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Justify My PS3

 
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ApM
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:18 pm    Post subject: Justify My PS3 Reply with quote

So, as I posted about a little while ago, I got myself a nice new TV for Christmas, and a Blu-Ray player to go along with it which happens to be a Playstation 3.

Now, Shaper has stated many times that the reason to own a PS3 is to play PS2 games on it. I knew they'd ripped out the hardware PS2 compatibility in favour of emulation, and I was okay with this. What I hadn't heard was that a few months back, they completely removed all PS2 compatibility from new models. I guess there was still some supporting hardware that the emulation needed to function? Anyway, that bites a lot.

Nevertheless, I decided that there must be something worthwhile on the platform worth looking at. However, thus far, the only non-downloadable games that have piqued my interest have been Little Big Planet and Singstar. Everything else that's not available on the Xbox 360 seems like more of the kind of shit I already don't buy for the Xbox.

On the downloadable front, I tried to play the demo for Echochrome, which automatically updates itself into a non-playable state, requiring you to delete it, redownload it, and then refuse the update in order to actually try it. Random people on message boards say that this is a known problem; Sony says nothing. And the game itself is kind of fiddly and underwhelming. I've already got Everyday Shooter on Steam, so I haven't picked that up yet. I have some interest in flOw.

I did pick up Pixeljunk Racers, Pixeljunk Eden, and Linger in Shadows (which has to be the most absurd possible way of giving $3 to a Polish demogroup), and I have been pretty happy with those purchases.

Then there's PS3 Linux. Which is actually fairly nice, with some caveats.

1) I wish the dual-booting experience was a little bit smoother than it is. PetitBoot is not nearly as awful as having to type "boot-game-os", but still, if I accidentally leave my PS3 in Linux-booting mode, my wife is as likely to shut the thing off as puzzle out how to actually make it behave as a PS3.

2) Installing it takes FOREVER -- like an hour. To make matters even more fun, I'm running Xubuntu, and apparently, if you try to run the graphical installer at a resolution in which you can actually see the entire installer window, it runs out of memory and hangs halfway through. But I can chalk that up to my typical "Linux never fucking works right out of the box" experience, which I have been having over and over since Red Hat 5.0, and move on with my life.

3) So my big plan for PS3 Linux was to run Performous (an open-source SingStar clone) on my TV. I've always wanted to do a karaoke rendition of William Shatner's Mr. Tambourine Man at a party or something, but for some reason it never seems to show up on the list at karaoke bars. Supposedly the PS2 SingStar microphones are just regular USB microphones, directly supported by Performous, so this was going to be totally sweet.

Problem 1: I couldn't get any USB microphone that I tried to work. I assume this is just a kernel bug because nobody's tried to do this yet, and will probably be solvable if I'm willing to build my own kernels and follow a bug on Launchpad. Which I might do, if it weren't for:

Problem 2: GRAPHICS PERFORMANCE IS AWFUL. Sony has completely closed off access to any hardware accelerated 3D graphics, leaving behind only a simple framebuffer. After giving up on getting my microphone to work, I decided to bring up the game anyway, and I got sub-1fps framerates. AUGH.

Now, as I understand it, non-OpenGL games, like most emulators, actually work pretty well. But apparently anything written with OpenGL -- even essentially 2D stuff -- is unusable. I might give this OpenGL driver a shot -- it aims to use the unused processors of the cell processor to do 3D graphics, which ought to speed things up a bit. It's still kind of in an alpha state -- it doesn't even run all of the standard OpenGL demos -- but I can't imagine Performous taxing it all that much.

I'll probably give some emulators a go; see how well they perform. (Assuming I can get Linux to recognize the SixAxis -- apparently that worked once and currently doesn't.) I have no real reason to use it as a media player when I've got my PC hooked up to my new TV, too, and if I really don't want to get off the couch to start something, there's always TVersity. I've considered trying to get the Wine / Qemu combination off the ground, but that's just masochism with a hint of desperation.

Is this all there is? What the hell else is there for me to put into this machine? Should I take it back to the store and try and dig up one with some PS2 compatibility?
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oooh. Thanks for letting me know about Linux. I just got a 320 GB hard drive to upgrade my PS3 with and I've been trying to decide whether or not to install Linux. This is a "no" I guess. I've heard Linux is much easier to use these days, but this sounds like most of my previous experiences with it. No thank you!

As for games and things to do with the PS3, there's actually quite a lot that I recommend.

Uncharted is a must-have. It's the feeling that Tomb Raider has always promised mixed with Ico's platforming and Gears of War's gunplay. It's great.

Resistance 2 is my favorite FPS of last year, Left for Dead included. It's full of variety, has a superb sense of scale, and is paced relatively well. It's also got some worthwhile MMORPG-type multiplayer modes, but multiplayer doesn't really interest me.

Ratchet & Clank Future is surprisingly good. It's got a really nice sense of flow and pace, and doesn't ever resort to filler. I like it a lot more than Mario Galaxy.

Folklore is an interesting mix of Silent Hill's themes, Pokemon's monster collecting in an Action RPG battle system, and Tim Burton's style. It's not a must-have, but if this combo sounds interesting you'd probably like it.

Valkyria Chronicles is beautiful, the prime example of what Tactical strategy games should be like in the future, but sort of flawed. It's very good, regardless.

As for download stuff - Flow is good, Blast Factor and Super Stardust HD are good dual-stick shooters. LocoRoco Cocoreccho is a neat experiment that's worth the price, Wipeout HD is the best console Wipeout in years, Calling All Cars is an excellent game if you can get together four people and four controllers (but pretty worthless otherwise), and Noby Noby Boy's due out in Feb.

The PS2 BC was pretty much the biggest selling-point for a long while, but the PS3's lineup of exclusives is pretty comparable to the Xbox 360s at this point. In the near future the PS3 will have Killzone 2, Infamous, Uncharted 2, White Knight Chronicles, and Yakuza 3.

-Wes
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ApM
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Honestly, if I didn't have my PC already hooked up to my TV, I'd be a bit more excited about it. But instead, the only advantage is that the PS3 is in front of my TV. I mean, I could run UltraStar on my PC, but the microphones wouldn't really reach as far as they'd need to comfortably go. Anything that uses a mouse and/or keyboard, well, I've got a nice wireless set already, and a Windows PC with reasonable 3D performance.

I kind of wish Uncharted didn't have a dude holding two guns on the cover.
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SuperWes
Updated the banners, but not his title
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's always Home.

-Wes
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