My new shiny toy (no not another bike).

My Japanese PS3 arrived this morning. Didn't take me long to get my grubby finger prints all over it. So far I am very impressed. There are a few niggly problems but also alot of really cool features to balance things out. Should keep my 360 and Wii company! Downloaded the demo for gran Turismo HD which is stunning. Also got Motorstorm which is a real hoot. Lots of late nights on the way.......just as well I'm out of work at the mo I guess!

Ohhh, I'm not jealous at all :P Guildford Massive meets round yours then to play on it heheheh

Another for the Online Priory. I guess we will see you back on here in a week or so with a review Dan.

Can I come round and help you play on it? :P

Originally Posted by Warthog

Can I come round and help you play on it? :P

Yes.

Okay here is what I reckon so far........

It's a fairly big ol' machine and weighing in at around 5kg's it's no lightweight either. The basic menu system is know as the Xross bar and for the most part it works fine. Being used to the Xbox way of things it's a bit confusing at first that the Circle button confirms every choice while the 'X' button (and one that I would have chosen to confirm) cancels but this is soon not an issue. If you've ever used a PSP you will be quite familiar with the Xross System and while not as easy to use as the Xbox 360's interface it's not exactly rocket science either, Sony have opted for a less bright and more sophisticated interface which does look rather splendid. Anyway for the most part the functionality of it is awesome, proving to me at least that most of the bad press was all just negative hype. One of the coolest features is how the PS3 handles your photo's. You basically can view them as a slide show or you can have 'virtual album' which basically lays your pictures out as polaroids and some negative filmstrips and you can zoom in on them, the photo's are dropped and all fall with realistic physics. It's more of a showoff tool than practical but it's a nice touch. To view your media the PS3 h several options, you can use CD's, BD's or DVD's. It also has a SD card slot and a MagicGate Pro slot which is always handy. Onto the controller. It's pretty much identical to the previous PS2 controller with the addition of 2 analogue shoulder buttons (R2 and L2) which makes driving games much easier. Also worth note is that these controllers are wireless and you get a USB lead with the console should you need to recharge them. The first thing I really noticed was how light they are compared the to Xbox360's hefty wireless controllers. The only problem I have found is that now and again the controller goes a bit nuts during a game which can be very annoying, probably caused by some form of interferance from another wireless source or mobile device. Still, this does not happen very often at all and should be remedied soon by a firmware update. The games: I purchased Resistance: Fall of Man and also Motorstorm. Resistance is your typical FPS game. It has very crisp visuals a basic story and some great controls, overall considering it's one of the first games out on the system it's bloody impressive. Motorstorm really does impress. It's totally manic, basically you race around canyons in the Nevada desert smashing into 15 other racers in either a big Rig, Jeep, Dune Buggy, Rally Car, Quad Bike or Motorcycle. The crashes are stunning and makes the game really fun to have hug pileups! Overall I am very impressed with it, although the price tag is a little high (£425) but then you do get a HD movie player in the form of Blue Ray too. If you wanted a HDDVD player you would end up forking out the same kind of money anyway, the only thing is you don't get the option to buy the PS3 without the Blue Ray player as all the games come on Blue Ray discs too. I have not tried any online games yet but will report back when I do.

Originally Posted by sv_dan

Being used to the Xbox way of things it's a bit confusing at first that the Circle button confirms every choice while the 'X' button (and one that I would have chosen to confirm) cancels but this is soon not an issue.

That button thing annoyed me, my nephew's jap PSP did that while his british PS2 used the 'X' button. I reckon it's down to the wierd Japs.

Oh and I'm very jealous. You don't need a PS3, 360, Wii and Z1000 as well. Let me borrow one for a few hours (Z1000 please )

Originally Posted by sv_dan

Yes.

Sweet! Now where the hell is hampshire...

Originally Posted by Warthog

Sweet! Now where the hell is hampshire...

Lol!

Er well it's kinda southish.

I know I don't need all these toys but I am a big kid and I like them all. So there, plus it keeps me occupied until the summer arrives!