Features// PlayStation 3 - First Impressions - IMAGE UPDATE!

The user interface

The first thing you see on power-up will be reassuringly familiar to anyone who owns a PSP. It’s called the Cross-Media Bar and looks exactly the same as the PSP’s user interface. Menu choices, from left to right, are: Users, Settings, Photo, Music, Video, Game, Network and Friends. Slightly bizarrely, a handsome 3D icon sits under Friends on our PS3, marked: “Sign Up for PlayStation Network”. Shamefully, we haven’t attempted to click it yet. You’re invited to enter a username (using a mobile phone-style virtual keyboard), which becomes the first thing to click when booting up the machine. You launch games exactly like you do on the PSP.


Games and general observations

As yet, the games library we have for our PS3 is sketchy, to say the least. It consists of Resistance: Fall Of Man, Genji and two disks, each of which contains a single demo level of MotorStorm. Genji is probably the most complete game, but it in no way feels like anything other than a PS2 game with rezzed-up visuals. Its utterly predictable hack-n-slash gameplay just isn’t what the PS3 is at all about.

MotorStorm is impressive, but our demos (identical to those seen at TGS) merely leave us wanting the full game. It certainly makes impressive use of the physics-processing capabilities which the PS3 boasts, but all you can do is choose between an impressive selection of Paris-Dakar-style 4x4s, buggies, hot-rods, motorbikes and quad-bikes, before trawling around the same two craggy courses against the AI. The way mud builds up on the vehicles is impressive, as is the way they explode into components when you crash them (before long, we found ourselves crashing deliberately).

But our copy of Resistance: Fall of Man at least contains a decent percentage of the single-player game, and we’ve been playing it obsessively. You wouldn’t say that Resistance breaks new ground, in terms of offering any new FPS experiences (although that may not be the case with the online side of the game).

But it’s a corker. It’s satisfyingly hard, the control system is beautifully sorted and has plenty of feel, and it places particular emphasis on selecting the right weaponry – and many of its weapons (pictured right) are extremely imaginative. Notably the Bullseye, which lets you fire marker-bullets with the left shoulder; embed one in an alien and your ordinary bullets (fired by the right shoulder) will home in. And there’s the Auger, which fires energy bolts through cover (although over a limited range) and lets you erect a temporary force-field by hitting alternate fire. And the sniper rifle gives you a concentration mode: hold down the left bumper, and you get a limited period of bullet-time.

You also have to look after your health assiduously – although you can get health recharges, they are pretty few and far between. Health is split into four quarters and, Halo-style, you will recharge up to the nearest quarter if you hide from bullets for a while. There’s no doubt that Resistance: Fall of Man will be the highlight of the launch line-up, and it should kick-start things on the PlayStation Network. It’s pretty hardcore, though.

Finally, it’s worth noting that after maybe ten minutes of use, our PS3 does get pretty hot – an inevitable downside of the fact that it’s so quiet. But it hasn’t crashed on us once yet, you’ll be glad to hear. We’ve started hassling third parties, and Sony reckons it should have code for the likes of Lair and WarHawk soon, so we’ll keep you updated.