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My wife bought me a PS3 as an early Christmas present (and so I could possibly bring it on the boat for the next underway).

So far though the experience has been underwhelming. The on screen keyboard is annoying to use, even accounting for the fact that it uses a controller. It at least uses the normal QWERTY layout instead of just putting the letters in order but you have to select that mode manually, otherwise it gives you 10 digits as if I was trying to send a text message to someone. What’s next, limiting games to 320×240 resolution because people have PSPs and DS? I don’t see why they intentionally limit the number of input buttons just because that’s what people have to deal with on a cell phone.

Eventually I got the internet access to work, at which time it needed an update. After about seriously 20 minutes of downloading over a cable modem it finally was able to start the 5 minute process of actually applying the update.

Finally I was able to play a game. Perhaps my wife shouldn’t have chosen Medal of Honor: Airborne though. :-/

It spent 10 minutes on its own installing stuff to the hard drive. I then got to go through a training mission where I was supposed to parachute out of an airplane near a green flare below. The on-screen instructions were basically useless. For example, “Press X to flare the parachute”. That explains nothing to me, and pressing the button made my legs kick and nothing else was apparent. It would probably have helped if my son wasn’t crying and therefore drowning out the spoken instructions but seriously, why put up on-screen instructions so undescriptive?

Also cool about the training mission was that I’m pretty sure my soldier broke his legs every landing. The game even made sure to put a message on-screen saying as much: “Botched Landing 10/50″ or something like that. For all 3 landings. This was even with me holding up on the stick trying to “Grease the Landing” or whatever that’s supposed to do. I never did figure out how to maneuver in mid-air. Trying the obvious thing (moving the control stick) merely makes you oscillate in the air before your untimely leg-breaking.

Luckily though no matter how much you suck the Army is willing to drop your ass over Sicily. I must have been on easy mode because I pretty much automatically landed near a green flare (botched landing, of course) and started the mission. It was basically me walking around and having to manually aim everywhere and getting shot 10 times and yet I still miraculously had half of my life bar. I figure that the health is so high because in-game testing revealed that the poor control they impose led to people getting out-gunned by the A.I. I wonder why they didn’t simply improve the control so that you aren’t useless but I guess innovations which were old hat when Goldeneye 007 was released in 1997 or so is old-fashioned now.

The buttons were at least easy enough to figure out for the most part, at least enough to point and open fire. Taking cover is easy, although the tendency of your computer-controlled teammates to immediately move in front of you when you try to shoot the enemy is not helpful.

I really wish that people would stop buying games which take such great pains to simulate events that real people don’t want to do. Hey look, I can spend $50 $60 on a game that allows me to take forever to line up a shot because that’s more “realistic” than the auto-aim present in Goldeneye 007, look how manly I am!! These developers have taken so many pains to make the game realistic that it’s no longer fun, it’s a chore. I turned off the PS3 1/3 of the way into the first level. If I really wanted to be a soldier I’d have enlisted in the Army. As it stands now I’d rather play Metroid Prime 3, which was designed for a system with probably one tenth of the power…

Also the graphics are not extraordinary although I assume that is because I don’t have the HDTV hookup. But it does make me feel better about what I get out of the Wii.

I’ll eventually try Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and the other supposed good PS3 games but what an awful way to start out the experience…

Posted by mpyne under Personal |