ID:51843
 
I decided to load up the PS3 and check this out last night, 12 hours later and I'm logged in.

As a whole, the character creator is completely uninspired. Four pairs of pants without the ability to do even simple things like choose from a half dozen preset colours. Of the few options in there, the majority aren't even worth considering.
Facial hair is literally a joke. The mustaches are all the equivalent of rainbow afros.
I'm not saying that the character creators on the Wii and 360 are great, but Home is being pushed as much more than a interface upgrade and Wii Tennis so it really needs to live up to higher standards than this.
This is one of the most important aspects of the entire Home experience, yet I'm having difficulty thinking up a character creation system from any B+ game within the last year that doesn't blow it out of the water.

The world itself functions alright. The constant loading screens between areas is annoying and seems sort of unnecessary. There are also some dumb things like physical limitations on who can be using what, but it does it's job well enough.
That said the world may do it's job well, but it's job is boring. There's not much to do. If my friends were interested it might be a different story, but I just felt like I was standing alone with nothing to do. I eventually found an arcade game that was free and it was (and I'm stealing this from Penny Arcade) nothing more than a flash browser game.
It was an ice-themed version of basic Breakout (no power ups, no special bricks, just bounce the ball at the bricks until they're all gone). Pool and bowling looked better, but there were no tables/lanes free, and even if there were I don't think anyone would appreciate one person taking up a whole table/lane by himself.

Playing alone, and I can't imagine ever saying 'hey guys, how about instead of playing skate we just stand around in Home', the whole Home world seems to have this atmosphere of being stuck at your lame cousins birthday party. You don't know anyone, you don't really want to know anyone, so it's pretty much bad music and cake.

The cinema is sort of cool but it needs to be more. Being able to watch actual movies in full screen, with groups of friends to chat with during the movie, would make it worth while. Until then I'd rather just use a menu.

Next up you've got your apartment. It's got a sweet realtime editor, but I would have liked the ability to go into a Sims-like editing mode where you get a broader overview of the apartment as a whole.
I like the idea of being able to buy new homes but $8.99AUD is a bit much when, like every other purchasable item, there is nothing more than a thumbnail picture to show you what you're getting.
This brings me to the Shopping Centre's only problem (it's two floors of shops, there's nothing to really screw up or do right). The one situation where a 3D environment can work better than a menu and they go ahead and use the standard PSN Store. Instead of having stores you can walk into, look at the show room floor, select what you want then buy it they just make it so that when you enter the stores doorway a PSN Store menu pops up with a bunch of thumbnails and descriptions for what ever is being sold there.
You can still browse, and most of the thumbnails seem to give you a good idea of what you're getting, but the whole thing just feels really backwards compared to the rest of Home. Really you'd expect them to have a showroom floor where you can browse, maybe even try on (and get your friends opinions) and then have the PSN Store menu interface at the checkout counter.

If they put in some serious development time, ported it to 360, Wii and PC, increased the amount of free AND purchasable content and offered a web-based Facebook style interface, this could become a serious social network. Until then there is no good reason to use this. Anyone you meet there has access to the PSN which is must faster and easier to use.
It's the equivalent of replacing Windows Explorer with a Matrix-like file warehouse you have to walk around in to find your files. Cool, but pointless.

Overall, my verdict on this is pretty much the same as it was with Lair and Heavenly Sword. If the PS3 had a decent selection of software and Home was simply allowed to be itself this would have been a fun toy and some people would have really liked it. However due to the PS3's game shortage it was over-hyped and held up as something far bigger than it is, which I think is going to turn a lot of people sour to it and ultimately result in its death.
Playstation Home is a support act, not the main event. If you treat it as such you'll have a much better chance of actually enjoying yourself.
I agree with the character customization completely. Thats my main peeve with it. And yeah it sortof is boring, the breakout game is the best arcade game they have and it could definitely have been better. Bowling is pretty fun though!

Pool is "okay".

Overall i do like it. Its free, and it will obviously get updates and more features. So we'll see.

What is your PSN btw?
It isn't even final...It is just tads of what is to come. Sony went lazy..."Here is erm...Home...sort of...just to please the beggers".
Were people honestly expecting something more than what they got? I don't get why people got so hyped up for it.
@Maggeh: I wasn't buying into the hype but I was definitely expecting more.

@Nishiatsu: Well it's not really a beta as much as they just held back on putting content in. Aside from server stress problems this thing is polished up pretty well.
I get the impression the only reason the beta tag is on it is because they know it can't live up to the hype and they need to muffle the negative feedback from the launch. Right now anyone who isn't impressed with it can (theoretically) be shut up with 'it's free and it's still in beta'. By the time it's out of beta it will be out of the spotlight.
Unless they've been really slacking on content creation I don't see any reason why a full version of this couldn't have made a pre-Christmas release.


@Pmitch: I'll have to dig my PSN account name up when I get home tonight. Someone registered with my e-mail address before I got a PS3, so I'm registered with a different tag than I'd normally use until it gets sorted out (which, seeing as the PSN is setup in a really stupid way, seems to be impossible).
Xbox 360's new avatar update is kinda like that. You can't choose between your clothes colors to be unique and different. You have to mix and match everything.

You'd think they'd add something like that seeing there are so many people.
CodingSkillz2 wrote:
You can't choose between your clothes colors to be unique and different.

Honestly I'd be embarrassed if a game I worked on had a character creator that didn't allow for at least three different colour areas on pretty much every thing. It's not super easy but it's not something you'll have trouble getting into the finished product.
For example, Saints Row 2 allows for hair to have a primary and secondary colour, and then three colours for most items of clothing (plus different wear styles). My friend and I wear the same pants, but when we play co-op we look like two people wearing the same style of pants, not two people wearing the exact same pants.
Like you said, it's that little change in tint that makes the item different and brings your avatar one step closer to being unique.
Yeah, base clothing selection, and facial hair, is horrible in Home. Also, base furniture is pretty bad. But the VoIP is really good quality, I was very impressed. Me and my brother hung out and just talked on it while surfing the web on our PC, and it sounded way better than a phone call.

The concept that interested me was really the grouping and joining of games, which is currently supported by exactly one game >.> I want to get together with a few of my friends, then decide which game to play, and, as a group, jump right into a server. I do see a lot of use of that. Also, once(if) media streaming inside a users home is enabled, I'd love to listen to music or watch movies with a few of my friends. I actually did this in Second Life, but it was likely illegal(public free cinemas were all over the place for a while).
I don't get that though, couldn't they have just made the group thing part of XMB? Rather than having to load up seperate game just to enter a game as a group?
I don't disagree. Grouping should be part of the XMB friends section. But that section is horribly laid out as it is. It's the only XMB item that I don't think works as a XMB item. It works like email fused with IM, and it results in a horrible setup. It could work better, but it currently doesn't. I do, however, quite enjoy the grouping in LBP, which could be a good model of how Home should work, but I'm skeptical as to the timeframe in which it will.
Danial.Beta wrote:
The concept that interested me was really the grouping and joining of games, which is currently supported by exactly one game >.>

Which is why it's so confusing that they didn't just use the XMB and make Home plug into it. They could have gained pretty much 100% compatibility right off the bat.

Also, once(if) media streaming inside a users home is enabled, I'd love to listen to music or watch movies with a few of my friends.

See, this is the sort of thing I was talking about when I said I expected more from Home. This is just a no-brainer as far as features go (at least the music side, the video has a lot of potential to blow up in their face).
Actually, I change my mind about home. GOTY right here: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/12/ how-to-perform-quincying-in-playstation-home/
Hmmm, I do love yelling 'it's a trap'...