Wondering what it’s like to play the PS3? It’s totally INSANE… this is definitely a next-gen games console that brings the fight to the Xbox 360 right down to the wire. Microsoft and Sony are set to FIGHT!

I can’t wait to get one of these babies in my living room, hooked up to my big screen TV. Of course, I love the Xbox 360, and love how it has been delivering true next-gen, high-def gaming for over a year, shaming Sony somewhat in making us all wait so long for their version.

Of course, Sony are no slouches when it comes to gaming, with the PS2 still flying off the shelves, especially thanks to their incredible range of ‘social games’, as Michael Ephraim, Chief of Sony Computer Entertainment Australia calls them.

At the special pre-launch for gaming journalists in Australia, he spoke of the massive number of sales games like SingStar, Buzz and others have generated for Sony, and they’re all optimized for the PS2 platform. He also expressed Sony’s regret that there weren’t any PS3 consoles until next year for Australia, but explained that unfortunately production issues had caused the situation to happen.

It’s what had happened with the PS1, PS2 and PSP in Australia, said he, and while Sony really did want a global launch, these things were always a challenge for any company. So while the focus is on the PS3 in Japan and the US, with a special previews and other PS3 activities leading up to the March 2007 launch for us here in Australia, the PS2 is the Australian focus for Sony this Christmas.

This is incredibly important for Sony, as they still want to sell huge numbers of PS2 consoles this Christmas, and they full believe they have the software library of family oriented games to do this successfully, not just the classic shooters, car racing and action games.

Couple this with the PS2 at a record low price of AUD $199 (and even cheaper in stores), it’s these social games which Ephraim explained that anyone in the family could play, from the youngsters to grandparents. Is Sony taking a leaf out of Nintendo’s playbook with the claim of gaming for anyone, or has Nintendo copied Sony?

Perhaps it is Nintendo copying Sony, for games like Buzz, SingStar and others have been out for some time now, with updates to those games already on shelves and more planned, while the Wii is still yet to be on sale in any country.

So, what is it actually like to play with a PS3? Read onto the next page for much more!

The first thing you notice when you turn on the PS3 is just how much the interface looks like the PSP. This is a fantastic way to get access to all of the PS3’s array of functions, and it certainly looks quite snazzy, too.

Games that we sampled include Lair, Ridge Racer 7, Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm, an amazing car and motocycle racing/rallying game that took place over mountainous terrain.
The graphics on all the games we played looked absolutely incredible. Highly detailed, smoothly rendered and animated graphics, they looked good no matter whether they were in 720P resolution, or 1080P.

Both Resistance and MotorStorm were in 720P, while Lair, a game set in medieval times with flying dragons, and Ridge Racer 7, were displayed in 1080P.

The explosions and slo-mo car rolls as cars crashed in MotorStorm were fantastically detailed, with bits flying off the car as you crashed into the terrain until it exploded in a massive ball of flame.

Resistance looks like you’d expect a FPS (first person shooter) to look, except better. Ridge Racer’s graphics were super smooth, super high speed, super high-res and great fun to play.

Lair is a game that has to be played – you get to fly a dragon around while attacking castles and other people on the ground, along with (no doubt) other players in the air. It made full use of the PS3’s SIXAXIS motion detection, a system that’s somewhat similar to the Nintendo Wii’s motion sensing technology.

We also got to take a look at the PS3’s multimedia capabilities, watching some 1080P Blu-ray content, both in animated and video forms. As we’ve already seen with standalone Blu-ray players, the quality was nothing short of stunning, especially when hooked up to a screen such as the Sony Bravia HDTV’s they used. Sony wouldn’t use any other screen now would they? Haha.

With such clear and high-def video from the PS3, why in the world would anyone buy a standalone player? The only possible reason is because they can’t buy a PS3 as they’ll all be sold out, and you have more than enough money to waste on a standalone player.

The PS3’s controller is, of course, fully wireless. It’s very light in your hands when holding it, but not too light. It seemed just right, although many more hours of gameplay are needed to give a final verdict.

Of course we all know the rumble is missing, and for some this will be a major issue. Quite why Sony didn’t just bite the bullet and pay the license fee to use the technology is simply a shame, but that’s the way it is for now. Perhaps there’ll be a change in the future, or maybe third party manufacturers will create PS3 controllers with force feedback.

It all depends on whether or not the games still have force feedback coding within, for if they don’t, a force feedback controller will be useless. That said, if a force feedback controller does become available, games manufacturers could always write a patch which gamers could download to enable the rumble in games if it was taken out of PS3 versions.

The SIXAXIS motion system works, and does add a new element to games that does make sense. It isn’t a full replacement for the lack of rumble – the Wii has both after all – but at least Sony can claim they have this too, blunting the Wii’s marketing push a little in this regard.

Of course the PS3 itself looks like a true 21st century device, all shiny and black. It’s also a fingerprint magnet too, so you’ll want a cleaning cloth handy to wipe away those prints from time to time.

We only had a couple of hours of gameplay, which is not enough to give a final verdict, and the playtime was shared amongst a range of journalists, but the general impression everyone had was that this is an amazing console, and a real challenger to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Microsoft and Nintendo have a real fight on their hands, but gamers love this stuff: we wouldn’t have it any other way. Bring it on, FIGHT!

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