Imagine taking the Sims and removing the god factor and the ability to control multiple characters at once. Then, make it so the player must now pay for any add-ons to his house and solitary character using money—real money. Basically, imagine taking the Sims and sucking all the fun from it (and introducing some economics).
Well, in a nutshell, that’s what PlayStation Home is. Sure, it looks pretty (the graphics bear a striking resemblance to the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series), but when it comes down to it, Home is straight-up lame. Here’s why:
About as boring than watching paint dry - Because that’s pretty much all you can do. Everyone just stands around or dances. Of course, you can also go to the PlayStation Home store and buy more useless crap for your character. Or you can even go stand in line at the Bowling Alley. Good luck getting a lane though, as there’s a limit to how many people can use each one. If someone else is on it, too bad.
Of course, there’s plenty of seating in the Theater while you sit for an eternity waiting for whatever they’re playing to load up (I’ve never stayed long enough to find out). This leads to my next point.
Home pushes the limits of patience – Everything has to download. Everything is load times. Everything is waiting. From the lines in the Bowling Alley, to the download time at the arcade machine, to the mandatory whenever entering an area for the first time. The worst part is how everything had to reinstall after Sony released the 1.04 patch, wasting even more of my time. Will this be the case each time there’s a new patch?
Real money for fake things? Hmm - Let’s see, I do need to eat and pay the rent this week, but ‘eff it! I’m buying that new condo in Home instead. Even though Home itself is a price that can’t be beat (free), Sony’s undoubtedly going to push it to the point where you have to spend at least a little bit of real people money in order to milk any fun out of the game. I’m honestly not prepared to spend a dime playing dress-up and house with a character in some silly social sim when I need the same things in real life.
Home can be creepy - Every time a new area loads up, all the other players are represented with creepy cellophane ghosts. It’s almost as creepy as the blank stares on their faces. Actually, when editing my character in the wardrobe, I realized that all the character designs look a lot like monkeys. Ew.
And of course there’s that sad truth that many a male character can be seen wandering about asking female characters their age and whether they’re actually a girl (you can’t be too careful with these types of things, you know).
The 1.04 patch - I finally can give my character the beard I wanted him to have when the beta launched, which is great. But after waiting to install the patch, waiting for the Bowling alley to Install (again), and then realizing I can’t use voice chat—well, is it worth it? A part of me says “yes” after seeing how sweet my chimp-faced, virtual doppelganger looks with mutton chops. But seriously, why’d they have to take away the voice chat (perhaps to sell some of those stupid controller keyboards).
Predictions for the Home of tomorrow - Where will Home be in a few months? Well, I do see it sticking around for a while. I don’t really see it as being the system seller everyone (read: Sony) has been saying it’ll be though. Still, a lot of people will be playing it. I mean, it is free (at least for now).
I understand it’s just the beta version. And I know that this isn’t quite the full game and that Sony will certainly be dropping loads of downloadable content on the PSN. But a beta version is typically not too far off from what final version of a game will be, and if this is the case with Home, I likely won’t be playing it much longer.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Loading ...
Game?
Massive Fail there.
Having read your article, I’ve got to point out that the reason you’re so disappointed is because your expectations are off-kilter with what Home is meant to be.
Home is not (as you refer to it more than once in your article) and never will be a “game”. It is a meeting place for gamers to socialise and launch games. Since starting on the closed beta back in April 2007, I have made many friends and had many intelligent conversations with gamers worldwide. And, incidentally, had my a** handed to me on several occasions playing online with the people I met! Would I have met these people without home? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Loading times – dependant on your network configuration. Also, to answer your question, you most likely will not have to re-load each area after each patch. This patch was to correct the problems the Beta was suffering from after being opened up. Voice chat removal (another of your gripes) was taken away to ease pressure on the network (voice comms is bandwidth hogging).
Buying items (“Real money for fake things”) – just don’t buy ‘em! I agree that real food & rent are more important than their virtual equivalents. Real solution for fake problem!
Don’t like the “Are you really a girl?” – try muting, or for real harrasment (and yes, there has been some), reporting.
I’m not having a go – you are entitled to your own opinion, but when your opinion is based on misapprehensions about what is Home’s actual intentions are, you should go back and re-evaluate it.
Since the release of this… uhh.. whatever it is (not a game), I have wondered what Sony is marketing it as. I agree that is definitely not a game. Without mandatory mics included with the PS3, I wouldn’t exactly say it is a graphical chat room. As far as I can tell, it is a virtual stand in line simulator.
I know Wikipedia should never be a factual source for anything, but here they give Home a description of “a community-based service.” What is the “service” they are providing?
As I said: “It is a meeting place for gamers to socialise and launch games.”
Also – “virtual stand in line simulator”** is a bit crass and cheap. Please remember it is a Beta version.
Why not try talking to the people you’re queuing with? I know the mics are (currently) disabled, but typing’s certainly possible.
**By the way, I would have gone with “Queue-in-ator” or “Virtua Waiting” or “Cyber-line”.
FUCK LANDO CALRISSIAN!
BLASPHEMY!
Why does every fanboy feel personally insulted when there is negative commends on Home, it is not like you waited 2 years for this when you could have been jacking off to the lingerie section of the Sears catalog, right? If you have, then I guess we should feel try to sympathize with you and try not to hurt your feelings.
Just because something is free does not mean it is immune to criticism. There is also the fact that there is “no such thing as a free lunch.” If you dont know what that means, it means you should finish your GED and come back later to talk.
For at least two years, Sony has been in development of this product, and its release showed us what those two years have brought, a giant advertising machine designed to showcase “dynamic advertising” technology to developers. On top of that, in order to gain more items, you must pay real money for them. Sony released this early for one reason, to prove its not vapor-ware. Its like “Life with Playstation”, only a million times gayer.
Another note for you highschool brats. “Beta” is the testing stage before final release and “Alpha” is when its in development. So please quit using the phrase “It’s beta, and its free, so stop whining”. It is really annoying. People have the right to free speech you fucking shit-packers, so piss off.
Doctor Who reference FTW.
Ive just got through playing a bit of home, and was very disappointed. Mainly by the loading times. Its an online place for people to repeatedly dance and say hi. And yet it took a good half hour before i could even leave my ‘apartment’ which is a single room with some sofas…how exciting. And ‘itsthebloke’ it might be a place for people to socialise and meet. But when it takes a good few minutes to get anywhere….i can think of much more practical ways of asking someone to game with me.
In terms of the product people are being majorly let down, and this is due to the fact sony has been bigging up the home product for over a year..and the actual experience has very little to impress. I might have a look at it again in over a year. They might of done something worth while with it then…
HOME is free!! If it sucks why is it always packed???? And you didnt spend no money on it so all your opinions dont mean SH*T!!!!
Herpes are free too.
“And you didn’t spend no money on it” It would be nice if you learned how to write and type with proper grammar. You’re about as intelligent as all the other dumb asses in Home.
whiners……. i mean who gives a crap if its good or not stop whining about everything all the people who write articles in here are just whiners, people dont listen to this guys who think their word is the truth. Screw you whiners!!
Playstation home is for nolifers . So anyone who likes it is a nolifer . Sad, sad . Instead buy COD 5, get u friends and play!
i agree that there are alot of rough edges in Home to get over but i have to say if you dont like Home then theres a really easy solution to your problem… dont play it.
For those who are saying “Just don’t play it if you don’t like it”–thanks I will. The problem is, Home is not what PS3 needed–I own the 360 and the PS3, and the 360 gets played more because there are more games and they are better than what is being offered on the PS3. Sony has wasted 2 years and massive amounts of resources on a product that so far, is pathetic. IMO, Sony has a better console, better controllers, better compatibility and expandability than 360, but 360 gets more attention. Why? Because Sony’s wasting resources on garbage like this instead of putting it into game development, and securing more downloadable titles for PSN, and improving the PS3’s interface to make it easier to find your buddies and start up a game together. Sony has the potential to win the console war (or at least be 2nd place), it’s just really frustrating to see them wasting their time like this.
I agree with the FACT that playstation home is a big dissapointmet because essentially thats what it is… a fact !
HOME was hyped up sooo much for such a huge peroid of time with it being pushed back multiple times that everyone thought it was going to be amazing.
Its not all Sony’s fault…. Its our fault as gamers and the medias fault for getting so excited over it. Bottom line is our expectations are too high !
Home = crap of massive proportions. Honestly, Just because something is always packed or popular does not mean it’s good, e.g., Twilight series, High School Musical Series. Honestly, if someone asked me if I wanted to see a dump that had been inside someone for 2 years or home, I’d either say “the turd” or “they’re the same thing”. Our expectations were not too high, it’s that fact that games- oops, sorry, “community-based service”’s like these are just overdone versions of Instant Messaging. By the time it takes me to load up home, get to where any of my friends are and find them in the area, I could’ve sent them a message or invited them for *OHSHI-* VOICE CHAT. To be fair though, I’ve never had the opportunity to talk to my friends in home, because they realized pretty fast how gay it was. I guess if I had no life I could just stand around waiting all day for the semi-fun, spaceship game (which oddly enough, it doesn’t mater how many people are ACTUALLY playing it, you can’t interact with the other UFO’s, so it’s basically single player. Still limited to 4 players at once, of course) or whatever it’s called, but I’ll play R2, UT3 of CoD4. The only use so far is if you wanted to pair up in RE5 with a complete stranger, or a complete stranger/someone you barely know who happened to be in the same room as you in home. You can restrict searches to friends only in game.