FEATURE: 31 WAYS THE PS3 WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Just how amazing an impact will the PS3 have on your gaming life? Read on to find out.
18:00 PS3 how much do we love you? Let us count the ways. After the dust has settled following Sony's shock and awe announcement at this year's E3, we got around to stroking our chins, lighting a virtial pipe and considering just how Sony's next generation console will transform your gaming life forever. And we've come up with 31 different ways that the PS3 can rule the gaming universe. Can you think of any more? Let us know about any we've missed in the forums below.
1) RECORD LIVE TV
You can use the PS3's hard drive to record live TV. With any luck, we'll be able to record whole series with the expletive deleted of an analogue stick. And adverts will go the way of the diplodocus, too.
2) PUT YOURSELF IN THE GAME
With camera game EyeDentify on the way, we know that getting your image into games is going to be a big part of PS3 play. But we've only scratched the surface. How about an online avatar with your face, that updates in realtime from Eyetoy? The possibilities are endless.
3) STOP SHARING THAT TINY SCREEN
Muddy split-screen modes with hazy horizons and perpetual pop-up are a thing of the past with PS3. With two high definition TV outputs, you can each have your own massive, incredibly detailed screen. This is going to be just awesome for shooters - no more peeking at your mate's half of the screen to see where he's lurking.
4) CONNECT TO PSP
With a PSP in your pocket, you'll be able to talk to PS3 in so many ways. Whether it's using PSP to control PS3 games, uncovering new modes with some kind of as-yet-unimagined dual-screen crossover, or swapping saves and custom levels, it's all as simple and easy as pressing the X button.
5) CREATE YOUR OWN SUPER COMPUTER
Stick two or more PS3s in the same room and link them up through one of the fat Ethernet ports at the back. They'll talk to each other instantly and combine their power to make amazing game experiences. So why not buy two PS3s? Or more...
6) BREAK IT APART
If you want to show off that custom level you just created, simply unclip the hard drive from the side of the PS3 and take it round to a fellow gamer's place. Plug it in, and presto! You've got gigabytes of characters, levels, mods and custom items to share.
7) DEFEAT THE HELGHAST
If the Killzone PS3 video that's been wowing us all is anything to go by, the next generation shooter will be simply astounding. Think movie-level animation and unbelievably gorgeous graphics, plus immersive gameplay the like of which we've never seen. It doesn't get any better than this.
8 )Cool SHOW OFF YOUR PHOTOS
Stick in a Sony Memory Stick, a Compact Flash card or an SD card from your camera and PS3 will obligingly show all your images on your telly. That's still no excuse to bore mates with 200 photos of your custard cream collection.
9) TAKE THE PS2 TO THE CAR BOOT SALE
Since PS3 has a fully working PS2 inside it, you won't need your beloved black box any more. Our advice: once PS3 comes along, sell your PS2 to your little brother, or create an attractive desk lamp from it. Well, we never said it was good advice...
10) HACK YOUR OWN ENTERTAINMENT
Clever Xbox users mess around with their machines' insides to stream movies from PCs and use the consoles as one-stop entertainment centres. It won't be long after release before enterprising hackers start modding PS3s to do ever-unimaginable things.
11) ENTER PLAYSTATION WORLD!
Not us, of course. No, PlayStation World is the name for Sony's online service. Online PS2 gaming can be a bit fiddly, but Sony learns from its mistakes. The next generation of online will be much slicker and easier to use.
12) MAKE EYE TOY MAGIC
The extra processing power of PS3 means even a standard Eyetoy camera will enable you to interact with games like never before. Not only will your PS3 know what objects your holding, face recognition means it will actually know who you are. How spooky is that?
13) PLAY METAL GEAR SOLID
Go back to your gaming roots and play the one that started it all: the original Metal Gear Solid on PSone. Or any one of the hundreds of PSone games that still kind of rock, because PS3 can play 'em all without a second thought.
14) PLAY GRAN TURISMO 5
We have trouble thinking about Gran Turismo 5 without dissolving into small puddles of joy. The demo on this
month's DVD is just a tiny taster of the ultra-real driving sim. Expect GT5 to be the world's first photorealistic video game. There, we said it. That means it's true.
15) BE THE DADDY CONSOLE
We don't like to boast, but there's no doubt it'll be fun rubbing Xbox 360 owners' noses in the fact that PS3 is literally twice as powerful as their beige box. Oh, and PS3 will have a roster of game franchises that Xbox can only dream of. It's all just too perfect, really...
16) TALK TO YOUR PC
With Wi-Fi, just having your PC and your PS3 in the same room will allow instant communication. Move game saves, music and video files, saved TV programmes and more from
one to another. It really couldn't be simpler. It's most definitely the future, baby.
17) DOWN LOAD NEW LEVELS
Once you've aced every single level on your most beloved games, don't consign them to history - just get online to download new ones. It's already happening on PSP with the likes of WipEout Pure, so expect this kind of functionality with PS3 right from the word go.
18 )Cool FORGET ABOUT WIRES
What with Bluetooth controllers and Wi-Fi connectivity out of the box, the age of tripping over endless cables is over. And you'll no longer need to worry about having the right lead to connect two devices. As long as they're both wireless widgets, you can sit back and let the radio waves do the talking.
19) TURN YOUR FRONT ROOM INTO A CINEMA
If movies start getting released on Blu-Ray, the age of cinema-quality entertainment in the home will be here to stay. The price of gigantic flatscreen, high definition TVs is falling like hailstones and PS3 is perfectly poised to be your projectionist.
20) FREE YOUR CD COLLECTION
Now that Sony has finally embraced the MP3 format on PSP, expect to see a full-featured MP3 player on PS3. Stick all your music onto your PS3 hard drive and use those old-fashioned plastic discs as fancy drinks coasters. When you're done with just listening to tracks, use your huge sonic archive as a giant in-game music library, playing your tracks over any game you choose. Devil May Cry 4 with a constant soundtrack of the Crazy Frog version of Axel F? Bring it on!
21) CHOOSE YOUR STYLE
PS3 already comes in three shades. But look closely - this isn't the matt plastic surface of PS2. It's a highly polished reflective sheen that looks amazing whether you choose sci-fi silver, too-cool-for-school white or bad-boy black.
22) PLAY WITH SIX MATES
Forget using a multitap, tripping over wires and taking turns in those gaming all-nighters. PS3 will let up to seven players join a game at once with wireless controllers. Get a bigger sofa.
23) GET CRAZY CONNECTABILITY
Six USB 2.0 ports mean you can charge your controllers while an EyeToy, Singstar mic and any other as yet undreamed-of peripherals are still slotted in your PS3. Forget hot-swapping. We're going for not-swapping.
24) BUY GAMES WITHOUT GOING SHOPPING
Superfast 8Mb broadband is already cropping up everywhere. With Sony's online service it'll soon be time to forget about getting your expletive deleted off that couch. Just buy games online with a credit card and download them to your hard drive.
25) GET NEW METAL GEAR
Snake is back for Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3, and since the series has defined the graphical frontline for the last six years, we expect great things from the next-gen sequel. Whatever is fermenting inside Mr Kojima's brain, it's most likely a quantum leap from what we've seen before.
26) WOW YOUR EARS
Each and every game on PS3 will come with Dolby 5.1 surround sound as standard, meaning games will sound better than ever before. The PS3 can handle so many sound channels, it's just silly.
27) THROW AWAY ALL YOUR TECHNO EQUIPMENT
A short list of the living room boxes your PS3 will replace: stereo, DVD player, CD player, MP3 player, digital video recorder, memory card reader, PSone, PS2. Your other half will never have cause to complain about that unsightly stack of silver boxes again.
28 ) Cool PLAY MOTOR STORM
It's set to be the daddy of all off-road racers. The MotorStorm demo on this month's DVD blows absolutely every cliché of racing out of the window and makes us realise how PS3 could reinvigorate a genre with ease. Adrenaline junkies: this is your fix.
29) LIVE ONLINE
The detachable hard drive makes the next level of immersive massively multiplayer online gaming a reality. You won't need a PC for a dull fantasy spod-a-thon. Instead, your PS3 will provide endless hours of high-quality adventuring the way it was meant to be. Just don't mention your level 12 sword of Heinous Skullthrashing down the pub if you're trying to impress the ladies.
30) FEAST YOUR EYES
All PS3 games come in amazingly high 1080i high definition. It means the TV picture is made up of more lines than on PS2. This sounds dull. Until you see it running, and realise that it changes the way you play forever. With processing power that can show facial animation on far-away pedestrians and million-particle explosions, plus enough detail for the tiniest on-screen item, reality just got a whole lot closer.
31) MAKE IT PS3.5
Your PS2 hasn't changed in years... but there's infinitely more scope for upgrading with PS3. The hard drive is detachable to allow you to buy a bigger one in the future - think ridiculous sizes like 1000 gigabytes. And online system updates mean PS3 will keep getting better and better. The future is just beginning, dear people.