PS3 decides to go 'Home'

During today's session of the 2007 GDC (that's Game Developer's Conference, for those of you not in the know), Sony announced its implementation of a 3-D virtual world coming to the PS3.

"Home," as it's being called, takes the core elements of "Second Life" and integrates them into the second-rate Sony Online service. "Home" will allow PS3 owners to create their own virtual avatar and exist in a virtual world, where each user will get a virtual apartment, to virtually entertain other virtual friends while virtually denying you any life at all. Virtually. Check out the video after the break.

Inside apartments, users will be able to showcase trophies earned by playing games (ala, Xbox Live's Achievements), host photo slideshows, screen home movies or other media downloaded to the PS3. So those of you who never got to have that raging kegger at your house, can now do so from the comforts of your own living room- and cleaning up puke is as simple as flipping an off-switch.



Apparently, users will be able to meet up in "Home" and then get into an actual game to play together. For those of us without an apparent excess of time, the implementation of "Home" seems like one more obstacle that needs to be hurdled before actually playing a game with other people over the internet. Add to the fact that while "Home" is allegedly free, a cyber-world of this magnitude has got to be pretty frickin' expensive to maintain, so expect an onslaught of advertising and branding in this Utopia.

Sony hopes to loosen the grip that Microsoft has on online gaming. Xbox Live is a fantastic service that just keeps getting better and more streamlined. Get in, get your game on, get out. Isn't "Home" the antithesis of "Live?" Is a console crowd really interested in something that's been a PC niche?

Sure the idea of a user-created world might have some initial interest to a guy like me; but I'm a person with a life that doesn't need "Second Life," "The Sims," or any other reality simulator in order to experience reality- I go outside. I play games to escape reality- not to re-live it. So plugging into a cyber-world in order to sit on a virtual couch before I play games just seems a little redundant after the initial "gee that's neat" effect wears off.

So say we all?

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Crackdown Review

Originally Published in The Davis Enterprise

(Xbox 360; $59.99; Rated M for Blood/Gore/Intense Violence/Sexual Themes/Language/Use of Drugs; crackdownoncrime.com)

½

I love to stand corrected.

When I first saw "Crackdown,"
Microsoft's answer to "Grand Theft Auto" designed by the guy who
designed "Grand Theft Auto," I thought: wow, another "Grand Theft Auto
rip-off." The cel-shaded look wasn't impressive, the explosions didn't
excite me, and the shoot-anyone/do-anything style of play is so
recycled that I was planning on hating it as much as I hated "Saint's Row."

Then it was announced that the initial shipment of
"Crackdown" would include access to the "Halo 3" multiplayer beta. A
Golden Ticket of this magnitude gave birth to many jokes centered
around "Buy Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta, get free copy of Crackdown."
Naturally, Microsoft was including the "Halo 3" beta as genius
marketing tactic to move a game which they knew to be sub-par.

Then "Crackdown" was released. And Brother: I have never been so happy to be so wrong.

The
first thing that "Crackdown" does right is by taking the "GTA" formula
away from the criminals. Players control a genetically-modified police
officer employed by "The Agency"- a world-police force- to clean up the gang-filled streets of Pacific City. Each
island in Pacific City is controlled by one of three gangs: Los
Muertos, The Volk, or the Shai-Gen Corporation. Attacking the
crime-bosses of each gang lower the resources and defenses of the
gang's Kingpinr- increasing Agent's probability of success. Players
can go after the Kingpin from the onset, but will be met with
near-impossible odds. Likewise, players can take on any gang at any
time, however the skills needed to take out more powerful gangs, like
Shai-Gen, are earned through eliminating weaker gangs like Los Muertos.

There's
still the ability to take out innocent civilians, and the Agency police
force that fights along side of Agents will turn on players who cause
too much collateral damage. Though ultimate morality is still at the
discretion of players, the fact that the game centers on good vs. evil
is a welcome change from the amoral protagonists we've come to expect
in the Sandbox-Action-Crime genre from games like "GTA," "Saint's Row,"
and "The Godfather."

Players can level-up their agents in
Firearm, Explosive, Driving, Strength, and Agility Skills. Whenever an
Agent kills a gang-member, Agents will absorb glowing orbs based on the
skills used to kill that gang-member; those orbs incrementally increase
the Agent's skill in that area. So, if players lob a grenade into a
group of gangsters, run over gangsters with an SUV, or smash a car over
gangster's heads: skills in Explosives, Driving, Strength, or any
combination therein, will be earned. Increased skills lead to bigger
blast radius, better vehicle handling, quicker aiming, etc.

The greatest skill, and the one that puts the "Crack" in "Crackdown," is Agility- and it's the most fun aspect of the game.

Agility
is earned by climbing to the tops of the hundreds of buildings and
skyscrapers in Pacific City to find glowing, green Agility Orbs. More
orbs mean the ability to leap further distances and survive falls from
taller heights. It also means that hours can be spent bounding around
the city like a radioactive kangaroo- leaping from rooftop to rooftop,
and feeling like the superhero that the designers of "Crackdown" hoped
players would feel. Increasing Agility skills provide a lengthy and
addictive diversion from an otherwise short game. There's no narrative
here, and the ability to take out gangs is a weekend affair for even
the most casual gamer; but unlocking the Achievement for finding all
500 Agility orbs and 300 Secret orbs makes for hours of diversion while
taking out gangs and Kingpins.

And when busting heads becomes
too lonely for the solo adventurist, "Crackdown" allows for a friend to
mix it up with you via online co-op. Be Tango and Cash cleaning up the
streets together, or just spend hours trying to blow each other up or
racing against each other. The co-op action, unfortunately, happens
only over Xbox Live, and not when playing with "real" friends sitting
next to you. Still, co-op is a great addition, and is an option that's
quickly becoming a necessity on Xbox 360- given how well it works in
"Gears of War" and now "Crackdown."

Oh yea, and at some point we'll be able to play "Halo 3" with this thing. Talk about a cherry on top of a $5 milkshake!

This is a great... ahem... springboard to an inevitable franchise. Add rooftop-leaping, rocket-firing supervillians into a future sequel and additional super powers and you can color me a Crack-addict for many years to come.