PS3 Home

A few years back I was at a shooting range. My friend asked if they had the Smith and Wesson .50 caliber.

"That gun's the answer to a question nobody asked." came the reply.

To this day, I love that phrase.

And so we have Playstation's Home.

I didn't get much past creating my "avatar". I tried to create my wife but it became apparent that creating attractive women wasn't in the cards and semi-attractive zombie women's not really my thing, so I switched gears to make myself. I have enough skill and confidence to make good caricatures of myself: harsh but amusing. Nonetheless, I could only manage the bluntest caveman version of myself.

Mostly, Home's character creator is lacking foreheads, or tops of heads specifically. Every hairstyle I tried on both virtual me and virtual wife failed moreso because of the decidedly cro-magnon lack of upper head than because of the wrinkles, dead eyes or awful style choices. We looked too cavman, and this coming from a man who thinks he looks more caveman than the average person.

I effectively gave up on creating me, and went out to explore this amazing new world. I appeared in a highrise apartment on the coast of a digital Saint Tropez. Running out to my porch, excited to jump off the edge and explore I found there was no jump button. My next observation was that my male avatar runs like a beaten child--very compactly.

Run animations are a big thing for me, and I won't get too into it here, but when a person is running they should look two things in videogame land:
1. Healthy
2. Their sex

Women and men run differently and it would behoove many a game maker to notice and master the differences. But anyway, I take my weak running man who can't jump the railing to the front door.

I get a message that to walk out of my apartment I'll have to download an additional 22 megs of whatever.

No thanks.

That's the end of my Home experience.

It's not a game, so doesn't technically merit a rating, but it's terrible enough that I'll give it one.

1 star


edit: I just re-read Gorgeous Hair's review. Haha.

Metroid Fusion

I love Metroid. I love that you can do all sorts of goofy shit and do things out of order if you know tricks. I also love the lonely space vibe it gives off. The closest thing it has to story is those animals in Super Metroid teaching you how to wall jump.

Then there's Fusion. "Metroid for Dummies" Samus giving you her thoughts on stuff and a computer telling you exactly where to go.

The one redeeming feature cos even most of the boss battles sucked, is the crazy dash charge jump business where you can carry a dash charge through multiple screens to get some special thing. And no one knew about it or cared.

1 star.