Wait… They made a third one?

I’m reviewing the Playstation 3 today, the 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Bundle, specifically, and I want to try to do something with this review. I’m going to try to review it from a technology standpoint, rather than a video game review stance. I also know that in reviewing a game console, that there is no way to fully separate video games from the review, and videogames, in this case, are important to this review, and I won’t try to completely remove them, just, like I said, try to review from more of a technology standpoint.

The Playstation 3 is very large device. I started off as a Sega Genesis player, and from there to a Nintendo follower. In comparing the PS3 to the Nintendo family, and even the Genesis, it is a very large machine. It is also very loud in comparison. The package I received it in stated that it was 7 kg (though, that is including all the wiring and Metal Gear Solid 4 that came in the box). I carefully lifted my black behemoth out of it’s packaging, scared to death that I would damage this thing that I had spent my last paycheck on. After plugging it in and getting it started, I noticed that a very warm breeze was coming out of the side of the unit. I realized that it was the unit’s cooling system, and it was just idle, sitting there in it’s menu system. It was easy to set up though, and unlike the Wii, GameCube, and 360, which all have a power unit that sits outside the ‘box’, the PS3’s power unit is contained inside, and it has just a standard black PC power cable.

As for pure technical specs; my PS3 (and all PS3s for that matter) have an IBM developed, 7-core processor, running at 3.2 GHz, which would explain how it is much like a black space heater. It has 256 MB of system RAM, and another 256 MB of VRAM. As mentioned earlier, it has an 80 GB HDD.

The PS3’s native menu was a bit, overwhelming to say the least. It has more options than you can shake the proverbial stick at. It took a bit of getting used to, and I’m not sure that I’m fully comfortable with it yet. That being said, it has an internet browser built into the menu system, and Stanford’s Folding@home pre-installed. The first of which, the browser, works, however, I can’t say that I like it all that much, it has a very confusing control system, and it’s a bit awkward to type in letters using the PS3 controller, especially when those URLs get very long. As a comparison, I have the Opera-based Wii browser, which although is $5 extra on top of the Wii’s price, is far far better, despite the Wii’s lower overall technical power, plus the nature of the Wii’s controller makes it much easier to enter information, even if it is by the ‘hunt and peck’ method. I guess I could plug in a USB keyboard into the PS3 to type in faster, but that seems like adding more unnecessary price to an already expensive machine. The Folding@home, however, is an amazing piece of software, and beautifully done. Though I still have a minor gripe or two with it. First the good: Besides having a beautiful overlay, showing active Folding@home global PS3 network, it allows you to play music, stored on the hard drive, while it shows it’s animations. It’s also aiding a very good cause. My minor gripes with it are that you cannot play anything, or do anything else while the software is running. It would be great to be able to play Playstation 1 and 2 games while F@h is running in the background, but it will not allow that functionality. I doubt, that even with software emulation, that a PS1 or 2 game takes all 7 cores to run. But maybe F@h does, and that’s why it won’t allow it, I don’t know.

The PS3 also has a store, which you can download software from. In doing my research, it apparently used to be a browser-based store, and was recently changed over to running as an application based store. It has a clean interface, but I have one major gripe with it. The Playstation 3’s store, and occasionally other parts of it’s menu system, have an itty-bitty, nasty to read text. I believe, in all honesty, that it was designed for an HDTV display. This leads me to the assumption that the Sony assumes that you have and are playing the Playstation 3 on an HDTV, which is odd since they only give you the standard RCA cables in the box, the component cables are sold separately. I don’t have an HDTV, I can’t afford one, especially after buying a PS3. I am quite vexed about this, but I don’t know what else to say, other than I wish that they didn’t assume that I’m ultra wealthy. I’d like to point the reader back to the middle of the 3^rd paragraph where I state that I spent an entire month’s paycheck on it. Anyway, as I look back on my review so far, I notice that I’ve yet to say anything really good about the PS3, and that makes me think that readers are thinking, ‘Why the heck did you buy it if all you can do is complain about it?’, I want to change the tone of my review from here on out.

This bundle includes a DualShock 3 controller. The first PS3 controller to have rumble feature. It has a good weight and feel, but I’m still getting used to the whole ‘Square Circle Triangle’ thing. And SIXAXIS is crap. Completely worthless, why Sony, why? But, that being said, I also love the fact that it’s wireless, and they give you a USB cable to charge it on the PS3. I believe that the 360 does the same thing, and it’s nice to see a company do a rechargeable controller (I’m looking at you Nintendo).

I have also popped in MGS 4, which after installing (which was a bit weird, installing a console game), I played. It is amazing, the detail level, even on my old analog color TV, is incredible. In the opening sequence, I couldn’t tell that the images in the background were digitally created, I won’t say that they looked real, they were real, and I had to keep telling my brain that this wasn’t real, because it couldn’t tell the difference.

And finally, anyone who’s walked into a Best Buy or other big electronics retailer I’m sure have seen the beauty of Blue-Ray disks. They are absolutely incredible. The PS3 is a Blue-Ray player, and it’s game disks are the same format. Blue-Ray has won the so-called ‘format war’, and the PS3 is a fair priced Blue-Ray player, on top of an extremely powerful console, with potential literally oozing from the same pores as it uses to warm your home in winter. It is the only console(I’m not counting PC) that can output to 1080p (provided that you have a HDTV capable of it, he says as he shakes his fist at Sony). And overall, the PS3 is an incredible piece of technology and hardware. And I like it, quite a bit. Aside from the issues that it has, including, quite possibly it’s biggest flaw, it’s prohibitive price point, I would recommend it as a piece of beautiful engineering.