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Yes, We're Finally Home

Very seldom do games come along that revolutionize the industry of gaming. When they do they often come with baby steps, and never leaps and bounds... and that's what makes Playstation's new Home feature such a big hit. It's plastic surgery for the face of online gaming.

When I think long and hard on the subject, I obviously think of Atari, being old enough to remember that birthday wish come true. After that of course the next big thing was Nintendo, followed by the first Playstation, and eventually the Xbox which implemented a hard drive for storage. All small steps for gaming, yet giant leaps for gametime. Playstation Home is not only a giant leap, but more a redefinition of the world of gaming as we currently know it.

First off... do you want the good news? or the bad news?

The bad news is that PS Homes is glitchy as all hell. There are times you get hung up, lose connection with the server, start to shake and convulse and at times defy all rules of physics and gravity, and it will leave you thinking "that's just not natural".

However, the good news to help counter that bad news... at times that's part of the fun. These glitches not only leave people walking on handrails, laughing on top of arcade games and dancing in midair and atop a bar Coyote Ugly style, but it's also a friendly reminder that Home as we currently know it is but a raw a simple taste of the Home we've yet to witness, and more importantly the hefty portions of online gaming to come. So I won't be too critical of the glitches, as I am with most games, because technically this is more than a game and can (and most likely will) be fixed or patched to meet the standards Playstation chooses to run with.

And did I mention.... it's... all... FREE!

(Thank you Sony)

Add-ons like this not only make me glad I chose the Playstation over the XBOX360 not even a year ago, but make me feel realized that you never know what they'll think of next. When the competition is talking about using your system for online meetings, you know you have a winner on your hands.

Note: HIGHLY RecomendedNow lets start with the basics and work our way up to the complexities. Playstation Home is a at first glance just a basic social networking site, with the added bonus of games implemented into its interface, such as billiards, bowling, an arcade and other miscellaneous forms of entertainment. Think of it as a chat room represented by hundreds or thousands of distorted versions of oneself. Be who you want, do what you want. Here you're free to roam, wander, dance, sit, converse, bitch, glitch and much, much more.

But for your own sake, get a wireless keypad or keyboard before you get too chatty. Even for an experienced gamer like myself it takes some time to type out long messages. Also choose your words wisely, because there is little wiggle room for language that is deemed suspectable by Sony. For instance... I was talking to somebody and I know they were typing "... some think.... ", but it deleted the letters ME TH for their apparent reasoning. I knew what it said despite seeing a "so****ink", but that gives you an idea of what you're dealing with when they talk about 'zero tolerance'. So before you waste 10 minutes dropping F bombs and damn-shits, consider what you're about to type. I recommend buying the small wireless keypad that clips onto the front of your controller, or the Playstation Eye or any Bluetooth earpiece for holding actual live conversations. The added bonus is knowing that the chick you're talking to is really a chick, or just some deep voiced, heavily panting pervert who gets his rocks off by talking to horny, angst-stricken young men.

Customizing Your Home

In Playstation Home you get to create your own avatar of yourself, although all ladies should be warned to go easy on the make-up. Too sexy, and a hundred perverts per day will attempt to take you home, ask you to be their friends and virtually stalk and rape you. TRUST ME on this one! It almost makes one believe that gamers don't get laid. When you initially set yourself up you will be able to set your sex, height, body shape, facial features and structure, as well as your eye, skin and hair colors. You'll also have the opportunity to dress yourself with what little clothing they provide (best of luck finding something that matches to your tastes) as well as throw on a hat, gloves and accessories. Your options are fairly limited, but don't fret just yet. There are ways to combat that.

Another unique thing that Home allows you to do is create your own domain. When you log in the first time it sets you up in your own studio apartment with a view of what appears to be a yacht club... classy. Here you can rearrange your furniture, add and delete furniture you own and change the color of your walls. Once again, your selections are fairly limited, and once again... I beg you not to fret.

Go Meet the Neighbors

Now that you're all set here, we move on out the door to our new virtual neighborhood. Now with each new area you enter, you must download the data to your PS3 hard drive. Essentially in this current version there are 4 basic areas to access. You have the town square that acts as a virtual hub to the other regions. It also provides a game called pond hopper and the only dancing area in town that will leave saying "chain swing" the entire next day. Connected to this area is also the Mall, the Theater, and the Bowling Alley.

The mall is basically what you would expect a mall to be. There are currently only a couple stores that actually SELL anything here, but in versions set to release in the near future there will be much more... but it will cost you. Available for purchase in the mall are clothes, items for your apartment and a realty company that will allow you to purchase your own summer home. Most items are fairly cheap, around $0.25 to $2, but there are the exceptions. The summer home you can own for $4.99, but unfortunately Sony doesn't accept virtual money for that, only your legit credit card number. To add a little insult to injury, you will also be charged a monthly fee for the privelage of owning your own summer home. Consider it a virtual tax, or rent, or whatever. It is of course possible to enjoy benefits of Home without spending a dime, but Sony is hoping people will spend the occasional bit of change here and there to boast their online image. To each their own I say. For all I care, you can also go up the stairs to the second floor in the mall and go play chess all day. Who am I to judge? Also, take this time to walk around and watch all the people who have learned some of the glitches in the game and perhaps learn something along the way. Congratulations, you are officially a virtual mallrat.

Now there are ways to get your own clothing without spending a penny, and as time goes along more and more ways will become available to you. In fact in the Asian version I've been testing out as well, they actually gave me a special t-shirt the first day in celebration of the new year. Mine had the number 2 on it, which I didn't get at first nor did I understand what made it so special. A red shirt with a 2 on it... whoo hoo. But as I roamed around the foreign platform I noticed many others had numbers that differed from mine, most with the number 0 and some with the number 9. Eventually I put 2 and 2 together and realized that this was a special shirt to stand next to your new virtual acquaintances and spell out the year... 2 0 0 9 ! (b.t.w. Happy New Year everybody, don't forget to stop writing '08 in your date columns) That got a chuckle out of me, leaving the thought in your mind that they are actually thinking in terms of online celebrations, and that alone got them some major bonus points.

It also leaves many to hope/assume that Sony will be making more special tees available as time goes on, as well as seasonal wear yet to be released. They currently rock a Santa outfit and a snowman outfit available, as well as a Mrs.Claus outfit for the ladies that you can purchase in the mall. I of course have plenty of my own ideas of what I would consider item-worthy for the future... but wait... I'm getting ahead of myself. I haven't even talked us through the U.S. version and I'm already going off on a tangent about Asia and brownies. Focus Skinny... focus.

For the person who doesn't want to spend precious moments out of their day tapping into the Asian edition (which I will cover shorty), there is always the Bowling Alley option. The bowling alley is (surprise surprise) just what you'd expect from a virtual bowling alley. It has lanes, for bowling. It also sports 6 pool tables and 2 video game arcades, each consisting of a couple cabinets of the games Ice Breaker, I Don't Fucking Roll On Saturdays! Shomer Shabbos!!Echochrome and Carriage Run. You can play those until your heart's content, and if you're good enough you'll even be able to unlock some new clothing and other items. Play them all, just don't spend all day in there. (I hear too much video games will rot your virtual brain) While you're there try to get in a game or two of bowling and pool, if you're lucky enough to get in to a game. They fill up pretty quick and Home is still relatively young. If you even feel up to it, try creating your own group in the menu, perhaps a pool league. You have that ability too, if you want to pay for it. Who knows, it could become your new favorite pastime. Who cares if they don't serve up any virtual beers... besdies how would you get rid of it? There are no virtual bathrooms in Home?

When your done messing around in there, head back out the front door and mosey on over to the Theater. There isn't currently anything special about the theater. It runs a constant loop of the preview for the animated movie Astro Boy, something that gets old REAL fast. Spend too much time in there and you'll be hoping Astro Boy dies in the next preview. However, this gives you an excellent opportunity to see but a glimpse of what Sony has in mind for their next step. You can take a seat, watch the screen and even focus in on the screen so that it goes full screen. The current full screen mode shows the frames of the screen, however that will be done away with much like the theater (or should I say THEATERS... plural) in the Asian version. They too currently play previews, but the potential to screen films that have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray are ever-so-obvious, and Sony knows this. Whether or not they will then charge for you to go in remains to be seen, but your head will really start spinning with questions when I tell you what I saw in Europe and start factoring even MORE potential achievability. It will leave you wondering what Sony will do with all of it.

But again... I'm getting ahead of myself.

GameSpaces

In the North American version of Home (and only in the North American version, USA... USA...) there are special areas know as GameSpaces, which are basically a themed area dedicated to specific PS3 games. Currently there are GameSpaces for Far Cry 2 (which is about the most pointless area in all of Home) and Drake's Fortune, in the form of a bar called Sully's Bar, complete with video games, a jukebox that doesn't work, a bar to dance on and 3 locked door that I may tell you how to open later in this story... but for now you'll just have to pay attention and see how nice I am.

In time, CompanySpaces will be made available to the public as well. These will basically be areas developed by major companies outside of gaming, such as famous drink companies, clothing companies, record companies, major retailers and much more. The possibility of 3rd party platforms could be endless.

Maybe you'll be seeing the BL Rag Space coming soon to a PS3 near you. ;O)

In time, Home will play host to many types of events such as exclusive game previews and developer interviews. It will be organised by Home and its affiliated content providers, such as Red Bull. Live events such as sports and concerts may also be broadcast within Home. The payment method may well be the Sony Wallet system.

Get the Full Experience of Home

What few people seem to realize when they're in Home is that there are also other versions of the same game being played all over the world. After giving our good ol' U S of A version it's run for it's money, I decided to take a gander at what the other countries are getting to see. To do this you'll need to create another user ID on your PS3 menu and then set up another Playstation Network ID. What I did was create two additional ID's and network accounts... one which I gave the address of the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, and the other just some random address to an old folks home in Hong Kong. It's important to make sure you go with a Hong Kong address, for Hong Kong is the only country that'll offer you English as a selectable language. You do want to know what you're doing... don't you?

After you get the accounts all set up, you'll then be able to access the other Home versions, as well as the foreign Playstation Stores where you can sometimes purchase items that you just can't find here in the states. If or after you're done messing around with that, simply go back to your new main screen and log into Home just like you would if you were entering your North American version.

Now the only drawback to accessing all 3 of these Home versions is that each area you go to will again need to be downloaded. If you have plenty of space on your hard drive I wouldn't worry myself over it. The first thing you'll notice when your alternative Home starts up is how plain and identical it is to your current version. Once again you'll start off having to create a new character and you'll also be placed in your bare and crappy one-roomed apartent with nothign buy plain white furniture and a different patio view. Play around if you wish, but is that really what you came to another country to do? Play in your room? I didn't think so. Get out there and get your social butterfly on.

Asian Home VersionInitially the first thing you notice in the Asian version is the obvious differences in building structure, not to mention the landscape. It seems that they put a little more time in the overall square, and more noticably the Home Theater. The European version also has quite a different atmosphere in the square, but it isn't nearly as impressive. All versions of the malls are pretty much the same, and the North American and European Bowling Alleys are identical.

The biggest differences you'll notice at first amongst the 3 version is the town squares and the annoying asses still being plentiful, however speaking all sorts of crazy different languages. In just a couple days of playing I ran into Chinese,European Version of Playstation Home Japanese, German, French, Spanish (real Spanish, not that cheap version way down south), Russian and a language I think was something of an alien world. If you think getting harrassed by countless avatars in your American version were bad, imagine it happening again in languages you don't even understand. At least in American I know when I'm getting made fun of. Luckily, that's not the only difference. The Home Theater is by far the thing that really had me wondering what will be the finalized version.

The Future of the Home Theater

In the American version I told you how annoyingly lame it is, hoever the Asian version has a dual screen cinema with futuristic chairs and the ability to zoom in on the screen without the annoying sidebars of the stage on your television set. With a view like this it would easily be possible to picture full lenght movies being accessible through Home. Imagine a future of movies that would allow you to virtually go to the movie theater for a set price and allow you to enjoy the movie theater movies, or even Blu-Ray quality movies in the comfort of your own home without ever having to put down your controller. Imagine a possiblity of making your movie time and getting back into the game without even lifting a finger, aside from the occasional release of the 'X' button.

You Won't Even Have to Sneak In Your Own Snacks AnymoreNow imagine this... the European version has a 10-screen multiplex. It currently only plays previews of current movies in the real life theaters, video game previews, Red Bull airplane race ads and more, but nothing too impressive. It also has the annoying side bars along the side of your television screen, never giving you a truly FULL screen. Another pesky fact is that you can't even walk around in the individual European theaters, you just walk through the door and push X to watch the video/preview/whatever. Ideally I'd like to see a 10-screen megaplex like Europe's, with the style and quality of Asia's sitting right in my virtual backyard back in North America. It's enough to make me daydream about Home, especially when I'm away from Home.

For the reason of allowing my imagination to run wild, Playstation Home more than deserves the BL Rag rating of 9.1 out of a possible 10 score, with the possibilty of increasing that over time. That will be Sony's key hurdle to overcome.

Want More of the Skinny?

Dirty Cheaters

Fun with Skinny:

This was an actual glitch I encountered during my Ice Breaker quest for greatness. It happened on Level 12 in my 2nd day of testing Home out. Don't ask me how, because I'll probably never be able to do it again. All I know is that I was doing good, I was 3 ice blocks away from unlocking some great clothes and then this happened. Needless to say I was pretty happy. :: snort ::

Want more glitching videos?

Then... check... these... out... then let your chain swing!