this is all that most people want. All the extra bells and whistles, achievements and statistics and customization, are always great, as long as they don’t interfere directly with the primary goal: playing games online with your friends.

By creating entire worlds where a few icons can suffice, Sony surely will create a new experience. However, all the features that Home offers are already available on the Xbox 360 or in PC gaming, just without the veneer of explorable 3D worlds. My experience with Home so far suggests that this gloss could end up as a distraction, not an enhancement, to the gaming experience.

Additional Comment: I’m about 17 hours in to “Valkyria Chronicles” and I’m totally digging it. If you are in anyway remotely interested in strategy, fantasy or gorgeous animations, then buy this game.